Surgeon's decree: Gun control a public health issue
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Flickr/DaveBarger
By Sara K. Rasmussen
Last month, our country endured an unspeakable horror when elementary school students in Newtown, Connecticut, became the victims of one of the most heinous gun rampages that our country has experienced. As a mother and a citizen, I am outraged and hurt to have had to live through yet another episode in our nation’s history where innocent lives were lost to gun violence. As a pediatric surgeon, I have seen the heartbreaking outcome of guns in the wrong hands too often.
In my last year of fellowship at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, I was called to the trauma bay to care for a 4-year-old boy who had been shot in the face when he opened his mother’s door. He died despite our team’s best efforts. His death, a murder in a private home, barely made the next day’s news. Sadly, his death was not the only senseless gun violence I encountered as a surgery resident.
There was the 4-month-old who was shot through the elbow and the 12-month-old who suffered a crippling gunshot wound in the growth plate of his femur. Both of these children’s injuries were collateral damage from domestic disputes. Other days, our teams attempted to save a 14-year old boy who was shot when he opened a car door, a middle-aged man shot while opening his business, and a man who was gunned down in front of his wife during an attempted robbery of his bodega. I could list more.
In the summers in Richmond, where I completed my residency, the trauma bay was also plagued by weekly gun violence. These murders and assaults were not perpetrated by the mentally ill. These were the works of desperate people, bullies, and individuals with few options in life.
I have seen victims who have been shot four or five times. In a full-grown person, these multiple gunshot wounds inflict an incredible amount of damage. I cringe to consider the 6 and 7-year-olds who suffered the same fate in Connecticut.
I am deeply disturbed by the reaction of our legislators and activists who want to use the Sandy Hook episode to justify requiring elementary school teachers to carry concealed weapons, and have attributed the preventable causes of this episode to the mental illness of a lone individual. To me, this signifies the deepest state of denial, a refusal to see that too easy access to guns contributed not only to the Sandy Hook school massacre but to the deaths of countless children and adults killed every day in our country. Can we value the lives of our inner city children as much as we value the lives of the children at Sandy Hook? This requires that we not chalk up the massacre at Sandy Hook to just one kid’s mental illness, but acknowledge that access to weapons contributed as well.
Earlier this month, President Barack Obama unveiled a sweeping gun control plan that includes actions gun control advocates have long pushed for: requiring criminal background checks for all gun sales, restoring the assault weapon ban, eliminating high-capacity magazines, increasing mental health resources that would allow for detection of troubled youths like Adam Lanza before they harm others and themselves, and reviewing and strengthening security in our public schools. At last, it seems, there is the political momentum to make meaningful strides toward a safer country, and yet there is plenty of reason to fear this effort will be thwarted.
The National Rifle Association (NRA) lobby has successfully blocked reasonable measures to control and regulate firearms in this country for years. They are far-reaching and insidious in their influence over this issue. Consider these NRA "achievements": 10 years ago they succeeded in eliminating federal funding to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) for public health research that would examine the effects of gun violence on our society. The result is that there is currently no credible evidence on which to evaluate the effects of gun control. The NRA lobby actively seeks to remove from office those individuals who would make gun control policy a priority in the United States. And, I recently learned, that they succeeded in making it illegal for me, as a physician, to ask my patients about guns in the home– a screening question that I was taught in medical school was crucial to caring for my patients. How did this happen?
The NRA insisted that a clause be placed into the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act that prohibits physicians from “gathering data” from families about guns in the home. This is done under the pretense of protecting citizens from punitive charges from insurance companies.
While I am outraged by these underhanded efforts which benefit gun manufacturers, I am not anti-gun, and I support the Second Amendment. My father, who qualified as a rifle sharpshooter and a pistol expert in the U.S. Marines, introduced me to rifle practice at the age of 8. In doing so, he taught me that responsible gun ownership means taking responsibility not just for your own safety, but for the safety of all those in the firing range of your weapon.
It is time for us, as a country, to decide what responsible gun ownership looks like. I don’t think it looks like a country where unstable, isolated youths can easily access assault weapons. It doesn’t look like a country where a 4-year-old can be murdered for opening his mother’s front door. And I doubt it looks like a country where our elementary school teachers are carrying concealed weapons.
It is time for the U.S. government to stop being bullied by the NRA into protecting the interests of gun manufacturers. If we passed legislation that made guns and ammunition as difficult to obtain as a box of Sudafed (which is still not difficult), young lives would be saved. Gun violence is a public health concern, and it is high time our government publicly recognized that and acted accordingly, instead of allowing the NRA to dictate the agenda on this issue.
Sara Rasmussen is a pediatric surgeon and mother of two who lives in Charlottesville.
205 comments
Thank you Dr. Rasmussen for this heartfelt and spot on editorial. It is superb. I hope you will send it to our elected officials. As for the rest of us, we need to carry this message forward and send letters/emails/phone calls to our elected officials. Hearing from constituents truly makes a difference. We also need to reassure hunters that no one is out to take away their 2nd amendment rights and help them understand that the NRA is spreading paranoia and that the NRA's motivation is purely financial gain. Gun control legislation is no different than laws such as drunk driving and wearing seat belts. If we had an epidemic of a deadly illness spreading in our midst wouldn't we taking measures to combat it? Well, we do have one and it's called gun violence.
Have a look at violent crime rates before 1968. Then have a look at them after 1973. It quickly becomes apparent why social liberals are still trying to blame inanimate objects for violent crime. This country was exponentially safer and more peaceful when a far greater % of its population were gun owners. But, let's face it, people were more responsible too. '69 is still touted as the summer of love, but in reality it was more about the Manson family and Altamont.
Maybe the victims of knife violence - or the families left behind by stabbing murders - should start suing the media and some legislators for being deemed second class citizens..
More people die each year as the result of being hit with a hammer than shot with a gun. We need better hammer control laws and better hammer access monitoring.
More people die each year as the result of being stabbed with a knife than shot with a gun. We need better knife control laws and better knife access monitoring.
More people die each year as the result of being struck by a drunk driver than shot with a gun. We need better car control laws and better car access monitoring.
While I sympathyze with the good Doctor and wish we had a safer world I think that his point of view is partially why things cannt be accomplished on this front.
1) it is not illegal for him to ask about a gun in the home, it is illegal for insuranace companies to compile gun violence info to be used against policyholders. The same as gender is no longer allowed to be used even though women statisically cost more to take care of.
2) The incidents he cited in baltimore and even newtown were guns obtained illegally by the persons firing them so even if Adam Lanaza had been diagnosed and forbidden to own a weapon his mother was not. The 2nd amendment can only reach so far and if you want to forbid guns in the home of every person who cannot have one because of a medical diagnosis of one of the residents you are overeaching. Perhaps his mother had the gun to protect herself "from" him. Where would we draw the line?
3) The NRA is a big bully and does have too much powerand needs to be dealt with, but there are absolutely people who want all guns taken away and make no bones about saying so. We need balance.
4) We see how poorly the war on drugs did and how easy it is for the hillbilies to make meth, do we actually think that if there was a shortage of guns they would not switch to making them in every closed gas staion in the country? Remember a gun is nothing more than a bullet in a piece of pipe slapped with a hammer. Gunsmiths were making them by hand in the hills of west Virgina 100 years before they were automated.
5) We do not need armed teachers, but we can do some afffirmative things to make the schools safe. 1/3 of all high schools already have police or armed guards and an inexpensive (as long as government wanted it to be)partial solution could be to have schools make a small office available with internet acces so that police officers could come by and do their reports at the school and simply be there. They could also make schools part of their designated area so an officer is never more than 4 minutes away in an emergency. There are probalby many low cost ideas that could reduce deaths in a crisis like Newtown.
5) Canada has the same number of guns as america does without the problems ,so we do need to place the blame on a combination of two things. First is the gun culture and second is the way we are raisng our children. The people that did the latest crimes in Schools and movie theaters have all been described as "brilliant" etc etc... the one common theme to me is that they were allowed to grow into the animals they are by parents and a system that coddles them and wants to help them "find" the right path instead of expecting them to do as they are told. "you are not the boss of me" is no way to raise a child.
6) In the short term, close the gun show loopholes and make mental health money avialable to stop the crazies before they happen, but it needs to be coupled with an honest conversation about why children are being raised to be so damn selfish without any sense of responsibility. The kid in Newtown killed 20 children AFTER his mother was dead because he saw them as the reason his mother didn't love him as much as he wanted. That is the most selfish act I have ever heard of.
7) We also need to build more jails and accept the fact that as a society we have screwed up and need to lock up the cretins so they don't kill again. It is common knowledge that most people charged with murder in urban areas already have rap sheets that could have had them off the streets. Build the jails, raise the taxes to keep them that and we will find that it pays for itself as the murder rate drops, the number of ghetto babies drops, the number of bad eggs in the ghetto drops that are recuiting young kids into crime If we did this we would have more popel leaving the ghetto and becoming role models instead of hanging around blaming the "system" for their ills.
There are two murders a day on the streets of chicago. How any days has it been since the Newtown shooting? How many people is that in just one city?
All those years of education and you just can't bring yourself to identify the real problem with gun violence isn't the tool being used it's the person conducting the violence.
"And, I recently learned, that they succeeded in making it illegal for me, as a physician, to ask my patients about guns in the home– a screening question that I was taught in medical school was crucial to caring for my patients."
I hear ya. I was told to stop asking for bra sizes before changing their oil and filters.
That doggone nra has to be stopped.
=O)
More people are murdered by knives, hands/feet, and clubs/hammers than guns of any type. Yet for some reason gun control it touted as a solution to murder? Oddly just about every mass shooting that has taken place has a link to psychiatric medication. A Google search of “mass shootings psychotropic drugs” yields ample information. If the link between drugs and shootings is correct then it may be a bit ironic for a pediatric surgeon to be touting gun control when colleagues prescribing drugs in her own profession could be a contributing cause of mass shootings.
Here is a database of mass shootings and links to drugs: http://ssristories.com/index.php?p=school
Thanks to the author for the insightful article. Right on cue, we get the usual troll responses from the local gun thugs. Unlike a hammer, fast car or most knives, the ONLY purpose of automatic weapons is to kill other people. Comparing the lethality of a hammer to an AR15 is ridiculous.
Proud to own an AR15? Then you should be proud to have your name printed on a list of locals owning automatic OR semi automatic (MILITARY) weapons.
If you work with, or around children & own automatic weapons my parental rights to know who you are trumps your "rights as a "Sportsman". I'll decide if my children are safe in your presence, not you.
It's time for our cowardly politicians to legislate that names be published. Mr Bell & friends claim to protect family values. Here's another chance to prove it.
Although I doubt she will dare face or comment on the hypocrisy of her own workplace (UVA Hospital has a Fetal Care Center on Floor 1 and a Fetal Dismemberment Center on floor 8), Dr. Rasmussen did indeed do a good job of explaining what life is like in cities and districts that have been controlled by liberal democrats for many generations now.
Once the local brain trust has weighed in there's nought for it but to go hide in a corner with a couple copies of the Utne Reader for a shield. (Bill Marshall excepted, his posts have been much more cogent and sympathetic of late, although the current post is a bit specious.)
"If you work with, or around children & own automatic weapons my parental rights to know who you are trumps your "rights as a "Sportsman"."
Ya see, right there is your problem. No it doesn't.
I would imagine that most ar-15 owners would be happy for YOU to know they have one. I beleive it is the government that cannot be trusted having them on a drone list that makes them want to exercise their right.
I also would imagine that if the Supreme court ruled that there could be no more guns manufacured and sold in america even between private parties but that anyone who didn't as yet own a gun could buy one for the next 30 days or forever hold their breath, and it was going to be public information who DIDN"T own a gun after that time, that we would have a lot of liberals lined up to get one before the 30 days was up.
While we can slow down the proliferation of guns into the hands of criminals and that is a good goal that needs to be fought hard for, we need to accept that criminals will always have guns and we will always be at risk so we need to make sure that we endlessly pursue as many aveneues as possible to raise people not to think its okay to kill someebody unless the need killing because of their aggressive behavior (as outlined by the law of your STATE) The problem we have today is that the self defense argument is ridiculed when it has a valid place in the discussion and we are effectilvy creating easy prey for the cretins among us.
"The problem we have today is that the self defense argument is ridiculed "
This is not even needed as an argument. We have been given the right to own arms. This has been upheld by the Supreme Court several times.
The forward thinkers would have you believe that everyone who owns a weapon or specifically an assault weapon is a thug when in reality there are 70+ million gun owners who did not kill or even think about killing someone today.
I blame the forward thinkers for all this mess. Their ideas have been implemented over the years through local/state/federal governments and we are now seeing the fruits of their labor. A spoiled society that has very few morals, a lack of empathy and absolutely no common sense.
Thanks hippies.
I will have to pat myself on the back for raising such good kids.
The purpose of the 2nd amendment is not to protect guns for hunting---it goes much deeper than that. For all of those who think the 2nd amendment should only protect the guns around in 1791, does that also apply to 1st amendment protections? For example, applying that same logic the 1st amendment would not apply to the internet, or telephones, or television, or any type of recorded music? One other random thought, for those who think the NRA and gun rights supporters are paranoid for thinking there is a movement to take away the basic right to own a gun, does that logic also apply to abortion rights advocates who use a slipperly slope argument against ANY restriction--e..g, late term abortions, etc? No, I didn't think so....
Exhibit: Bob
Bob, you should relinquish your guns before we come take them away.
"In the summers in Richmond, where I completed my residency, the trauma bay was also plagued by weekly gun violence. These murders and assaults were not perpetrated by the mentally ill. These were the works of desperate people, bullies, and individuals with few options in life."
Hold up a minute- you are a pediatric surgeon, but yet you had the training and the time to evaluate the perpetrators? Don't think so.
I submit that anyone, "desperate people, & bullies" included, who shoots another, NOT in self defense, IS MENTALLY ILL and we need to treat that epidemic.
With education does not always come common sense.
Attempting to wrap a law around human behavior is the most uneducated approach I can think of. Murder is illegal and we cant stop murder in PRISON.
The quickest way to stop killing children could be done with a stroke of a pen , Obamas has failed to mention those drone strikes killing little BROWN kids.
What was that I heard Obama say , If we can save ONE KID as he propped himself up with little white kids.......
Liberals think attacking 300 million peoples rights for what a MONSTER done is the answer....
They dont allow guns in Chicago - What say you liberals.
Health care providers see a lot of horrible things, and those experiences obviously will shape their opinions. Dr Rasmussen has seen several victims of gun violence, and ascribes the problem to easy access to firearms. Does she look at babies with fetal alcohol syndrome and advocate for stricter controls on alcoholic beverages? She may not see many adults as a pediatrician, but I wonder if she looked at people whose faces, throats, or lungs have been eaten away with cancer and advocated for stricter control of cigarettes and marijuana?
I would guess that many, if not most, of the individuals who committed those crimes did not obtain their weapons legally. We know that there must be thousands of guns in the US which are currently in the possession of individuals who possess them illegally. If we want the reduction of gun violence to take top priority, wouldn't it make sense to FIRST direct our efforts towards confiscating illegal firearms from the convicted felons, other violent offenders, thieves, and mentally ill?
Instead, Obama and the anti-gun lobby propose to combat gun violence by making new laws that will restrict gun ownership from law-abiding citizens, in some cases, redefining possession of certain firearms, which have been acquired legally and owned responsibly, as a crime. They also propose comprehensive background checks, and while I am not opposed to those in theory, creating such a No-Buy list is frought with ethical and practical problems.
Ideally, such a list would include those with mental illness, but how do you define it? Will every college student who has been treated for depression be included? What about adults with developmental disabilities? post-traumatic stress disorder? those with cognitive disabilities post-head injury? How do we deal with privacy issues and still develop a meaningful list? And how can background checks be done in an expedient manner? In some communities, local law enforcement drags its feet indefinitely in approving all carry permits because of personal viewpoints that no one should be allowed to carry except police and military. They aren't "denying" the application for cause, just losing the application, restricting a citizen's right to bear arms.
