Playing the Odds

With the launch of the new Star Wars movie coming up next month, I'm hearing rumblings of people not wanting to go because of fear of a potential mass shooting. It got me thinking of the chances of being shot in a movie theater. These are some facts that I dug up:

1. There are about 42,814 movie theaters in the US and Canada combined.

2. The average number of movie theaters have about fifteen screens.

3. Let's say the average movie screen has about four showings a day. 

Taking all of this into account, you have about a 1 in 2,568,840 chance of being the unfortunate moviegoer to be attacked in a movie theater. In terms of percentages, that's 0.0000003893%. And that's assuming someting like this happens everyday which it definitely does not.

Am I telling you to go to the movies? Absolutely. Life is too short to live in fear. I'll be watching Episode VII on opening night. Will you?