A minor point here, but relevant since the OP is emphasizing the importance of u...

svantana on Dec 25, 2012 | parent | context | favorite | on: Are mass shootings really random events? A look at...

A minor point here, but relevant since the OP is emphasizing the importance of understanding the Poisson distribution - if the mean really was 10,000, any observation outside the range [9,500, 10,500] would be extremely unlikely.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisson_distribution

pretoriusB on Dec 25, 2012 [–]

Thanks, I should correct for that, but don't have the "edit" link anymore.