Other suggestions include limitation on the magazine capacity, but that is like trying to combat drunk driving by restricting the size of beer and wine bottles, just grab another one. Mass shootings may generate horror and non-stop media coverage, but I assure you that whether an inner city gang murders rival gang members one at a time or all at once, the victims are just as dead and worthy of our attention.
I am against teachers being armed unless the teacher, as an individual, desires to be. Armed resource officers seem like a better solution, especially if they are also provided with stun guns as a means of gaining control of a threatening individual.
It is easy to demonize the NRA as though "it" is some monster. In reality, the NRA is made up of many common, everyday sorts of people, from all walks of life and every age group. These individuals support the NRA because they know it is the one organization that will stand up to politicians who seek to limit the 2nd ammendment. Like Dr Rasmussen, they have always championed RESPONSIBLE gun ownership, and support education and firearms training programs.
While responsible gun ownership is a step in the right direction, it is merely a reflection of our society's lack of accepting personal responsibility for anything. Read a few trial transcripts and you will see that (child abuse and neglect, alcoholism, temporary insanity from medications, Prozac, Ambien, absent parents, failed relationships, headaches, seizures, etc, etc) are to blame for criminal behavior. In reality, there exists a class of people who have no respect for human life, and no respect for the laws of our society. If they decide to kill, it won't matter what instrument they choose to accomplish it, gun, poison, knife, hatchet, vehicle, bomb, or push off a subway platform.
Let's get the illegal firearms off the street, since that is the immediate threat. That will not be easy, and it will take significant effort at all levels of law enforcement. Stiffen the punishments for illegal possession and use of a firearm during a felony. Address the issues surrounding identification of the mentally ill. Start there, and then if you find that we still need to restrict guns, we can talk.
Bill Marshal, FYI, the doctor is a SHE, not a HE.
Two child killings per week right down the hall from Dr. Rasmussen. Preterm births await many of the mothers later in life, yet UVA can't seem to get themselves to actually INFORM anyone of that - even after they have publicly admitted the link after being educated about it. But that is of no interest to the good doctor, because public health and informed consent are only important if a political agenda is advanced by same.
I bet she helped some stabbing victims in Baltimore also - bravo - but they are conspicuously absent from this article. It's fine that she voices her opinion about this topic, but when she has to fasten blinders on to have it make sense, even she should be wondering if it's nonsense. Why are some victims of undeserved violence somehow more important than others? If you can't promote a solution that includes all victims of violence, then the rest of us have every right to notice the grand canyon sized omissions in her list and say something also.
Since men overwhelmingly commit the vast majority of crimes, acts of war and acts of terror, why not simply declare males to be inherently dangerous instrumentalities subject to periodic monitoring and evaluation? Or would that make way too much sense?
increasingly infrequent Hook Reader: You're complete ignorance of what constitutes an automatic weapon vs semiautomatic weapon is the problem not the weapon.
I worked as an ammunition machine operator in the shotshell department at the Anoka Minnesota plant of Federal Cartridge Company right after Bill Clinton suggested taxing ammunition as a way to control its sale.
Federal had the best year for sales in company history.
@ For All of Those.....
Do you have no substantive retort, or do you always resort to ad hominen attacks as a way to cover your lack of mental agility?
Once people start thinking that we can make one or more of the rights enumerated our the Bill of Rights vanish by decree, then there is no reason why others or even all of them can't be removed either. A constitutional amendment is how we do such things - or at least used to. But now we have an out of control and corrupt executive branch. Many people refuse to grasp how dangerous it is for the president to start ruling by decree in so many ways. He ignored the War Powers Act, declaring laws invalid, and gun control is just his latest foray into doing an end around Congress. I suspect this danger won't become evident until a conservative republican president takes office and does all of them same things using Obama's precedents. Boy, then you'll hear them howling about war criminals and such again. But for now, they're AOK with all of it.
Advocating for a constitutional amendment is one thing, but these folks are choosing instead to undermine the very foundations of law in this country. They won't like it when their current comfort with having a king instead of a president recoils on them.
The original reason for the 2nd amendment isn't what you think it was. Read this: http://truth-out.org/news/item/13890-the-second-amendment-was-ratified-t...
It kind of puts some of our VA founding fathers in a bad light.
"Proud to own an AR15? Then you should be proud to have your name printed on a list of locals owning automatic OR semi automatic (MILITARY) weapons. "
Do we really want to go there ?
Have HIV/AIDS hep c , jacked up on SSRIs ? Shall we start a list and google MAPS for potential people/Waapons of MASS INFECTION.
Where do we stop ?
Bob I'm not sure you're on the list of agile thinkers either.
"The purpose of the 2nd amendment is not to protect guns for hunting---it goes much deeper than that. For all of those who think the 2nd amendment should only protect the guns around in 1791, does that also apply to 1st amendment protections?"
Um, Bob, I've got a nice Remington 12 gauge automatic (which means semi). And a 30-06 that's accurate hundreds of yards away. They were hard to find in 1791. No one proposes that they be taken away. I don't even have to join a well-regulated militia to keep them.
"For example, applying that same logic the 1st amendment would not apply to the internet, or telephones, or television, or any type of recorded music?"
Bob the bullhorn wasn't around in 1791. If I use one in your backyard to inform your wife that I'm in the mood, you're entitle to call the cops because I've exceeded my right to free speech.
"One other random thought, for those who think the NRA and gun rights supporters are paranoid for thinking there is a movement to take away the basic right to own a gun, does that logic also apply to abortion rights advocates who use a slipperly slope argument against ANY restriction--e..g, late term abortions, etc? "
This is more complicated Bob because there probably is some slippery slope thinking on the part of the Pro Choice crowd. You've got a toehold here. But then again we have party candidates who state openly that the removal of that legal right is their objective. No prominent member of either party proposes that all guns be outlawed.
Dolemite, what Diane Fienstein proposed today is pretty out there.
I don't thnk it is the fear of not having their guns taken away as much as it is living in a country where the government could disarm the populace when it already gives the populace the right to vote in people who believe it is okay to take assets from one person and give it to another without any more jusrification other than the liberals think its "fair" and "social justice"
This country has taken from the upper middlle class and given a free ride to a bunch of derilicts who have no intention of ever getting a job or a life. Those that lobby for this call these people victims and these people believe them. I would also imagine if you went to some of these neighborhoods where people get free rent food, education and healthcare and asked them if they think THEY have the right to own a gun they will tell you that already have one.
Responsible gun owners naturally take offense as do those who drink responsibly or drive responsibly. When the government came for the booze it lasted a dozen years and only opened up a giant black market for booze.
I guess you some of you would stay quiet if they took your iphone because you can search for kiddyporn with it and people are getting hurt.
Doc Rasmussen
While I commend your attention to detail and dedication to duty as a doctor and surgeon, perhaps some of your earlier schooling should have covered some constitutional law. After a decade of learning, what does "shall not infringe" and "inalienable rights" actually mean to you as an individual? Here is some mathy stuff... only 4.5 million NRA members, but roughly 300,000,000 firearms in the hands of law abiding citizens right now. Mkay?
Abacus time, so roughly 30,000,000 citizens whom you think have zero knowledge of their rights, and the % of section 8/gang bangers that are your gunshot vics and perps, and then the % of mass shooters of late that are on Dr. prescribed psychotropic drugs. Huh. You sure you wrote on the right topic? Feels great to emote and get all extra super emotional, but can we discuss the % of gang related shootings and % of mass shooters that got horse pills from professional docs and how that correlates to average Joes just offering up their rights?
Where is the actual sanity in liberal politicians that have the need to prod, push, and regulate 30,000,000 firearms owners that may not comply with the next round of bs feel good, executive orders? This next senate bill will get shot down in the house on it's face as unconstitutional. So that leaves actual conversation again. Dag. Back to the bangers and psychotropics....digress into your field when you get a minute-
There is no doubt these mass killing or any killings for that matter is very disturbing. Looking at certain types of weapons, large magazine capacity, pistol gripped rifles etc. for being the cause and blame for such violence has become very popular. Do those things help a mentally unbalanced person carry out their sick plans for mass murder? Sure! Large magazines are a force multiplier that is why they were invented. Will banning them make our society safer? No! The issue is more complicated than that. Focusing on mental health and being more aggressive from a law stand point on criminals that commit violent crimes; especially with guns is a good start.
To the political side of this conversation…there has been a lot of talk of amending our constitution. I even saw a talk show host on HBO go as far as to say our constitution is “B.S.”. Remember what makes this country great, that piece of paper! It gives us rights, all of us. We do not nor should we agree on all things but that little piece of paper allows all of us rights. There very fact that we can have this discussion in an open forum or that talk show host can sit there say what he said is proof of this. When changes are made to the constitution, no matter how small or necessary in the eyes of some but not all, we are no longer a free society.
Last; owning a firearm…of any kind does not make a person a violent or ignorant thug. The actions of a person are what decide that. Grouping all gun owners in one category is ignorant however.
Doc, I don't want to pile on as you have taken an extra effort to write this when you must have a very busy schedule indeed...but how many healthy peeps enter the hospital and come out in a bag or urn? Are there groups of assault docs? Automated drive by nurses? We should really have a national conversation on something I know nothing about, I mean we should have a conversation on something that makes me really emotional.
On nevermind, we already have aca.
I wonder if more people die from infections they get in the hospital from mirsa, prescription drug screwups and neglect than get killed by guns...
"They were hard to find in 1791"
Dolemite,
The weapons that were available during this time were cutting edge for the period. The government did not restrict the citizens to earlier versions. If the Rem. 12 had been around you can bet anyone that was able to have one would have had one.
Before you challenge that statement I do not believe we should be able to buy shoulder fired missiles and such. I believe you know why the m16 is used by the military and why the Ar15 is available to the publc so I will not waste your time with that crap.
@Billy: "I do not believe we should be able to buy shoulder fired missiles and such."
Why not? If you're going to stand any chance in a revolt against the oppressive Socialist Obamanation you're going to need RPG's, rockets, wire-guided missiles, mines, and maybe a few drones. Otherwise there will just be a lot of cold dead fingers and bold bumperstickers left from a noble Patriotic movement. It is Patriotic to talk about violent uprising isn't it? (apologies for creating a straw man that may not fairly apply to your position)
@Ponce: This sounds like you reject the results of democratic process, which is one of the pillars of our constitution:
"I don't thnk it is the fear of not having their guns taken away as much as it is living in a country where the government could disarm the populace when it already gives the populace the right to vote in people who believe it is okay to take assets from one person and give it to another without any more jusrification other than the liberals think its "fair" and "social justice""
I'm not sure there's a compelling argument to be made that owning a gun is a fundament of our society (but you won't find me arguing against owning them, just the ridiculous magazines).
Whoa.
An article that was meant to open up conversation and state one woman's point of view based on her own experience was not an invitation to attack her professionalism, employer, or make inflammatory statements about other hot button issues. Regardless of where you fall on the whole gun debate thing you've got to realize that we're never going to solve ANYTHING if we can't have a calm discussion. No one listens to ANYTHING when someone's screamin' at them.
And Ponce (sorry for the further straying from topic, but at this level of any Hook discussion it's all gone anyway), you get so upset at your perception that the liberals "take assets from one person and give it to another without any more jusrification other than the liberals think its "fair" and "social justice"" But why not get upset about the fact that the Vietnam draft took away the freedom and a significant period of youth from poor whites and blacks in the country because hawkish paranoia feared communism in Vietnam? And a large number of these draftees also contributed limbs, mental health, Agent Orange exposure, and their very lives in this process. What's worse, having your taxes go up to support entitlements or having your life taken away for some idiotic operation in Asia? That doesn't refute your argument, but if you're going to be outraged, why not where the cost was so much higher? Or is it just OK when it's the lower classes taking one for the team?
Dolemite, the constituition allows for an army... the constituitonality of that particular war is defeinitly one for the courts just as afghanistan is, but that is the government drafing and abusing someone within the confines of constituition and the draft goes across all spectrums, just because in every society these are more poor than rich to draw from doesn't make it an attack on the poor. That same document doesn't in word or spririt justify an obamaphone obamacare or any other obamatax to redistribute the wealth. In America you can get rich without the money coming from someone else. You can create it out of thin air by finding an old fallen tree and making a rocking chair to sell. The family that owns the famous Mayflower Hotel in Washington achieved that wealth because a poor jewish immigrant hauled ice by hand to people in DC, then bought a trash truck, turned that into Capital Trash company and then into a 100 million dollar real estate fortune that his sons still run. He started with nothing in the middle of a depression worse than this one. The only difference is that today the government would force him to have a license and a refrigerated truck and 8 miles of paperwork to haul peoples trash.
If the government wants people to have wealth than the government needs to create a climate of opportunity. It is cheating to let one man grow a field of corn and then confiscate half (or more) and give it to those that sat around whinng that they don't know how to plant a cornrow. Laziness should be taxed at a much higher rate than gumption.
"Why not? If you're going to stand any chance in a revolt against the oppressive Socialist Obamanation you're going to need RPG's"
Wow. Your true colors finally show.
It makes no difference why I own firearms. The fact of the matter is because I CAN and I do not need your approval or have to justify my decision to do so.
That statement goes back to one of the orginal posts about being perceived as thugs and criminals.
The good Dr.'s letter puts the NRA as the bad guys and the bad organization that pulled the trigger on all those kids. She just accused every single member of murder.
How about placing the blame where it belongs. How about on the mental health system and how about the mother that refused to do anything with her precious psychotic kid?
How about placing the blame on most of those emergency room visits where it belongs. Poor parenting, drugs, and thug lifestyles. How about realizing accidents happen everyday to good people. Why is there no mention of the number of avoidable deaths due to prescription drugs or medical incompetence every single day?
Guns owners and manufacturers are convenient targets by some very clever people. (no pun)
Billy it's amazing that you don't recognize the most blatant irony, ie "your true colors," yet you're capable of diagnosing societal ills in a way that has so far eluded the NIH, Surgeon General, sociologists, social workers, etc.
Let's keep it simple:
(1) Why not make any current weapon available? You didn't answer the question. Why put limits on what we can own and take to Michigan Militia Summer Camp? If we just take care of mental health and parenting then we shouldn't have any problems right? (Note: Irony again, sorry)
(2) "she just accused every single member of murder" No, that's incorrect; it doesn't follow from the text. Go back and read again. She is speaking to policies of the NRA as irresponsible. You can say that she's mistaken about the nature or consequences of these policies and maybe even try to back that up with evidence but she hasn't even mentioned policy makers at NRA by name, much less distribute blame to members. She notes her father was a Marine and the she doesn't oppose gun ownership. Irresponsible policies by the NRA don't need to be shown as culprits in Newtown to be irresponsible.
(3) "How about placing the blame where it belongs. How about on the mental health system and how about the mother that refused to do anything with her precious psychotic kid?" Really? Adam Lanza went beserk because his mother was trying to have him committed. And he did it with a large magazine that enabled killing a lot of innocent kids. Do you have more insights into this woman's parenting? Are you showing true Liberal, nanny-state colors here, expecting a "mental health system" to keep us free from the mayhem that large calibre, semi-automatic weapons with 30+ round magazines can produce? Good luck with that.
"Why is there no mention of the number of avoidable deaths due to prescription drugs or medical incompetence every single day?"
Just taking a guess here, but most likely in this article because it has absolutely nothing to do with the subject at hand. In other places it's a frequent subject. How else would you even know to ask that question otherwise?
"Increasingly Infrequent", "P" and "For all of those": wow, such vitriol, anger and angst-it's probably a good thing you guys are unarmed for the safety of the public at large. Tell us how you really feel about you individually being labeled "gun free", and which lists you envision your info published in for public dissemination and perusal...
Obfuscate away from actual issues to your heart's desire. Forget empirical data, lets feel our way through this and emote all down our legs in public.
As it appears you 3 and myriads more have problems with the literal meaning of the 2nd as written in plain English, how does Molon Labe strike you, as an individual or even in group-speak if that's your bag? You have employed "we" and asserted much. Please, expand on that... Seriously. . .
"local gun thugs"? Are you disparaging our minority gangs just out representing and showing bling, colors and keeping the doc busy with fresh business? 12% of the population commits 50% of crimes and murder, and you toe the party line and label law abiding citizens with phrases that should be left for the actual thugs. Racist hoplophobe much? Check the FBI stats, it's pretty black and white and as you would like also free, but don't let that scare you too much.
dolemote, maybe what billy is trying to say is that we are in the middle of an epidemic of young people out there who have been taught by liberal parents that life is fair when it is not. So this ahole thought that it was "fair" to kill 20 kids who were guilty of liking his mother.
The kid was not a nut job he was simply raised wrong. that is learned behavior and it goes on all the time. Al it takes is to talk to any teacher or simply listen when in line in the groacery store as these idiots try and negoatiate with 4 year olds. It is no different than another a-hole right here named Hugely who killed his girlfrined because he could have her.
The niu jobs that do these crimes are not victims of poverty, they have access to therapists, the problem is between the parents and the therapists they keep coming to the conclusion that the kid is depressed or suffers low self esteem of both. Well MAYBE just MAYBE the kid is an a-hole who was never taught right from wrong and these folks don't have the neerve to tell him because they don't want to hurt his feelings. The result is people die.
The kid in newtown killed those kids with a stolen gun. If he was unable to get his mothers gun he may have not done it that day but the fact still remains that he would have been out there with his mind comtaminated from a liberal progressive life is fair everybody deserves a trophy what about me parenting and educational system.
Regulating aspects of guns , background checks etc etc may all be fine, money for mental health may all be fine, but as long as we churn out spoiled brats we will not be fine.
"The kid was not a nut job he was simply raised wrong."
Bill, really now, all the lame, indulgent liberal or conservative parenting in the world doesn't create a monster that walks into a school and kills 22 children. What are your credentials for this analysis? You certainly don't write and argue like someone with an advanced post-grad education. Or undergrad for that matter. You and billysixpack have such amazing insights for seemingly plebian commentators.
"If he was unable to get his mothers gun he may have not done it that day but the fact still remains that he would have been out there with his mind comtaminated from a liberal progressive..."
You're right about this though, I mean it doesn't get more factual now does it?
First: "Just taking a guess here, but most likely in this article because it has absolutely nothing to do with the subject at hand"
It does relate. It relates to the number of people who show up in the emergency room. It relates to the number of deaths per year to put a perspective on the severity.
Second: "Why not make any current weapon available?" For the most part they are. You can get high end weapons with special permits and buy jets if you want.
Third: "If we just take care of mental health and parenting then we shouldn't have any problems right?"
Not all of it but a start.
Fourth: "She is speaking to policies of the NRA as irresponsible"
Bull. She is placing the blame squarely at the feet of the NRA and every member who supports the group.
Fifth: "Are you showing true Liberal, nanny-state colors here, expecting a "mental health system"
Not at all. I believe there is a lack of funding and the current system need upgrading.
She knew of his mental instability way before she tried to have him committed. That is a fact. As for parenting she was probably a great mother but in denial.
In ref. to the 30 round mags. I suggest you do some research on the .223 vs other readily available cheaper weapons that hold far less rounds and are not classified as assault.
BM: You are mostly correct. Dolemite just likes to argue on the generalized points as if they are the only factors or options.
And last but not least CHUCK: WTF you talking about? Come and take what?
Dolemite/Blaxploitation
"You and billysixpack have such amazing insights for seemingly plebian commentators."
Seems like an elitist over-grad would at least know the proper spelling of plebeian.
If we were to look at certain skrewel districts in say... DC, Chicago, Detroit, Baltimore, Trenton, and Richmond, would we see the free reign of a conservative attempt at skreweling? Is that what you allude to? Perhaps the ugly crime stats in these lovely environs is actually just law abiding gun owners and conservatives gone awry? No gangs, no section 8, no rx for moods and weather, and clearly nothing to do with the liberal progressives in power for decades? "You're right about this though, I mean it doesn't get more factual now does it?"
Clearly we need more noise on this issue so you can have time to listen to yourself. Way to become part of the problem. Kudos.
6pak
"For all of those January 24th, 2013 | 3:53pm
Exhibit: Bob
Bob, you should relinquish your guns before we come take them away."
Molon Labe seems apropos to the we assertion of taking them away. Sorry to offend your sensibilities, but the Greek phrase stands well as opposed to colorful lib French, and I am not confronted by your shock. The chatter can be overwhelming; it gets old, and is nothing but meaningless chatter on it's face. Enough of the chatter; amend our constitution or shut up. Get the numbers up and ducks in a row to change our "fundamental" laws, or shut the hell up about a right that was not given by a political party or man. Seems simple, but perhaps therein lies the problem. Simple math and history are not en vogue. So be it.
Thanks for the spelling correction Chuck. Now what on earth was the rest of that? Time for a new tin foil antenna on the space helmet.
Billy you're extrapolating without any justification in the text of Dr. Rasmussen's letter. However if you support bad NRA policy feel free to take some of the blame. I could care less about gun trivia beyond whether or not a weapon gives someone the ability to go kill many people without a reload. Smaller magazine limits won't stop something like the belltower sniper or a Timothy McVeigh, or all the general single shot crime out there, but we've seen far too many mass killings in this pattern of lunatic with many rounds in an assault rifle. There's no good reason for this set up in civilian hands, whether the person is a thug or not.
But I do agree with you about mental health benefits.
Well said, Dr. Rasmussen. I am in complete agreement with your position. Those of us who feel this way must continue to speak up. Thank you for writing this.
Blaxploitation
Seen some pretty good obfuscation from out there, but you deserve accolades. Really, lets not bring stats and actual FBI reports into a conversation where we want to disarm law abiding people. No room for it under the tin foil huh?
How about automatic life imprisonment for anyone who knowingly purchases a weapon illegally, like the young woman who bought guns at a gun show for the underage Columbine murderers and the young woman who purchased weapons for a convicted felon, ex-con, who murdered first responders he tricked into rushing to a fire that he set? That would be a small thing that could help. Put these ladies' pictures on big old posters, in jail garb, behind bars, and post them in every gun store and at every gun show. Punish people, severely, for breaking existing gun laws, and punish parents/adults who allow unsecured weapons to fall into the hands of children, as well.
Thank you Dr. Rasmussen, you expressed exactly how many of us feel about this subject (ignore the "Troll Comments" here.)
As for those of you wishing to get guns out of the hands of criminals and who deflect the blame from the NRA, here is a bit of fact for you:
Did you know 1.2% of the Federal Gun Dealers out there supply 60% of the illegal guns? Did you know our ATF has 2500 agents and they had that same number in 1973? Did you know that Federal Gun Dealers only have to do inventory every 17 years? Did you know that our Congress has passed laws restricting the oversight of the ATF over the Federal Gun Dealers? Yeah - do your research, I've been doing it on guns and crime.
And for the record of all the children in the entire world killed by gun fire, are you aware 85% are killed in the United States? That is a sickening statistic that I would think we would and should all be ashamed.
C'ville Native: try getting your "research" data somewhere other than "The Onion" or PBS. You're clueless and irresponsible.
C'ville Native:
You report that : "1.2% of the Federal Gun Dealers out there supply 60% of the illegal guns." If true, it means that there are only a few bad apples in the bunch, so why are they so difficult to shut down? If you told me that 60% of the Federal Gun Dealers were engaged in illegal sales, then we have a lot of bad guys to round up and that will take a huge number of agents.
Looking at the same statistic, where do the other 40% of illegal guns come from? Street purchases? Who is going after them? If the ATF has a limited budget, wouldn't those dollars be better spent going after the street sellers than policing the Federal Gun Dealers who are 98.8% operating within the law? Hmmmm... Perhaps that is why Congress has felt that stricter oversight of law-abiding licensed gun dealers is a waste of taxpayer dollars.
Obama signed an executive order recently. How much of that was directed towards getting the illegal guns off the street that are currently in circulation? Obama, Feinstein, Biden, and the like want to put restrictions on what can be purchased in the future. How about dealing with today? When someone is arrested for a crime and found to be in possession of a firearm illegally, how much effort is put into tracking down where the perpetrator obtained it? Very little, I'm afraid. The focus is on building a case for the robbery, the burglary, the drugs, the assault, etc. There needs to be stiffer sentences for those who possess guns illegally (yes, three strikes and all) and especially for those who sell them or buy them for someone else. If you buy them for someone else, no more crying to the judge that you didn't know the person was a convicted felon. Why else would they ask you to buy the gun for them?
Now, all your statistics might be the truth, but you still have not shown how any of that is the fault of the NRA. Congress is doing the voting, yay or nay (except when certain Senators voted present), not the NRA.
Given the violence in Syria, Egypt, Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc, I have to wonder if your final statistic is true. No matter. What is your plan to get the guns off the street in Chicago, New York, LA and other gangland cities? Obama and Feinstein don't have one, maybe you do?
C'ville native says... "And for the record of all the children in the entire world killed by gun fire, are you aware 85% are killed in the United States? That is a sickening statistic that I would think we would and should all be ashamed."
That is a pretty broad statement to make when "half the world" does not even keep statistics. In fact that is an absurd statement to make.
I don't own firearms to hunt. I own them to protect my family. If your goal is protection, the bigger the better. Yes, I would hope to think my gun is bigger than the person who means to do harm to my family. A day may come when an armed citizenry is our last hope. An unarmed society, is a very vulnerable society, history has proven that time and again.
"A day may come when an armed citizenry is our last hope."
Against what modern opponent that isn't purely a product of your imagination?
Also curious..."modern opponent?" Haven't you heard, history repeats itself?
There are many in this world who would do us harm. We don't spend all that money on defense simply for job creation.
@ c'ville native...curious, what is your definition of a troll? Is it anyone with a different view from yours?
Thank you for your informed, thoughtful and both personal & professional letter, Dr. Rasmussen. I agree with all you say. I am a couple and family therapist who believes being background checked, well trained in gun handling- including trigger locks and gun safes as well as registration of all guns will be good boundaries for the ownership of the deadly weapon of a gun. I believe such limits will provide the requirement that we handle our guns responsibly and that our ownership system move forward into the 21st century. No doubt that those military style automatic (already outlawed), semi-automatic weapons and high capacity ammunition magazines have no place in the hands of the common citizenry in a gun safe nation.
It is irrational that our medical providers received the NRA hand me down order via The Affordable Health Care Act as this expectation contradicts sound medical treatment. I too have repeatedly held in healing, the partners and children at risk or victims of gun violence. They come for professional help when problem solving has been prohibited sometimes by violence in their troubled relationships. Also as a mother of a student at VT during the gun violent trauma there I instantly became personally devoted to changing our country from one of horrible gun chaos to a nation with strong gun law especially universal background checks. The word is that over 90% of the smart citizens of our country want those background checks.
Finally I will add, it is so nice that the gun violence advocates are required by this site to avoid profanity, name calling and other insults in their writing. There is a refreshing air of courtesy if perhaps ignorant passion in this discussion. I pray you keep up your wonderful work, doctor. A tender heart in the ER is so important.
Hokiegirl
"No doubt that those military style automatic (already outlawed), semi-automatic weapons and high capacity ammunition magazines have no place in the hands of the common citizenry in a gun safe nation."
This is why responsible gun owners wish you "therapist" would stick to what you know .
Like why according to the CDC , the hospitals the writer speaks of had just as many medical mistakes resulting in injury as they treated firearm injuries , if not more, in the very places she speaks of.
Let us not so smart folk figure out how to protect the kids on the street and you work on keeping them safe in the hostpital.
Your laws are what failed to keep them OUT of the hostpital.
As a historian and Sara's mother, I can assure you she is well aware of the Bill of Rights and its implied bill of responsibilities. . . . I own, register, and pay taxes on a lethal weapon and do so willingly as a responsible citizen. Automobiles are as dangerous as guns, but they kill far fewer people largely because they are regulated. You go girl!
Barbara , looks as if you raised a great Daughter. A surgeon.IMPRESSIVE and her field.WOW.
I must ask you
"Automobiles are as dangerous as guns, but they kill far fewer people largely because they are regulated."
Are you stating autos have a lower fatality rate than guns ?
Owing to her direct exposure in the ER, Sara is understandably and perhaps uniquely aware of the senseless injuries and deaths resulting from shooting people. And the Newtown killings brought this into focus for her, as for many others. Indeed, the entire nation and their elected officials now wrestle with some way to control the problem.
One of the most difficult tasks is to actually identify the problem, articulated in terms of causes and contributing factors which may in fact be effectually controlled. And so, we have a wide ranging debate which at one extreme says there is no problem (statistically speaking) and at the other proposes extreme measures to limit the availability of fire arms, ammunition, and the market of buyers.
The NRA has written, "Finally, in 1996, Congress cut off gun control funding for the CDC—mainly because the NRA demonstrated to legislators the CDC was buying political misinformation rather than science. (http://www.nrapublications.org/index.php/9485/how-your-tax-dollars-demon...)
The article cited explains the NRA's issues with studies of that time. I can't speak to the accuracy of their claims, but I do think that the time has come for some unbiased study of the issue as a public health matter - which is the thrust if Sara's essay. If the earlier studies were tainted by political agendas, then it is the job of researchers NOW to establish protocols which assure that this will not happen again. While the NRA can hardly be regarded as a "scientific" organization, they are of course a stakeholder and logically should be involved in establishing the study design and evaluation of data. Regardless of what a study may tell us, who better to stand by the results and recommendations than the NRA itself?
But of course, a mere study is not a solution. Even so, to keep a "no-trespassing" sign on the study subject just makes no sense.
In terms of immediate action, the NRA may be correct in its recommendation of armed security at schools. The school as an armed camp is a sad commentary on our times, but the school as a killing ground is even worse. Schools may also be modified to provide more immediate escape routes in case of a threat. An outside exit for every school room would not only provide an immediate escape in case of a gunner on the loose, but also an additional means of egress in case of fire or other disaster. All of this comes at a cost, at a time when we are attempting to reduce spending. Yes, it does. It lies with parents, educators and elected officials (to say nothing of the students) to decide if the cost is acceptable.
Proposals to limit the size of ammo clips or the type and quantity of ammo and fire arms which may be sold are probably least effective in the short term, given the number of these things already widely distributed. And this certainly won't deter anyone who is determined to shoot and kill a lot of people in a confined area.
Which brings us to the mental health arena which is so vast as to defy any reliable means to sort for killers before they kill. Even so, the some process of reporting and taking action should at least be open to discussion.
Finally, let's clear up a little history, while we're at it.
The "Turthout" article cited by Moolah is found here:
http://truth-out.org/news/item/13890-the-second-amendment-was-ratified-t...
and says by way of introduction:
"The real reason the Second Amendment was ratified, and why it says "State" instead of "Country" (the Framers knew the difference - see the 10th Amendment), was to preserve the slave patrol militias in the southern states, which was necessary to get Virginia's vote."
But of course, while the Constitution had already been written, it had not yet been ratified by all the States. Nine states (enough to ratify) had already voted in favor before Virginia did, so there was no practical need to bring Virginia on board. Even so, there naturally would have been a compelling interest to have Virginia's support, inasmuch as that state was foremost in the independence movement more generally. And it is true, of course, that militias often acted as "slave patrols" during those years. Quite clearly, if the new Constitution would have taken arms away from the "citizens," the militias would have been powerless. Unquestionably, slave owners would have been nervous at such a prospect. Given the somewhat more progressive views of the northern States, Virginia's politicians would have wanted some special assurance that their armed patrols would not in the future be vaporized under a new law of the land.
The Constitution itself carried no language restricting an armed citizenry; then again, it carried no special provisions regarding the other "rights" guaranteed specifically under the Bill of Rights. Thus, when the time for ratification came, the right to bear arms, and of a free press, and of religious practice - etc., were all attached to the Constitution. With respect to arms in particular, and giving the slave owners their due, we might also recognize that the arms required to fight other countries (notably England) were generally owned by individuals, anyway. Likewise, given the Declaration's assertion that, "That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it," we could understand some concern among the founders that the government they were about to establish might itself one day be the one the people should abolish. People with arms would at the least give their government officials some reason to think twice. We might pardonably argue that the Bill of Rights was more of an amendment to the Declaration of Independence, then to the Constitution.
hokie girl says":Finally I will add, it is so nice that the gun violence advocates are required by this site to avoid profanity, name calling and other insults in their writing. "
Hokie girl, I don't see any gun violence "advocates" on this site... I do see some people who understand that most theRAPISTS in this country can't get a grip on the social problem that is causing these kiling machines to seek out guns and hurt people with them. I see people who put the blame for this squarely on your shoulders for being part of a community that pushed drugs on children because they don't think corporal punishment works except everywhere else in nature imcluding mama cats bears cows and dogs as they raise their offspring. I see people here who think that since guns are the tools of these killers we can have discussions about gun safety but are intelligent enough to understand that too much regulation will cause even more individual deaths even if does prevent the occasional killing spree because too much regulation means that when one of these nuts you can't fix because of your liberal outlook decides to use a knife instead and just kill a couple at a time that an innocent person NEEDS to bring their gun to that knifefight. I see all that but I don't see anybody here advocating for gun violence. i guess thats just some of that liberal doublespeak you use to keep patients coming back to milk thier insurance companies.
here is a kid that shot his sister and mother with a stolen gun because of a movie..and sick thoughts in his head... ... he thought it would be fun. I am sure his therapist told him that "selfishness is normal" and hoped the ritalin would kick in. How many killers has your community created with your liberal attitudes?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/25/jake-evans-confession_n_2552173...
It is also idiotic government abuse like this that make the gun discussion dear to many.
The Department of homeland security is watching you and its getting worse...
Those that think the government is trustworthy need to read some history books.
http://www.infowars.com/airport-terror-announcements-now-being-played-in...
History books might be a good idea, Ponce. Your link, however, is to a web site of a popular radio show host who believes, among other things, that the 9-11 attack was an act of terrorism by our own government. But, OK, is the government watching, and encouraging us to watch? I suppose that might make some people uneasy. On the other hand, what comfort might we take from the advice to just never mind - that everything will be OK?
If one is so fervent about the dangers of guns, they should be positively astonished at learning how few people, out of nearly 300-million in the United states, actually die by guns each year. Mathematically, the number looks something like this: 0.00012
So the real question should be: are more lives lost or saved by law-abiding citizens having guns? The answer is unequivocal: More guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens results in less crime. The largest study ever conducted on this question found overwhelming and conclusive evidence that more guns = less crime. (Source: Dr. John R. Lott, Jr., "More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws" University of Chicago Press, 1997, 1st ed.; ditto: 2000, 2nd ed. (Dr. Lott is a senior research scholar in the School of Law at Yale University; hardly a bastion of Conservatism.))
The issue raised by Sara is not over the question of the statistical relationship between guns and crime. The issue is the exposure of mass numbers of people to a single individual who is armed with both the equipment and the will to kill people.
But to your point: "The answer is unequivocal: More guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens results in less crime." Perhaps you think so, but at least two investigators with strong professional credentials and vast data sets disagree. Those would be Ian Ayers and John Donohue whose paper "Shooting Down the More Guns, Less Crime Hypothesis" (2003) come to a different conclusion. You can read their work at:
http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/fss_papers/1241
And while the eggheads continue to debate the statistical material, we are all left with the issue before us now: in what ways may be best protect our children and ourselves from assault, and in what ways can we change our society so as to reduce the chances of it, and better control it when it does occur.
JSGears, my point is not that the government should ignore terrorism or gun control, my point is that many who feel strongly about gun control are not just hunters or people afraid of a criminal with a gun, but people who have a fear of the government overstepping its boundaries as is done everyday in this country in many circumstances, There are small towns with swat teams, there a peoples dogs shot by cops for no reason and incidents of DEA agents kicking in wrong doors and shooting people. I would imagine that if a DEA crew went through the wrong door and all ten of them were wiped out in a few seconds the DEA would do a little better job or reading an address or stop using Apple maps to find the house.
I don't care what the host believes, the article simply puts together FACTS about what DHS is doing. If Barack Obama said something intelligent for a change I would pay attention to it.
I don't shoot the messenger, and I have the ability to tell sh%t from shellac.
I can tell you this, there were car jackings at gunpoint about 10 years ago just outside DC, at least one a day for weeks, then one day a thug tried to car jack an off duty cop in his private vehicle and the cop blew the guys face off. There were no car jackings for almost two weeks after that. ZERO. Guns have a place in modern society and the issue needs to be addressed, but it needs to be addressed from a practiacl standpoint with a common outcome expectation. if the endpoint is not the same then we cannot have a reasonable discussion about how to arrive there.
Wow, what a surprise that an ape faced faux intellectual who has never seen anything except the inside of a building all her life is not only so sure that she can make decisions for everyone, but also that anyone cares about her opinions. Yeah, sure, let's listen to all the academics, that worked great for Russia, until of course they were all lined up against the wall by Stalin once they had outlived their usefulness. People like this shouldn't be allowed to vote, much less dictate others' lives.
@The Cruncher... "ape faced"??? For real? Don't you realize that name calling discredits your argument? I know you have strong feelings on the issue at hand, but resorting to name calling is just immature, and this is a conversation for adults.
You can't make logical arguments against statists who want to take away your rights on an emotional basis, no matter how slowly. You simply have to call out their BS as the trash that it is.
@The Cruncher. Sorry. I'm not convinced. If you have words like statist in your vocabulary, you don't have to make a personal attack like calling someone "ape faced" to advance your point when making a cogent argument. If you feel your personal liberties are at stake, stand up and use your big words.
When I told my husband of these exchanges which I had hoped would be a rational discussion of gun safety issues, my husband repeated what he said to our congressman last week, "Having a rational conversation with the pro-gun lobby is like wrestling pigs; you both get muddy and the pig likes it." Putting my energy to better use.
Nervamae, what part of "logical arguments don't work on statists" don't you understand? Emotional arguments are all they respond to, being largely irrational people immune to any semblance of the idea of cause and effect, like ignoring such blatant statistics coming from Australia and Britain becoming much more violent places once gun control measures took effect (like every other instance, these are just the most convenient).
Doing anything to assist them to slip the mask and revealing themselves to be the hysterical mushmouths that they are is worthwhile being that they are making a direct assault on our freedoms. Playing nice just doesn't work.
Exactly Hokie Girl, your husband is a wise man.
Bill, no I didn't get my statistics from The Onion or PBS - those are Stats from our Federal Government.
As for why can't they enforce laws on those 1.2% of Federal Gun Dealers?
Read: http://books.google.com/books?id=dBOF8Q685mAC&pg=PA402&lpg=PA402&dq=ATF+...
In 2006 under the watchful eye of the NRA Congress limited the ATF. One would think we need an agency to regulate gun dealers, don't you?
As for the 40% of guns obtained illegally, straw sales, and you ignorant ones out there that purchase or sell a gun to Billy Joe because he is a good guy but 6 months later he kills his wife. Yeah, that sort of sale. Then there are the gun shows which showed what on "Gun Appreciation Day", how many were "accidentally" shot? What a joke.
Personally, I would enact a law that you must have a curtain IQ level to have a gun too. There are far too many stupid people out there with them.
An Internet Troll: "someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as a forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion."
I am not going to engage with you over this issue. I have children and loved ones I want to have some sense of security in this nation. You do you, I will do me. My reps have already been contacted. And I could care less most of the opinions posted here, I posted my own. If you don't like it, don't read it.
LOLLLLL you statists are all the same, "we need an agency to do blah blah", ignoring the fact students are less intelligent on average than before we created the Department of Education, people take more drugs now that we have the War on Drugs, and more people are living in poverty despite the record amounts we spend on social programs.
Never let facts get in the way of fictional, emotional anecdotes of "Billy Bob got a gun and shot his wife" despite the fact that more people are killed in Chicago, a city known for its strict gun laws, than any other place in the country. None so blind as those who will not see, and statists top the list of that in every category.
HokieGirl wrote: "....the gun violence advocates ..."
Who are you referring to? I know of no one on this site that fits that description. Exercising a right to own a gun and advocating for that right doesn't make someone a "gun VIOLENCE advocate", any more than you calling yourself a therapist indicates that you WANT people to have mental health problems.
You also wrote, "I too have repeatedly held in healing, the partners and children at risk or victims of gun violence."
And what did you do about it? Did you report all of those threats to police, as well as any of your mental health clients who might have indicated a desire to commit violence? If not, you are part of the problem by allowing known risks to go unchecked. The last few mass killings all involved individuals with known psychiatric conditions. What is the mental health community doing to prevent these predictable events besides wringing their hands and screaming privacy laws?
If you thought that you could post your views on this forum and have everyone recognize how misguided they have been all these years and instantly turn in their firearms to an agency as mismanaged as the BATF (think "Fast and Furious"), you were sadly mistaken. But when someone expresses an opposing viewpoint, you run from the discussion after quoting your husband's slur: "Having a rational conversation with the pro-gun lobby is like wrestling pigs; you both get muddy and the pig likes it."
When you wrote, "it is so nice that the gun violence advocates are required by this site to avoid profanity, name calling and other insults in their writing" I suppose what you were saying is that it is great that everyone who disagrees with you has to play nice, but YOU don't.
Oh, for heaven's sake! Let's just suppose we were all locked in room together and given the mandate to come up with just 3 things that:
could actually be done, and,
would probably reduce the risk of groups of people being shot to death
What do we suggest?
jSgeare, you have asked for too much, but i will try.
1) I am all for increasing the punishment for third party sales when someone knowingly buys a firearm for a criminal.
2) I am also for creating a national backgound check that anyone can do on themselves and print out the permission for ten days, so they can buy from a private party. it should be coupled with the seller then relieved of the risk of selling to a felon etc.
3) A national recognition that the reason these things happen has to do with bad parenting, progressive schooling and bad therapy or lack therof. We need a natioanl dialogue that makes people understand that going ballistic over a broken xbox is not a mental illness but simply a spiled brast on steroids.
4) all legal assault style weapons, large magazines and the accompanyng ammo should be required to be in a tamper proof gun safe, with the government providing a tax credit to buy it if nessasasry below certain income levels.
The problem is that none of these by themselves will do a thing and the odds of both sides agreeing to al four are slim to none.
I suppose people will come to their senses when some spolied brat thows a molotov cocktail through a window a burns some kids to death and thry realize that guns are only a part of the problem.
JSGeare-
1. the presence of armed law enforcement
2. the presence of armed law enforcement
3. see 1. and 2. above
Not bad, for starters. See what happens when you ask for solutions to a problem? People actually respond. Nice job!
Or maybe we could just turn figure out a way to keep the temperatures hovering around zero:
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/01/26/nyc-sees-no-murders-in-over-week-am...
Some commenters on this thread keep insisting that gun control doesn't work, or that it is "unconstitutional." Not so.
Gun control can and does keep criminals from legally purchasing "dangerous weapons." Since its inception, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System has kept about 1.8 million criminals from legal purchases. Unfortunately, they often find other ways (gun shows and other private sales) to circumvent the law.
Gun control has long been practiced in the United States and in the colonies. As Robert Spitzer, professor at SUNY and author of The politics of Gun Control, noted: "In 1619, the Virginia House of Burgesses passed a law making the transfer of guns to Native Americans punishable by death. Other laws across the colonies criminalized selling or giving firearms to slaves, indentured servants, Catholics, vagrants and those who refused to swear a loyalty oath to revolutionary forces. Guns could be confiscated or kept in central locations for the defense of the community."
And, as constitutional scholar Adam Winkler pointed out in The Secret History of Guns: "we’ve also always had gun control. The Founding Fathers instituted gun laws so intrusive that, were they running for office today, the NRA would not endorse them. While they did not care to completely disarm the citizenry, the founding generation denied gun ownership to many people: not only slaves and free blacks, but law-abiding white men who refused to swear loyalty to the Revolution."
Moreover, on the American frontier in the so-called "wild west," gun control was practiced too: "to stave off violence, new towns and cities enacted laws to bar carrying guns. In fact, the typical western town had stricter gun laws than many 21st-century states."
The NRA used to agree.
The NRA was originally created to improve "marksmanship," not to lobby against gun control or any kind of reasonable limitations and regulations of guns. In fact, as constitutional scholar Adam Winkler notes, "In the 1920s and ’30s, the NRA was at the forefront of legislative efforts to enact gun control." Its president, a three-time Olympic gold medalist in pistol shooting who was called “the best shot in America” helped to "draft the Uniform Firearms Act, a model of state-level gun-control legislation." As Winkler points out, "Frederick’s model law had three basic elements. The first required that no one carry a concealed handgun in public without a permit from the local police. A permit would be granted only to a “suitable” person with a “proper reason for carrying” a firearm. Second, the law required gun dealers to report to law enforcement every sale of a handgun, in essence creating a registry of small arms. Finally, the law imposed a two-day waiting period on handgun sales. The NRA today condemns every one of these provisions as a burdensome and ineffective infringement on the right to bear arms."
And, "When Congress was considering the first significant federal gun law of the 20th century—the National Firearms Act of 1934, which imposed a steep tax and registration requirements on “gangster guns” like machine guns and sawed-off shotguns—the NRA endorsed the law."
And, "In the 1960s, the NRA once again supported the push for new federal gun laws. After the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 by Lee Harvey Oswald, who had bought his gun through a mail-order ad in the NRA’s American Rifleman magazine, Franklin Orth, then the NRA’s executive vice president, testified in favor of banning mail-order rifle sales. 'We do not think that any sane American, who calls himself an American, can object to placing into this bill the instrument which killed the president of the United States'.”
Most importantly, the 2nd amendment was not written to "protect" the individual from government. It clearly had a military (state militia) purpose. And indeed, the Constitution is quite specific about militias, and armed insurrection.
Article I, Section 8, Clause 16 of the Constitution states that "Congress shall have the power to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia.” Moreover, the federal government is given the power in the Constitution to "discipline" state militias. Members of state militias (National Guard) take an oath to " support and defend the Constitution of the United States" and to " bear true faith and allegiance to the same." And the U.S. Constitution –– in Article III, Section 3, Clause 1 –– defines treason as "levying war" against the United States.
In DC v. Heller, Antonin Scalia wrote that there is an individual right to own guns. He simply made that up. It's a huge deviation from Scalia's supposed belief in an "original intent" of the Constitution.
Scalia wrote for the conservative majority that interpreting the Constitution – in this particular case, the 2nd amendment – means the Court is ...”guided by the principle that “[t]he Constitution was written to be understood by the voters; its words and phrases were used in their normal and ordinary as distinguished from technical meaning.” Not far after, Scalia says that the term “bear arms” was most frequently used in a military context.
Then Scalia veers abruptly – and inconsistently – from his earlier statement that the Constitution was to be interpreted in light of its “normal and ordinary” meaning to say that “Of course, as we have said, the fact that the phrase was commonly used in a particular context does not show that it is limited to that context.”
In other words, the “normal and ordinary” meaning is that “bears arms” applies to a military context, not to individuals, but since that doesn’t work for Scalia’s predetermined outcome, he’ll simply ignore an avowed philosophy of “original intent, and just make it up. Conservative jurist Richard Posner – appointed to the federal courts by Ronald Reagan – says it clear that the 2nd amendment does not have anything to do with an individual right to bear arms, but "That didn’t slow down Scalia. He loves guns. He’s a hunter.” Posner cites Scalia's decision as an example of the “real deterioration in conservative thinking.”
Some of the comments posted here are also impressive evidence of that deterioration.
One commenter says, and others imply, that the NRA "the NRA is made up of many common, everyday sorts of people, from all walks of life and every age group." Perhaps. But the NRA leadership (if it can be called that), is anything but "everyday sorts of people." It's comprised of right-wing fanatics who have no love for democracy.
The NRA recently called for more armed guards in schools. There are a lot of schools in the U.S (more than 132,000). And there are more than 440,000 school buses (armed guards there too?). Thus we are talking about a substantial cost to implement the NRA plan. But the NRA mostly backs conservative Republicans who detest any tax increase for any purpose. Just look at some of those who sit on the NRA Board of Directors:
• Grover Norquist (who created the pledge against any tax increase that gets forced on Republican politicians, and who said he wanted to make government so small it could be be "drowned" in a bathtub);
• former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr (who said "I am a real fan of handguns manufactured by Glock," and praised Glock's former CEO after he was convicted of racketeering and theft and sentenced to 7 years in prison);
• Kenneth Blackwell, former Ohio secretary of state, who made every effort to suppress voting rights there (and who has railed against abortion, the Affordable Care Act, gay marriage, women's rights, and who routinely touts "the supremacy of God.");
• John Bolton, former UN ambassador for George W. Bush, (who promoted false intelligence about Saddam Hussein tying to buy yellowcake uranium from Nigeria);
• former Idaho Senator Larry Craig (yeah, the same guy who took the "wide stance" in that Minneapolis bathroom stall...and who said, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, that the New Orleans lower 9th ward should be "turned back to what it was, wetlands.");
• former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore (who left the state with ruined finances, and then lied about, claiming, "State government is in sound financial shape." It wasn't. Gilmore is now the president of the right-wing Free Congress Foundation, started by Joseph Coors and Paul Weyrich, who infamously said, "I don't want everybody to vote.");
• Ted Nugent (who said [among other stupid things] that Barack Obama "is a Mao Zedong wannabe," and "hippies and communists hate me...which means I'm a really really good person," and "Mitt Romney's 67 percent statement is statistically irrefutable.");
• Oliver North, who subverted the Constitution, lied about it, and obstructed justice during the Iran Contra scandal (anad who continues to perpetrate the lie that torture "was what allowed us to find out where bin Laden was hiding," and who says that "the prophesies in the Bible are true." ;
• Chuck Norris, a grade C movie actor who said of former right-wing Alabama Supreme Court Judge Roy Moore, "he is a true patriot." As Alabama Chief Justice, Moore installed and refused to remove a two-and-a-half ton monument of the Ten Commandments in the Alabama judicial building...Moore was removed from his position by unanimous vote of the Alabama Court of the Judiciary. Both Roy Moore and Norris now pen columns for the right-wing rag WorldNetDaily.
The NRA truly has a tag team of right-wing "crazies" on its Board of Directors. They all believe in the same irresponsible stuff. The NRA calls for more government funding on behalf of an organization comprised of ideologues who both hate government and abhor tax increases of any kind. The term hypocrite does not do them justice.
Two of the most knowledgeable and respected Congressional scholars in the country, Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein, recently wrote this about the Republican party, which servies the NRA: "The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition...Today, thanks to the GOP, compromise has gone out the window in Washington." Perhaps that's why former Republican senator Chuck Hagel calls current Republicans "ideological," narrow" and "intolerant." And why a long-time Republican Congressional staffer calls Republicans "more like an apocalyptic cult" than a genuine political party.
As I pointed out, the 2nd amendment was not written to "protect" the individual from government. It clearly had a military (state militia) purpose. The Constitution is quite specific about militias, and armed insurrection.
Article I, Section 8, Clause 16 of the Constitution states that "Congress shall have the power to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia.” Moreover, the federal government is given the power in the Constitution to "discipline" state militias. Members of state militias (National Guard) take an oath to " support and defend the Constitution of the United States" and to " bear true faith and allegiance to the same." And the U.S. Constitution –– in Article III, Section 3, Clause 1 –– defines treason as "levying war" against the United States.
Yet, the underlying argument of the absolutist interpretation of the 2nd amendment – which is historically and constitutionally invalid – is that the purpose of the 2nd amendment is to protect individuals from democratic government. Untrue. In a democratic republic, the people are the source of governmental authority, and we have recurring elections. That's what democracy is.
And by constitutional definition, bearing arms – "levying war" – against a democratically-elected government is treason.
Gun control can and does keep criminals from legally purchasing "dangerous weapons."
I stopped reading right there. The rest of your argument must be invalid if you believe criminals are legally buying weapons. Hence the reason that background checks will do little to nothing to prevent future crimes. I would research the BATF&E database of background checks to see just how many people are denied weapons purchases in a given year. I doubt it's more than a single percentage point given the number of weapons sold.
democracy is a useful idiot per Stalin, aka a cloistered nerd shutin who believes things he reads in propagandist materials because he has no real world experience and is bitter against the world for making him useless to women because of his lack of confidence, and useless to men because he is physically inferior and a natural follower. You will often find this type of person clamoring for the revolution until it is over and the new regime has no need for dissenters, in which case they are dealt with like the gullible sheep they are.
@democracy...And what would we find if we looked at the Boards of MoveOn.org or some of Soros's international organizations? You slur each of the people you cite. Okay, here goes...
"And who sits at the head of the Clinton Global Initiative? A disbarred attorney who, as 50-something chief executive officer of the most powerful country in the world, seduced a 21-year-old intern in the Oval Office and lied both to the public and under oath about it...and was married with a child at the time."
I actually can plug in libs' names into virtually every slur to mention above.
You think the Repubs have become crazies? Wow, you must have thought the VT gunman was sane.
R.I.P.: Prof. Toru Tanaka
We can go on and on.
Demo says+++"As I pointed out, the 2nd amendment was not written to "protect" the individual from government. It clearly had a military (state militia) purpose. The Constitution is quite specific about militias, and armed insurrection."
The Supreme Court ruled differently. I guess it must have been because of the crazy conservatives on the bench.
Let’s face it; the liberals want to take fire arms away from private citizens. They have been beating that drum for years. The NRA is the only shield preventing that. Nobody else, no other organization has taken on that responsibility. I would encourage anyone who still believes in the constitution, to contribute to the NRA.
As far as magazines go, why would anyone want to limit their ability to protect them selves?
3 or 4 thugs invade your home with fire arms and magazines are limited to 10 rounds, you better be a very good shot or the bad guys will win.
Demo says...."Yet, the underlying argument of the absolutist interpretation of the 2nd amendment – which is historically and constitutionally invalid – is that the purpose of the 2nd amendment is to protect individuals from democratic government. Untrue. In a democratic republic, the people are the source of governmental authority, and we have recurring elections. That's what democracy is."
Demo...did you know? The NAZI party gained power through free elections?
Democracy, all of those early gun restriction laws you cite were before the 2nd amendment, or the entire Constitution were even ratified.. Perhaps those laws you cite had something to do with the very reason that the 2nd amendement was introduced in the first place.
Obama is trying to make this about hunters in the countryside and urban crime, trying to leave self defense out of the debate, So once they get redtrictions in place for urban areas they will attempt to redefine urban to include "sub-urban" until they manage to have any housing development of x density included etc etc etc. It won;t fly.
The self defense issue is the only one that needs to be addressed for the purposes of the Constitution. It is on this sole issue that our rights are guaranateed without question. Once that issue is settled once and for all then we can discuss what level of regulation is allowable under the 2nd amendment. But as long as their are people out there trying to ban all guns then no solutions wil be reached.
Most of the people out there who want to ban guns also want to keep abortion legal and unregulated. So I ask, will you come to the table to discuss the "regulation" of abortion if you thought the other sides only objective was to take 100% of your abortion rights away? Of course you wouldn't. So if you want progress then concede once and for all that the 2nd amendment guarantees the right to own a firearm and that taking away that right is off the table. Then we can look at ways to minimuze the damage that that right does to sociaty and find a balance like we do with other rights. (like free speech and illegal searches). The comstitution is in stone until recarved in stone, but we do have leeway within the framework to regulate so long as we don't break the written word.
By the way, remember that a gun is just a pipe a bullet and a hammer the rest is just machine work to make it easy. Any machine shop that redoes car engines has what it takes to produce a dozen a day after setting up the equipment. So just like abortions, all the regulations won't stop those that want one, there are plenty of people that would step up and make them "out back" as soon as the artifical shortage causes the price to climb enough to make it lucrative.
31 killings in chicago in january..... the city with the stongest gunlaws in the country....and the police are arresting moms for refusing to allow the (possibly unhealthy) smart electric meters on their own home. part of the reason they were arrested was for filming the police whch the SUPREME COURT ruled that the illinos law was unconstitutional.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/01/26/Chicago-Suburban-Moms...
This is why people fear the government and don't want to surrender their weapons. How far do you think governments would go if they knew no one had a weapon and you could simply abuse anyone at anytime without any fear? I am not saying we should have weapons to defend ourselves against the government but "speak softly and carry a big stick" goes both ways in keeping people honest.
In the end, it will be democratic senators who will kill all but a few very minor changes in gun laws. But that is only if our out of control executive has his wings clipped (again) by the courts - and is forced do do things legally and constitutionally.
This debate is like many others. People pretending that their political opinions are beneficial to public health, while they work for organizations that deliberately harm public health in various ways specifically due to that same political agenda. If Ms. Rasmussen REALLY cared about public health, she would have quit in protest already because her employer deliberately and institutionally keeps girls and women in the dark regarding breast cancer and preterm birth. But women taking drugs that are Group One carcinogens, and women getting abortions, both fit into what her political agenda is positive towards. So they continue to provide oral contraceptives and elective abortions, and they continue to lie to girls and women about both. This is due to their POLITICAL agenda, and directly thwarts public health. Our breast cancer rate has tripled. Our preterm birth rate has doubled, which has led to countless birth defects for children which were entirely needless.
My point is that public health only becomes interesting to these folks IF (and only IF) it fits in nicely with their political agenda. If not, well then they just don't want to talk about it. At all. Obviously, Ms. Rasmussen has done much for the health and well being of many children and adults as a surgeon. And that, of course, contributes a great deal to public health. But if indeed she is going to stick her neck out and comment regarding a controversial politica topic - which is her right - I have the right to respond to her and point out the obvious also. She conveniently ignores the victims of knife violence in this article. She conveniently ignores the killings going on at her workplace just down the hall and up a few floors. She conveniently ignores the heinous violations of informed consent at UVA that have already resulted in UVA alunas ending up with children with cerebral palsy and other birth defects.
So I don't have to accept that her opinion is infallible regarding public health. Far from it, actually. And I can point out clear and present hypocrisies and omissions in her discussion thereof. It doesn't mean she is totally wrong about guns. I think we'll see some minor changes in background checks and waiting periods, but that's it. And it won't effect much of anything in the aggregate. Chicago and Detroit will remain shooting galleries, while Wyoming and Virginia will remain brimming with guns and relatively peaceful.
Democracy wrote, 'Gun control can and does keep criminals from legally purchasing "dangerous weapons." '
Sure, and I guess you believe that all the restrictions that have been placed on buying Sudafed have eliminated meth production in this country.
Gun control debates are totally senseless. Not one person here has changed anybody's mind about more gun control or less gun control. The anti-gunners claim, "we're coming to get your guns!". The pro-gunners claim, "over my dead body!" Silly senseless huffing and puffing by both groups.
If you have questions about statistics or general information on guns and gun crimes try looking at:
http://gunfacts.info/pdfs/gun-facts/6.1/gun_facts_6_1_screen.pdf
INTERESTING INFORMATION: It's so damn wearisome how many ignorant oppositional idiots like you just have to jump into the fray, and always with no assist toward a due solution. The most recent per annum Virginia homicide stats are these: Gun 69.4% - Knife 11.3% - Other Weapon 19.3% Moreover, at the national level, firearm homicides surpassed drunk driver related deaths in 2009, and by 12%. The most minimal modicum of reasoning skills would lend anyone able to surmise why firearms would far exceed other means as a tool of homicide. And otherwise the whole point is that guns are made to kill people and compel intentional homicides, wherein cars are NOT made to kill people and drunk drivers don't intend to do so either.
matt bowen.... so if we took away ALL the guns would we actually reduce the number of homicides or would more peolpe just be bludgenoed or stabbed or even run over with a car. Most homicides are intentiional and we need to really look at how many we would reduce...
So lets say there were 100 killings done with guns. We now enact a very strict law closing the gun show loophole etc etc etc. So next year we reduce the homicides by maybe 20? okay but what about the year after that when the number of guns on the street are the same as ever and deaths are back to 100 again? The only thing that regulations will do is slow it down for a little while until the black market carches up with the new rules. Do you actually think that alcohol consumption has gone down even though the punsihments have gone up? Smoking is down due to education, not because of ID restrictions, that is just a minor inconviencence.
Try raising you kids not to kill. Stop allowing them to get away with temper tantrums when they are 5. they don't grow out of it any more than a dog stops biting without being punished.
Go for some reasonable regulation and education about letting guns fall into the wrong hands, but the streets of chicago prove that the guns will find thier way to the criminals like lindsay lohan to a coke fest.
Why not let the Executive branch decide who gets assault weapons? They already did that south of the border, and that turned out great...
Gun control advocates are fond of citing the Australian example, but not of the detail that murder rates didn't actually go down after the gun control law was passed. Criminals just used other weapons while illegal gun owners enjoyed attacking more vulnerable prey. They never, ever mention Switzerland - where fully automatic weapons are provided by the government and are as common as toasters. It's one of the most peaceful countries in the world.
Great point, HenHouse. This administration gave automatic assault weapons to mexican drug cartels, then covered up the details once one of them killed a federal agent. He was just as expendable and irrelevant as the ambassador and the soldiers in Benghazi, and of course the media is not interested in uncovering any of what really happened in both incidents. Bottom line is that this president has zero credibility when it comes to guns.
AVABill: The material is thorough and presented with little evident bias. It IS, however, very old in some particulars. For example, on page 35 appears this statement:
Fact: Schoolyard shooting deaths are not rising, rather, they have been falling through most of the 1990s: (213). The footnote refers to a paper: "Violence and Discipline Problems in U.S. Public Schools," by the National Center for Education Statistics,1996-97. Thus, the statement applies to a period measured well over a decade ago. We also don't know the sources of data used by the National Center.
Yet, the publication "Gun Facts" is 2012 edition.
Likewise this:
Fact: Only 10% of public schools reported one or more serious violent crimes during the 1996-97 school year.(214). Again, same reporting problem.
It is difficult to know, exactly, what reports and statistics are reliable. But in an attempt to come to grips with the magnitude (or lack thereof) of the problem, I have combined the statistics cited in Gun Facts" with those of "Info Please" who claims their data is drawn from newspaper reports, and can report the following distribution of "school yard shootings:"
Year RAVG
1992 55
1993 53
1994 42
1995 40
1996 37
1997 38
2000 33
2001 34
2002 44
2003 42
2005 40
2006 39
2007 43
2008 51
2010 56
2011 56
2012 66
The term "RAVG" refers to "running average," which means that for the year cited, the number of casualties (injuries plus killings) represents the yearly average including all casualties from 1997 to the year cited. Thus, the running average of 42 casualties for the year 2003 is the annual average of all casualties from 1997 through the year 2003.
The purpose of a "running average" is to smooth the results over time, so that unusually high or low casualties in any particular year don't distort historical trends. But as we can plainly see, the historical average as of 2012, at 66, is an all time high over the period measured. The raw data, year by year, looks like this:
Year CAS
1992 55
1993 51
1994 20
1995 35
1996 25
1997 40
2000 6
2001 23
2002 10
2003 4
2005 13
2006 17
2007 41
2008 29
2010 10
2011 32
2012 107
In the above, the term "CAS" refers to casualties.
The fact that 2012 is over 3 times greater than 2011, and 10 times greater than 2010, no doubt runs to the current fervor to "do something" about it. And the running averages would appear to support this visceral reaction.
My data may be criticized for lack of references to source material. In fact, it SHOULD be criticized for this deficiency. Then again, so should "Gun Facts." And this is exactly why study of the data should be done - to verify the accuracy of the sources, and develop reasonable conclusions. It would appear that the blockage of funds to the CDC for this purpose is, at least, counter-productive and that the NRA, if it wishes to retain its own credibility, should support such a study.
The data is the data and will support or challenge whatever aphorisms are presented in the meanwhile. But in the absence, none of us occupies a superior position to recommend guidance on how we handle the issue at hand.
The Swiss have many more guns per capita than Americans, yet they don't have this problem, WHY? There's no punishment. When we catch child abductors we have people on this very forum that begin to find excuses for the criminal. We have to punish crimes accordingly. We have to take care of the mentally ill and we have to protect our children in every way possible from crimes, violence, violence in movies and violence in games. The problem is half or more of our adult population is uneducated, immature, undisciplined and are the terrible at parenting!
The difference in firing a 20 round clip (which they want to ban) compaired to 2-10 round clips is about 1/2 second.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8C-CLsMRcA0
Sigh. The conservative naysayers, immune to facts, again resort to distortions, misrepresentations, lies, and ad hominem attacks to try and “prove” their goofy arguments.
Ponce de Leon tries this pearl: “all of those early gun restriction laws you cite were before the 2nd amendment, or the entire Constitution were even ratified.” Obviously Ponce de Leon knows little of American history.
First, gun control, as I cited, had a long record in the American colonies, including Virginia: "In 1619, the Virginia House of Burgesses passed a law making the transfer of guns to Native Americans punishable by death. Other laws across the colonies criminalized selling or giving firearms to slaves, indentured servants, Catholics, vagrants and those who refused to swear a loyalty oath to revolutionary forces. Guns could be confiscated or kept in central locations for the defense of the community."
Second, a law passed by Congress in 1792 required all guns to be “registered on public rolls.” The Constitution was ratified in 1789, and the Bill of Rights in 1791.
Third, all of the gun restrictions in the West were long after the ratification of both the Constitution and the 2nd amendment.
Liberalace whines that “You think the Repubs have become crazies.” They have, and there’s no doubt about it. Two of the most respected Congressional scholars in the nation have attested to that fact. Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein recently wrote this:
“We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional. In our past writings, we have criticized both parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the Republican Party. The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.” Former Republican senator (Nebraska) Chuck Hagel calls Republicans “irresponsible,” “narrow,” and “intolerant.” And a long-time Republican Congressional staffer says the GOP is “less like a traditional political party in a representative democracy and becoming more like an apocalyptic cult.” Even Bobby Jindal, creationist Republican governor of Louisiana, says Republicans need to “Stop being the stupid party.”
Whoa Nelly says “I guess it must have been because of the crazy conservatives on the bench” of the Supreme Court who “ruled differently” on the traditional and original interpretation of the 2nd amendment. Indeed, that is what I pointed out earlier.
Antonin Scalia (in DC v. Heller) wrote for the conservative majority that interpreting the Constitution – in this particular case, the 2nd amendment – means the Court is ...”guided by the principle that “[t]he Constitution was written to be understood by the voters; its words and phrases were used in their normal and ordinary as distinguished from technical meaning.” Not far after, Scalia says that the term “bear arms” was most frequently used in a military context.
Then Scalia veers abruptly – and inconsistently – from his earlier statement that the Constitution was to be interpreted in light of its “normal and ordinary” meaning to say that “Of course, as we have said, the fact that the phrase was commonly used in a particular context does not show that it is limited to that context.”
In other words, Scalia AGREES that the “normal and ordinary” meaning is that “bears arms” applies to a military context, not to individuals. But since that doesn’t work for Scalia’s predetermined outcome, he ignores his avowed philosophy of “original intent,” to just make something up. Conservative jurist Richard Posner – appointed to the federal courts by Ronald Reagan – says it clear that the 2nd amendment does not have anything to do with an individual right to bear arms. Posner says "That didn’t slow down Scalia. He loves guns.” Posner cites Scalia's decision as an example of the “real deterioration in conservative thinking.” (Conservative comments on this thread amplify that point.)
And poor Cruncher. It appears he suffers from a very bad case of projection, a defense mechanism utilized by extremely insecure people who take their “own unacceptable qualities or feelings and ascribe them to other people.” Sad.
And yes, Downtowner, gun control does work. It’d work much better if the NRA and conservative politicians helped to enact and enforce meaningful gun control laws. And yes, gun control not only has a long history in the United States (dating to the very early colonial period), but also gun control laws are constitutional.
Even Scalia noted this in the Heller decision, writing that nothing in his opinion should “be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.”
"You and billysixpack have such amazing insights for seemingly plebian commentators."
Thanks Chuck. You are so kind. Your infinite wisdom and command of the English/Latin languages puts you a few rungs above us plebes. I give up and support the good Doctor. I know all of you will support my latest efforts based on a heartfelt letter.
Dear Unwashed masses,
(the incident) Due to the latest tragic road accident that killed 20 kids by an unlicensed driver who was texting I urge all of you to support legislation to limit smartphone production and availability. As a medical pro. (Which I am not) I see the results of distracted driving every day.
(the villian) The telecom industry has repeatedly stopped legislation to limit use and the sale of smartphones. This new technology is much more powerful than the older phones that only allowed calling and did not have the distraction factor of the new powerful phones.
(my logical deductive sympathic reasoning) I and my family rely on these smartphones daily. Whether it be to find a destination or lookup miscellanious information but we are more than willing to give that up to save lives. I assure you this is no easy task but we must do something to stop this epidemic.
(conclusion and my solution you should all bow down to with no argument)
We must stop the telecom industry by putting pressure on our representives. No more lives should be lost from smart phone distractions. The telecom and technology industry must be stopped. I feel that the old flip phones should be adequate for 300 million people.
There ya go Chuck. Morde me.
hey Democracy
1) 1619 was 170 years before the Constitution was even written and 150 years before the Revolutiary war.
2) here is the link for your law requiring cun registration http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/09/the-secret-history-o...
(it required "elgiible "men to OWN a firearm and register that they had one to defend te country.... the same as we account for every soldiers gun to this day)
3)Those were western territories and not states at the time. Arizona wasn't even a state until 1912. long after the shootout at the ok corral.
Chicago has the most stringent gun laws in the country, they had seven homicides last weekend (but in all fairness 1 was a stabbing) So tell us again how those gun control laws are working so well.
Actually, the cell phone example may be another case in point. Distracted driving owing to their use has, evidently, been the cause or contributor to some pretty ugly accidents including the death of children. And so, some states have enacted laws to make use of cell phones illegal while driving. Facially, this seems hardly any different than attempting to control fire arms which are also known to kill people when improperly deployed (which includes killing).
The difference, of course, is that while few of us have ever seen a shooter mow down kids in a school, most all of us have seen what "distracted" driving (or distracted anything) does. In the past few weeks, I, myself, have barely escaped being broadsided by distracted drivers at 4 way stops, and elsewhere.
As to the characterization of Republicans as "crazies," the comment appears to be a bit too inclusive because there are probably some who are not. But their mindset, whatever it is, does not mean that democrats are therefore the opposite. I, myself, am a member of the PO Party (POP) but as its sole occupant, I must also be registered in a recognized political party. I'll leave that to your imagination.
But after all that, we still face what superficially appears to be a dramatic increase in school shootings, and the recent massacre which has called attention to the issue of controlling the dangerous use of fire arms. All the talk about what party adherents believe, and what the authors of the constitution REALLY meant, isn't getting much traction on that issue.
Sara thinks that at least, the CDC should be have funds available to produce a credible collection of data relevant to school shootings. Provided that such data is, indeed, untainted by any special agenda, the idea makes sense. Are there any reasonable arguments to the contrary?
@Bill and Ponce You're both pointing at Chicago and saying that strict gun control laws don't work because gun killings still occur. That doesn't follow, because what you don't have available are data on the number of killings that would have occurred in their absence.
@Billy You're picking on Chuck when it was me that said that. You actually make a case for restricting phone usage on the road. But that's a tangent. The issue is gun control and public safety. If your wife says it's time you did the dishes you don't bring up the laundry do you? (If you do and it works please let me know.)
Whatever side you're on the rules of logic are the same (and yeah I'm guilty of some snooty ad hominem posts above and won't do that in future). Aside from the current topic of gun control what drives me nuts is when people can't sensibly argue their positions.
I wonder if this is someone posting here.
Man banned from Charlottesville Kroger after entering with loaded AR-15
http://www.dailyprogress.com/news/article_42d81e6e-68d9-11e2-afbf-0019bb...
"An unidentified 22-year-old man carrying a loaded AR-15 semi-automatic rifle shortly after 5 p.m. Sunday was questioned and released by police at the Kroger at Hydraulic Road and Emmet Street.
Charlottesville police Lt. Ronnie Roberts said the man did not break any laws. Since he legally owned the rifle and it was not concealed, he was within his rights, Roberts said....
Roberts was not sure why the man was carrying a gun.
"It was most likely a demonstration of his Second Amendment rights," he said. "Open carry laws allow you to do that ... the difference here is he had an AR-15, which you can't conceal. You can do the same thing with a gun on your hip.""
The number of killings in an area with serious gun control will always be higher than in places without, cretin. You can look at any statistics in history, violent crime always increases after gun control. The reason why you can't take the 5 seconds to do so is because you're a coward who's selectively afraid of anything that bothers you, despite the fact you can't legislate safety. Treasonous people like you need to take a real hard look at themselves and figure out why you're doing what you're doing.
Also might I reiterate it's a waste of time to dispute democracy, as I said before he's a pale pasty, possibly fat nerd who has never gotten laid in his life. You might as well yell at a statue, except the statue has probably gotten more action.
A couple of years ago someone wrote a message on the free speech wall saying he was having thoughts of shooting a local doctor and claiming to have a gun. I wonder what people who have posted here who advocate for gun rights would say regarding that person right to own weapons. Is a public statement like that cause for concern?
What of today's stunt at Kroger? Should we be concerned about that person? Maybe that was someone testing the response in preparation for a future attack. There were several incidents in the days prior to the shootings at Virginia tech which seemed to have been to test the emergency response system.
@also curious...maybe you should just hide under your bed?
He was probably a liberal crazy (but I repeat myself) trying to discredit the millions of law abiding gun owners who only use them in cases of self defense. Anyway, if he said he was going to drive his car into a crowd of people, would we be looking to ban cars? The double standard that people use is very telling in showing that in almost every case, it is their irrational fear that they are reacting to, not fact.
My question wasn't whether making what appeared to be a threat of harming someone with a gun ought to result in the ban of guns. I think that was pretty clear from what I asked.
I asked whether a specific person should be barred from access to firearms based on a seemingly threatening public statement. Since the doctor that was referred to on the wall is one that performs legal abortions, I doubt if it was a "liberal crazy" who wrote about his thoughts of doing him harm.
I think that if guns could be bought at 7/11 in chicago the killings would go up substantially, and then down substantially as the liberal citezens had the killing spill over into their neghborhood and would change their mind about building jails and locking people up.
The reason places with higher gun control have more violence is because the laws were enacted to stem the already viloent situation, but it has not been proven to lower the murder rate in any city where they got tough on guns. When they get tough on criminals it wil change.
But, the simple fact of the matter is that until people on the left acknowledge that every citizen has an inalienable right to own a firearm for personal protection (from a criminal or the government) and that hunting is just a side dish that is irrelevant to the constitutional right then we will get nowhere because people simply do not believe you when you say it is not a slippery slope. The constituition give all us citizens the right to own a firearm for personal protection. The government does have the right to legislate what can be done with that firearm on federal lands and the states have the right to regulate it on state lands. Additionally, private land owners can say what is and is not allowed on their private property. So the voters decide the amount of regulation outside a domicile at the most "local" point as can be established and kroger decides whats allowed in their store.
That is as simple as it needs to get. If they want to regulate gun sales then let anyone who wants to buy a gun go for a voluntary background check and carry a purchasing license around with them that would exempt anyone that sells them a gun from liability and make it so that any straw purchasers serve mandatory sentences.
But none of that will matter as long as we raise our children like this:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e06_1359380173
and for those who read the above link and want to call racism here is another example from the other side of the tracks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PboUeFnpwTQ
this is why we have people killing each other... its the parents...
also curious: No I don't believe the misguided attention seeker at Kroeger should be denied his basic 2nd amendment right just because he walked into a grocery store with a loaded rifle he bought and owns legally. He was well within his right to do so however the attention he seeks will most likely turn out to be all bad from both sides of the debate. Having the right and the knowledge to use that right in a respectful manner are two different things entirely.
also curious, if you can find that person, then we can make a determination. Good luck.
Hypotheticals and fictional anecdotes are useless in determining public policy as all they are is licenses to knee jerk, and how we've ended up with insane zero tolerance laws that do nothing but break down societal gears. And I think it is definitely more likely that some liberal crazy wrote that, a mentally ill person who was making a serious threat is, I think, very rarely going to telegraph his actions.
Cruncher, I did not refer to hypothetical persons. My questions have to do with specific actions by specific persons. I've asked those who believe that all we need to do to regulate firearms is to keep potentially dangerous people from having access to them whether they think those actions are enough of a red flag to keep those person from possessing firearms. VABill has provided an intelligent response. I await your own if you are capable.
All additional regulations will do is fund a government bureaucracy and provide a slippery slope to banning all guns, which are liberals' ultimate goals to stop the nation from defending itself. The VT shooter and Adam Lanza, both of whom were documented to be mentally ill, found ways to get guns illegally, and in neither case would regulations have stopped them.
The mistake people make is thinking that people who want to break the law by committing crimes with firearms will have any compunction about breaking the law to obtain them. There is no other part of the debate that matters, it's all corner cases making bad law, and you're contributing to it by knee jerking over something that is very unlikely to ever happen.
I just read through all the comments in one sitting. Kind of discouraging. It was like watching a political debate. There seems to be no disagreement that we have a problem in America with the highest rate of gun violance of any "civilized" country. But rather than try to work toward solving that problem, some how, one side in the debate insists on disregarding logical argument, verified statistics, or any sense of value of public health and safety. Instead, they routinely resort to personal attacks, juvenile name-calling, and paranoid assertions about what will happen if the U.S. upgrades to a more mature level of civilization. When it is perfectly legal to walk into Kroger with a loaded AR-15, without any concern about how people will react to that or the risk that doing so entails, something is broken. What makes it even weirder is that the cops felt totally jusitifed in drawing their service revolvers on him and taking him into custody -- if he didn't represent a legitimate public threat in the eyes of the written law, at least he sure did in the eyes of those sworn to enforce it and protect the public. So, do we really think the 2nd Amendment enshrines a right to cause public terror, and isn't causing such terror with the purpose of making a political point (or was he taking it upon himself to enforce the "fewer than 15 items" rule?)the very definition of "terrorism"? That young man is plain lucky no one had a heart attack and died at Kroger when they saw him -- there'd be some legitimate causation questions under both criminal and civil law if that had happened.
Yeah, it's your God given right never to be uncomfortable, and it's worth taking away others' rights to do so, and there's only one "correct" way to think about it, because it's yours. Oh, and if the laws don't immediately support that, change them without due process, because democracy is such a bother.
You know the only people who actually think like that? Cowardly liberals.
Seung-Hui Cho passed all background checks that were required of him. Did that somehow help me or anyone else to defend ourselves?
And we're supposed to believe that if he had been denied, his homicidal urges would have just withered and died and he would have gone back to class magically and fit in forever? Sell me something else.
The guy at krger was being an idiot. If someone woth a concealed carry had pulled his weapon and shot him in cold blood the jury would let him walk as soon as he swore that the guy made eye contact and raised the rifle at him while reaching for the trigger.
It is very simple. They need to pass a law that says that shopping centers busineses etc etc allow guns or they don't and there could be a small placared on each business sign that delineates their choice. Gun owners would be required to know the law and act accordingly or be presumed to be a criminal or terrorist and could be arrested for carrying a firearm where it is disallowed.
@Cruncher, it's preposterous to think that carrying an AR-15 into Kroger should be an ordinary event to which people should not react. Give me a break.
@democracy, keep fighting the good fight, but I fear you are up against a bunch of right-wing ideologues who never met a Fox News segment they didn't swallow hook, line, and sinker.
It was a severe lapse in judgment but obviously there was no malicious intent as no one got hurt. So it's a happy ending. I don't know why liberals are flying off their chains at it, when the policies they would want to institute to ban guns will PROVABLY cause more murders and crime. The only logical conclusion is that they don't mind people dying as long as they don't have to feel uncomfortable, aka being a coward.
@Cruncher, it's not just liberals! It's anyone with an ounce of common sense. You see a gun, you assume bad intent. You are an idiot if you don't get away. He could have been there to do a mass shooting, for all we know. There are limits to rights. Your reasoning defies logic.
Bill Marshal: No we don't need any more "gun free zones". In case you haven't heard or read the criminals with illegal guns don'`t
Ok let me get this straight:
1) A non-violent yet crazy individual makes a foolish yet legal display and causes people to get rightfully tense.
2) The authorities were called.
3) The authorities talk with him, find out he has no malicious intentions, he is rightfully kicked out by the establishment who does not want his presence there.
4) No one gets hurt.
5) Somehow, the system is broken and we need to change laws so that we have an ALTERNATIVE ending.
Do you realize how insane that sounds when you actually look at it from a factual perspective instead of some hysterical knee jerking?
What is insane is the idea that carrying weapons around in public is either desirable or necessary.
Thanks for admitting that your irrational fears are how you make your decisions, just like every other statist. Congrats on Russia, by the way, people like you had to foul up really badly to make that happen.
"Pulled the trigger" too early so to speak:
Bill Marshal: No we don't need any more "gun free zones". In case you haven't heard or read the criminals with illegal guns don'`t abide by the current laws so what makes you think they'll abide by a gun free zone? In fact that kind of law would prevent me from protecting my family with my legally obtained concealed carry weapon with my legally obtained concealed carry permit. Those kind of laws only serve to keep the honest people honest.
vabiii YOU don't have a say in whether or not a private land owner or business alllows or doesn't allow guns in thier facility. If a community wants to put restrictions on guns in public places then that is what voting is for. If Charlottesville want to ban them in city parks they can and if Albemarle wants to allow them in county parks they can, and if the feds want to deal with the costitutuional issue in federal parks then the supreme court can decide.
The US constituion allows for regulaltion of guns on the state and local level.The constitution does not allow for denieing the right of ownership or possession in a private residence without cause (felon, mental illness etc)
Cruncher, The law DOES need to be changed, and the reason is because of idiots like this guy who are not smart enough to ask permission before bringing a rifle into a grocery store, especially at this juncture in time when people are on edge. So since we have stupid people we need to make laws like "don't kick the cat" and "dont pour used motor oil into the creek" and now perhaps a new one that says that all businesess have to expres their gun policy outside the establishment so that their customers can know what to expect if they see a guy with a rifle inside the store. He thinks he helped, and in the end maybe he did. maybe some unemployed entrepneur can come up with an international logo that says " no common sense ,no service" or "welcome to kmart, 5% discount for wounding shoplifters" Some busineses allow pets and some don't but I think it is reasonable to expect that someone not bring their pet goat shopping and ask first if they do.
I beleive that every person has a right to have a gun, knife, chainsaw or skunk to defend their own home. Once we are off the property the populace has a right to determine what is right for that community. As the arguments rage some communities will be all for guns and some wil not. We can then move where we want or live with the democratically consttiuionally chosen regulations.
There are as many idiots on the left as their are on the right and it is thse who are in the middle who should control the debate to seek a reasonable and workable compromise.
(in other words put Democracy back on his meds)
You people are so scared and fearful--of what, I don't know. The boogeymen are in your head.
I no longer respond to people that use the phrase" at this junture".
I no longer respond to people that use the phrase "at this juncture".
All very interesting. NOW, in response to Sara's suggestion, and to return to the original topic,
Does anyone object to classifying mass shootings as a public health concern?
Does anyone object to the allowing the CDC to assemble and analyze such relevant data as may help us better understand the circumstances which give rise to school shootings and produce recommendations to better prevent it?
JSGeare, I have no objection. It's long overdue.
JSGeare...sounds good in theory. But as government programs go it will probably spin out of control. For instance...if you have an elderly relation living at home with dementia, will guns be outlawed in that house? What about if one of your kids was taking something for ADHD, would that disqualify your from owning a handgun? You see where I'm going with this...
"So since we have stupid people we need to make laws like "don't kick the cat" and "dont pour used motor oil into the creek" and now perhaps a new one that says that all businesess have to expres their gun policy outside the establishment so that their customers can know what to expect if they see a guy with a rifle inside the store."
Can you tell me that you honestly read anything in the front part of a store? Now imagine someone who's probably either below average intelligence or possibly even a little wonky upstairs and expect him to read it. And now tell me how many episodes this is going to prevent even if it does help (it won't). And NOW tell me how it helps society to have this guy go to jail for being stupid instead of being given a stern warning.
Like I said, odd, isolated events make terrible precursors for laws. All it will do is give bureaucrats more power over peoples' lives by letting them control all the regulations behind these signs and play favorites. How many of the upper class stores in the mall would look great with a big gaudy "No Guns Allowed Here" sign on the tasteful storefront? Seriously, instead of knee jerking, THINK and figure out what is likely to happen instead of just assuming that a policy is going to work because it tangentially provides a desired effect for one isolated incident.
Nelly: I have not proposed any theory - I'm simply asking if it is reasonable to consider fortuitous killing (especially mass killing) as a valid public health concern, and asking if assembly of valid data and analysis (by the CDC, one would assume) is a reasonable idea.
So what would be the point of these exercises - and are they just that - mere exercises?
My opinion is that when any health risk becomes great enough either because of the severity or because of wide spread exposure, it generally falls within the scope of public health. Thus, the "health department" concerns itself both with food poisoning (severe) and with drug dependency (wide spread). These are "societal" health matters. Given that most seem to agree that the school shootings are initiated by people with mental health deficits, efforts at prevention and control would appear to include the domain of public health.
As to the CDC, I would presume them to be a logical central resource for design of a study, coordination of data gathering, analysis of the data and issuance of findings and recommendations. And, of course, the fact that all local health departments refer to the CDC means there is, potentially, an effective mechanism for receiving and distribution of information.
Neither of these suggestions will, in and of themselves, have any immediate impact on the issue of prevention and control of the massacres which have prompted this discussion. But without a body of data and some guidance on addressing the issue, we are left with exactly what we have seen here: political arguments, name calling, and personal opinions by folks who imagine that their own ideas about it are the "answer."
It may well be, after all is said and done, that nothing short of a police state could have prevented the shooters from killing students at VA Tech and at Newtown, at at other places. It may well be that, if we want to live in a "free society," then we'll just have to live with the inevitable, and yet unpredictable consequences. Maybe it all boils down to "live here at your own risk, and have a nice day." I'm OK with that. Been doing it that way for years.
But if that's the way it really is, I'd rather hear it from an authoritative source, then rely on the preachments of angry people who dodge the issue at hand so as to advance their own agenda, or personally attack those who disagree with them.
Pearls before swine, JSGeare, You can't get statists to admit that Mao and Stalin are two of the biggest mass murderers in history despite thousands of pages of documentation. Look at how the Obamacare bill got passed, backdoor dealing and manipulation of Congressional rules in inappropriate manners. It's useless to give them an inch, you have to use their propensity to fly off the handle as emotional children authoritative ultimatums of "No, you're wrong," because they are weak and cowardly human beings who cannot function independently.
JSGeare,
Good post, there are no easy answers to this one.
Remind me, Cruncher, won't you, to invite you to my next cocktail party, where all the world's problems are solved in a congenial atmosphere, free from characterizations of one's courage or intelligence. I can't imagine why none of this has yet had any impact on developments. More martinis are probably the solution.
Now, I'm not sure what a "statist" is, but if statists are unconvinced of the crimes against humanity perpetrated by Mao, Stalin, and their ilk, then I don't think I am one. And I'll stipulate that ObamaCare is the result of a lot of wheelin' and dealin' which its creators and supporters imagined was hidden from public view. But of course it was not. Then again, a lot of law gets on the books that way. Owing to the loss of earmarks, we may expect to see more of it, I think, as an adjustment. Business as usual, which is why I am a member of the POP party.
But, what the heck, humor an old man, won't you all? Just answer my questions, best you can.
Not YOU, Cruncher. You and I shall disappear from the Nomenclatura and hatch our own grand plan to resolve everything, once and for all. Are you with me on this?
There is no such thing as "resolving" society's issues. To even frame things in such a manner betrays the lines of thought we need in order to maintain or minimize them. And I agree, it's great fun to talk about it at parties. When the same discussions take place during board or Congressional meetings is when you should clutch your wallet and oil your gun.
And statists are the numerous faux intelligentsia in the nation to whom every negative in society could have been prevented if we magically submit to X law which, coincidentally, gives the biggest busybodies (them) the most control over others. If you haven't run into their number in Charlottesville of all areas I greatly envy your luck, or maybe not, as you could have won several lotteries sequentially with it.
Ah, a man after my own heart, Cruncher!
I am disappointed, however, to be advised that we can't resolve all the world's issues, even if the task laid only to the two of us. On the other hand, the failure to do so thus far suggests, to my chagrin, that you are probably right. A lot of wasted gin, there. I suppose that I shall have to attend retaliatory cocktail parties to, at least, get something of a refund.
I avoid Charlottesville, as much as possible, simply because my few visits there thus far have exposed me to the very same kind of people you describe, despite my attempts to enfold myself in the raiment of political correctness and fly under their radar.
Yet I hold out to you that even in Cville, there are enclaves, or perhaps cells would be a better word, of those people who have miraculously escaped perfection in every thought and deed. I dare say no more. lest I reveal myself and be forever marked as plebian, a characterization which would immediately and for all time crush my fragile ego.
It's a jungle out there.
Bringing an assault rifle into Kroger's to show off a right to do so doesn't help
JSGeare wrote: "Does anyone object to the allowing the CDC to assemble and analyze such relevant data as may help us better understand the circumstances which give rise to school shootings and produce recommendations to better prevent it?"
Yes, I do object. As someone who works in healthcare, I am acutely aware of the biases of the CDC. And the question that you propose to answer, is not what the CDC wanted to study, at least according to Sara's statement, "10 years ago they [the NRA] succeeded in eliminating federal funding to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) for public health research that would examine the effects of gun violence on our society.' You want to study the causes, the CDC wanted to study the effects. We already know the effects of gun violence - people are injured or killed, and violence begets more violence. That is true of any type of violence, regardless of weapon, or location, such as school violence versus inner city street violence. Look at what is happening worldwide - a peaceful protest against some government policy is held, the protestors are arrested with undue force, more violent protests ensue, violent government crackdown, rebel groups are formed, and violence escalates. Do we really need to spend millions of dollars to figure that out? Why don't we just look at our own history and recognize that gun violence didn't decrease during the years of the assault weapons ban, alcohol consumption didn't decrease during Prohibition, meth production hasn't been eliminated just because the state has established limits on an individual's ability to buy Sudafed.
Sara failed to mention that barring CDC funding for such a study did not ban research funded through other channels. If the study was an important one, there are numerous sources of private and public funding which could have allowed the research to be conducted, as long as it was designed in a relatively unbiased fashion subject to scientific review. The lack of such studies funded from other sources suggests to me that the question was either felt to be irrelevant, or unworthy of funding, or did not meet the standards of scientific rigor. We seem to have sufficient tax dollars to study the mating patterns of poison dart frogs in the rain forest, so you can make up your own reasons why no other groups stepped up to the plate to answer the question posed by the CDC.
Now if you want to ask why do people have violent tendencies, there is also a wide body of research already available, some of which suggest nature, some of which suggests nuture. What can we do to prevent violent tendencies? That is another question, again with a large body of research already in existence. But that includes things like "good parenting" and reducing exposure to violence, and would require people (and Hollywood and digital gaming companies) to assume responsibility, something we seem to have lost in this society.
JS - When you say that you'd "rather hear it from an authoritative source". You've hit on the nub of the problem. When it comes to politically charged issues, there are no authoritative sources anymore.
Case in point is the Doc who wrote the little essay above. Normally we'd consider a Doc with ER training to be an authoritative source, but when she says things that are obviously false like: "And, I recently learned, that they (the NRA) succeeded in making it illegal for me, as a physician, to ask my patients about guns in the home" she brands herself either a fool or a liar, and loses any claim to authority.
Unfortunately, even scientists working at governmental agencies like the CDC have their own agendas, and gun owners are perhaps rightfully afraid that any data they gather will be spun to support the conclusions they had in mind before any study was done.
If we find an authoritative source on this issue, let me know, 'cause I'd love to read it.
This clarifies the "Can Doctors Ask About Guns" question: http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/features/insuring-your-health/2012/11271...
"The 2010 federal health law doesn't prevent doctors from asking about guns, but it does prohibit insurers, employers and the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services from asking about gun ownership in many instances, and it prohibits HHS from collecting such data."
The part about HHS collecting data is the part that would keep the CDC from collecting data.
I think insurers should be able to ask: "In 2009, one in five deaths caused by injuries to people younger than 20 were related to firearms, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics' revised policy statement on gun-related injuries released in October." They charge you higher car insurance if you smoke, why not charge more for health care if you own a gun?
This article clarifies the "Can Doctors Ask About Guns" question: http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/features/insuring-your-health/2012/11271...
"The 2010 federal health law doesn't prevent doctors from asking about guns, but it does prohibit insurers, employers and the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services from asking about gun ownership in many instances, and it prohibits HHS from collecting such data."
The part about HHS collecting data is the part that would keep the CDC from collecting data.
I think insurers should be able to ask: "In 2009, one in five deaths caused by injuries to people younger than 20 were related to firearms, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics' revised policy statement on gun-related injuries released in October." They charge you higher car insurance if you smoke, why not charge more for health care if you own a gun?
@Carrboro Pete, there are plenty of authoritative sources, but the right wing spends a lot of time trying to obfuscate their findings and discredit them. Just sayin'
http://www.ncsl.org/documents/health/ppaca-consolidated.pdf
This is a cut and paste and may not format right in this setting. See the source linked to above in that case.
An Act
Entitled The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
‘‘(c) PROTECTION OF SECOND AMENDMENT GUN RIGHTS.—øAs
added by section 10101(e)(2)¿
‘‘(1) WELLNESS AND PREVENTION PROGRAMS.—A wellness
and health promotion activity implemented under subsection
(a)(1)(D) may not require the disclosure or collection of any
information relating to—
‘‘(A) the presence or storage of a lawfully-possessed
firearm or ammunition in the residence or on the property
of an individual; or
‘‘(B) the lawful use, possession, or storage of a firearm
or ammunition by an individual.
‘‘(2) LIMITATION ON DATA COLLECTION.—None of the
authorities provided to the Secretary under the Patient Protection
and Affordable Care Act or an amendment made by that
Act shall be construed to authorize or may be used for the
collection of any information relating to—
‘‘(A) the lawful ownership or possession of a firearm
or ammunition;
‘‘(B) the lawful use of a firearm or ammunition; or
‘‘(C) the lawful storage of a firearm or ammunition.
‘‘(3) LIMITATION ON DATABASES OR DATA BANKS.—None of
the authorities provided to the Secretary under the Patient
Protection and Affordable Care Act or an amendment made
by that Act shall be construed to authorize or may be usedto maintain records of individual ownership or possession of
a firearm or ammunition.
‘‘(4) LIMITATION ON DETERMINATION OF PREMIUM RATES OR
ELIGIBILITY FOR HEALTH INSURANCE.—A premium rate may not
be increased, health insurance coverage may not be denied,
and a discount, rebate, or reward offered for participation in
a wellness program may not be reduced or withheld under
any health benefit plan issued pursuant to or in accordance
with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or an
amendment made by that Act on the basis of, or on reliance
upon—
‘‘(A) the lawful ownership or possession of a firearm
or ammunition; or
‘‘(B) the lawful use or storage of a firearm or ammunition.
‘‘(5) LIMITATION ON DATA COLLECTION REQUIREMENTS FOR
INDIVIDUALS.—No individual shall be required to disclose any
information under any data collection activity authorized under
the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or an amendment
made by that Act relating to—
‘‘(A) the lawful ownership or possession of a firearm
or ammunition; or
‘‘(B) the lawful use, possession, or storage of a firearm
or ammunition.
‘‘(d) REGULATIONS.—
@Twinmom: I hate it when people like you come along and trash my ideas by the simple deployment of unvarnished logic and clear thought. So, let me revise my tactics and see if I can fabricate something else that might ward off clear thinking, and make it so I always win.
"Yes, I do object. As someone who works in healthcare, I am acutely aware of the biases of the CDC." Sorry, mom, but since I have no idea what you do in healthcare, your mere occupancy of some space in a broad spectrum of the workforce is insufficient to qualify you as either an expert or an informed source. But if you can specify exactly the specific bias of the CDC and support your claim with documented evidence that I may verify at the source, I'll be glad to consider your claim. So, nya, nya nya!
Causes and effects: Ya got me! Yes, the effects are self evident, so we perhaps should be looking for causes or contributing factors which possibly can be addressed. My point is that the discussion needs to be raised to some level beyond.
As to Sara's essay, her opinion is that gun violence be considered as a public health concern, and that the government should not be taking instruction from the NRA on the matter.
But what's good for the goose is good for the gander, here. So, OK, the defect in your posturing as a healthcare worker doesn't make my opinion any more viable. Likewise, your calling out the deficiencies in Sara's rhetoric doesn't have much to do, really, with the issue of elevating gun violence to the status of a public health focus. Leave the CDC out of it? Fine by me. Let someone else do it.
I have already supported armed security in schools as an immediate measure to "stop the bleeding." So now I am simply asking if we should do more to understand WHY we are bleeding.
It really does seem like an instance of governmental overreach for it to be illegal for insurance companies to not be able to conduct their risk-assessment business based on the full information needed to make accurate actuarial predictions. They should be able to price their products based on a free-market access to all relevant facts. A law that prevents this, whether federal, state or local, inappropriately interferes with the market, and drives up the price of insurance for the rest of us (don't think for a minute that insurance companies haven't passed the cost of uncertainty regarding which households have guns on to all of us). I support the idea of some prominant Republicans to require, just like for cars and motorcycles, licensing, registration, and insurance of gun ownership, and then letting the market reflect the true cost of such ownership for those who choose to exercise their 2nd amendment rights.
@omnivore, well said. That part of the ACA is a reflection of the NRA's lobbying efforts. It does seem like overreach--it's not like gun owners are a protected class that needs help to avoid being discriminated against.
@Dawg,
Gun owners have of late most certainly been discriminated against in many media circles. But to be quite honest, people who choose not to protect their homes with a firearm would in my opinion be at a higher risk to insurance companies that those who do.
@omnivore - show me the research that demonstrates that LEGAL ownership of firearms is associated with increased health risks. Living in a neighborhood where there are gangs with ILLEGAL firearms might increase your risk of being shot whether you own a gun or not, working in a "bad neighborhood" carrying large sums of cash might increase your risk, but you will have to convince me that legal ownership carries increased risks to the individual, his/her family or the neighborhood. The news media likes to report stories about all the bad guys who commit violence against others with guns. That skews your view into thinking that gun ownership is associated with violence when the truth is that there are many, many law-abiding gun owners who are non-violent and responsible.
The Affordable Care Act has a few good sections, and the one cited by Also Curious is one of them. It was meant to prevent the government from using doctors and hospitals to collect data (aka spy) on citizens who were legally exercising their 2A rights, creating databases of gunowners and then using that database to persecute people who have not committed a crime. Many physicians ask their pts if they smoke, drink alcohol, use drugs, even if the pt is underage and using these things illegally. While those actions are known to have harmful effects on health, the government doesn't collect the data from health care providers to use against the individuals who confide in their physicians. That would truly be "governmental overreach", just like asking physicians to turn in every suspected illegal immigrant they treat.
Why does a physician need to know whether you own a gun or not? If physicians want to provide gunowners with information on the importance of keeping firearms locked up and away from children, they can do it with a brochure that doesn't involve collecting data on you.
Many individuals who own firearms purchase insurance for them as part of their homeowners' policy, and the owner pays a premium for the protection. It is not passed on to the rest of you, any more than the additional costs associated with various risky behaviors are. Maybe the insurance companies should start charging higher premiums for anyone who is overweight, or who admits to having a couple of beers watching the SuperBowl, or who enjoys active sports like skiing, scubadiving, or mountain climbing? What about traveling salesmen who drive extended distances? The list could go on and on to include every activity that is potentially dangerous and carries greater risk of injury.
"Aside from the current topic of gun control what drives me nuts is when people can't sensibly argue their positions." Sorry to Chuckles and not picking on you dolemite.
Those posts do argue the position dole. I argue the 2nd amend did not restrict the residents at the time to sub-par technology or restrict the number weapons owned. I argue that the data is not there to even be looking at gun restrictions. I also argue with that 'snooty' post I can take any crisis and shift the fault to an inanimate object instead of behavior.
Take a look at this. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr60/nvsr60_03.pdf
This is for 2009. Check out the deaths by firearms and the breakdown of homocide vs suicide then look at per capita. Later dude.
Go to injury/intent section and select table 18.
@Carrboro: I can only agree:
As to Sara's claims, I would never expect her, or any doctor, to be an authority outside the domain of their medical expertise. Sara writes, "I recently learned, that they (the NRA) succeeded in making it illegal for me, as a physician, to ask my patients about guns in the home– a screening question that I was taught in medical school was crucial to caring for my patients." (Parenthetical material mine).
Well, I can see very clearly from the language of the Affordable Care Act cited above (I assume the citations are accurate) why a doctor might be nervous about asking too many question regarding guns in the home, especially if the doctor is not conversant with the controlling law. On the other hand, I also see that the intent of the language is to steer clear of abusing the act by making it a mechanism for collecting information about legally owned fire arms and ammunition. It is difficult to say, with precision, how this works in any particular case, but let me draw a reasonable inference:
A youngster presents with a gunshot wound to her face."Oh my! What happened?" exclaims the doctor. "Daddy and Mommy were fighting and Daddy took out his gun and when Mommy tried to grab it, the gun went off, I ran out side and the neighbors brought me here." sobs the child. STOP! At this point, the doctor would probably be well advised to call the cops and send them over to the house. BUT SUPPOSE the doctor begins to ask more questions, such as how many and what kind of guns, how they are stored, whether daddy has ever been arrested before, etc. THAT is where the Act draws the line. Note that the Act limits itself to collection, recording and disclosure. It does NOT forbid a health care provider from asking any question at all about a fire arm or ammo; certainly, the question may be medically necessary. But recording, collecting and disclosing information about the guns and ammo is forbidden. None of this information is medically necessary. The police, however, may well do some investigating as might CPS. Those people don't fall within the scope of the Act.
All that said, I can stipulate that after having been in the company of hundreds of doctors, I can say that a high percentage seem to think their expertise in a medical specialty somehow makes them experts in many other areas. When I sold medical malpractice insurance, I quickly learned that my 2 decades of experience in the field meant nothing, really - the doctors were much more advanced in the subject than I could ever be. Likewise when I sold medical office management systems, most doctors presumed to educate ME on the latest hardware and software systems. Of course, there was an instant role reversal when a malpractice claim came in, or the doctor's computer caught a "virus." THEN, I became the instant expert.
But, I digress. What were we talking about? Oh yes! The effects of senile dementia on old men participating in discussion forums.
I HAVE noticed, I think, a dearth of authoritative material with respect to statistics on gun violence and the impact of such controls as have been imposed. A primary example is Gunfacts.info, "Your Guide to Debunking Gun Control Myths." The 2012 edition is full of graphs, quick fact lists and many footnotes. It LOOKS like the real deal. The problem is that some of the references predate the current edition by a decade or more. Thus, to say that school yard shootings are not rising is true only for the period cited. The figures I pulled together show that ARE rising. The again, my data may be lousy, because the source is indicated only as newspaper stories.
So, what I think I think is that the data is so diffuse and so variable that there really is no way to see a big picture ACCURATELY. The latest statistics I can find from the FBI are almost 10 years old! So I agree, there is no handy source of data from which to advance an authoritative statement, and your pedigree, profession or experience don't count. SHOW ME THE DATA, and, meanwhile, spare me the flawed logic.
And this is why I say, somehow, some way, it might be very helpful to have a body of data whose sources and whose conclusions meet the tests of scientific, peer reviewed acceptability.
billysixpack, what is your point? Death by firearm, whether suicide or homicide, was 17.7% of all injury deaths, second to poisoning. Unintentional injuries were the fifth leading cause of death that year. The data do support that gun deaths are a public health problem and should be dealt with accordingly. In the meantime, watch this video of "responsible gun owners" in action and tell me that they are all outliers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=rLTvAn-ozoQ
@WhoaNelly and @twinmom, we all have our opinions, and sometimes they are based on facts. I admit I don't have my hands on the stats regarding what increase or decrease in risk of death by firearm is associated with keeping a loaded gun in the house, but consider this: The fact that the ACA prohibits insurance companies from asking for would-be policy holder information on this suggests that they, who are professionals at conducting such mathematical risk assessment, would like to have that info and suspect that such ownership increases that risk, such that they might want to deny coverage or raise premiums on a gun-owning household or a gun-carrying vehicle or a gun-toting person's umbrella policy. They might want to do this merely in order to increase their own chances of profitable business. Most insurance companies aren't in the business of conducting free espionage for prying government agencies. They are in business in order to make money. Period. A law that restricts their ability to do that is a step towards totalitariansim, to a true market conservative. All they want to do is minimize their own risk of having to pay out for stupid accidents committed by negligent policy holders, but the ACA provision forces them to temporarily eat that risk. It also, then -- because insurance companies aren't stupid and have a way to pass those costs along -- has the wealth-redistributing effect of forcing the mass to cover the costs accrued by the few, in the form or higher general premiums. I don't like having to pay for something that gives me no direct benefit. Which is why I also support mandatory helmet laws for motorcycle riders -- why should my auto premiums be higher just becasue some fool wants to feel the wind blowing through his greasy hair, before he wipes out on a slick road and cracks his stupid head open on the pavement? Saw a funny bumpersticker the other day: when guns become illegal, only criminals' idiot kids will accidentally blow their siblings' brains out.
The reason the NRA lobbied for gun ownership to not be alllowed in determining rates is because they KNOW that that would be used as a way to discourage gun ownership as a public policy and liken it to cigarette smoking which the Obamacare SPECIFICALLY allows insurers to charge a 50% premium for smokers which will NOT be reimbursed by the welfare grants/tax subsidies for those who are elgible under the generous subsdidy program. (so all of you obamacare lovers who are smokers better save your money because if your premium was 6k and the governmet will help with a 3k offset and the insurance surcharges another 3k smokers penalty then you are back to 6k)
There is always a hidden agenda on both side of the aisle.
Accept that people have the right to own wahatever they want in thier own home , regulate public spaces depending on what the voters want, and hold people liable for accidents caused by misuse and throttle people with wega jail time for straw man buying.
But more important than all of that is to start raising your kids to not be soiselfish that they will kill children when their xbox gets taken away.
Maybe the CDC should look at the correlation between violent people who got "talked to" when they kicked the cat instead of walloped and asked " how does it feel" Now go to your room and think about what you just did"
@Bill Marshall, so what is it that causes us to have such a higher rate of gun violence in this country, compared to all other developed countries? Are we more societally permissive or spoiling of our children than the Europeans? Doubt it. Do we lock up our criminals at a lower rate than England or Australia do? Nope. Do we coddle our citizens more with public welfare and health programs than Canada does? Nope again. Are we more stocked full of undereducated imbeciles than Japan and Korea? Well, yeah, probably, based on our STEM scores, but their teenage kids are just as big fans of violent movies and video games as ours are. Do we have, per capita, a hell of a lot more guns than any of those other civilized places? YES INDEED WE DO. See why it's so easy to infer a correlation? The prevalance of the object of destruction necessarily rasies the risk that destruction will ensue, just like in that video that Dawg linked to. Those people weren't criminals, at least not in the depiction of what they were doing, they were just exposing their own fool selevs to a higher risk of harm, and came up craps.
"billysixpack, what is your point?"
31,347 total
554 unintentional
18,735 suicide
11,493 homicide
Really dawg? So 554 unintentional deaths is a national crisis that warrants more gun control measures and doctors wanting to know what is in your home?
18,735 suicides point directly to mental health issues. So we need more legislation on guns so people that have issues can use an alternative way to end their lives and still not receive the real help they need?
11,493 intentional killings in 2009 with firearms is a 3.7 per 100000 and is not number 2 on the list.
70 million gun owners in this country and there were 12,047 total intentional/accidental deaths in 2009.
So we have a national health crisis huh?
Quit trying to be mommy and daddy to 70 million people and start being a mommy and daddy to you own kids first.
@Billycrackerjack, it was second in the subcategory of accidental injury. And do you think unintentional deaths are the only thing we should worry about? Homicide isn't an issue? You and your kin are probably in this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=rLTvAn-ozoQ
The fact is that the language in the Affordable Care Act was enough that many doctors, including the American Academy of Pediatrics as a group, felt intimidated and expressed their concern about what the true meaning of the language in this clause meant. I think the point that Dr. Rasmussen was trying to make is, why is the NRA trying to exert influence on a Health Care law?
Certainly if they know enough about health care law to influence the wording of such legislation, then doctors can use their knowledge and experience to try to influence gun control legislation? You can't tell Dr. Rasmussen to stay out of debates she doesn't understand and then at the same time not criticize the NRA for doing the same thing with the Health Care law.
And, it is only by doctors and health care providers raising these concerns that brought President Obama forward to clarify the language. We need people questioning their interpretations of the law so that we can all understand it.
@JSGeare wrote, "...the doctor would probably be well advised to call the cops and send them over to the house."
Gunshot wounds, as well as any suspected abuse or neglect, must be reported to law enforcement in Virginia, http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+54.1-2967
and most if not all other states, and it is up to law enforcement to do the investigation to determine the perpetrator. The MD's responsibility is to treat the patient, not interrogate the victim or witnesses, or solve the crime. It would be a big stretch of those laws to REQUIRE health professionals to collect data on gun ownership when there was no evidence that any crime might have occurred, and my guess is that it would be challenged as an illegal search. I agree with you, the ACA is trying to prevent governmental and insurance entities from using the doctor-pt relationship to push their political and/or financial agendas and goals. And that is a good thing.
I also agree with you, that being a medical professional does not make a person an expert in other areas. Funny isn't it, that the Hook chose to have a physician address the topic? Also interesting is the title of this article, "Surgeon's decree: Gun control a public health issue" in that the author writes about gun CONTROL. I might be willing to concede that violence (including use of firearms to commit it) is a public health issue and worthy of study, but gun CONTROL is beyond the scope of such public health investigations. It would be akin to advocating the use of aspirin long before we identified all potential causes of a headache.
The CDC was banned from using their funding “to advocate or promote gun control” by Congress in 1996. Sara is incorrect when she stated that they eliminated " federal funding to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) for public health research that would examine the effects of gun violence on our society." The CDC has continued to collect data on firearms and other types of injuries and causes of death. To my knowledge, they have never been prohibited from investigating the root causes of violent behavior; they just are not allowed to advocate for gun control as the mechanism to reduce it.
@twinmom, that is the problem: What if the CDC's research points to gun control as the best way to reduce gun violence? I don't like research scientists (those doing high-quality research, that is) being muzzled, regardless of what side of the debate the research supports.
omnivore, it depends on what you mean by "gun violence" the us has a lower per capita violent crime rate then the UK, our a-holes just use guns. I am not sure whether given the choice of living in a town where my chances of being bludgeoened were higher than the next town where my odds of an assult were less but they would be by use of a gun. which is the better choice.
There are many side to this
1) accidental shootings from careless gun owners.
2) violent crimes committed by illegal guns
3) acts of mental breakdowns like Newtown.
4) domestic crime
So my beliefs are that we spend too much time trying to take away guns and zero time telling people to lock them up. When someone gets killed because of a careless gun owner then the judges say "they suffered enough from the loss and let them get probation.
My belief is also that we don't have enough jail cells. Vertually every criminal they convict of killing with a gun has been in recent trouble with the law and given a sentence that was obviously too lean or they wouldn't have reoffended. I would rather pay taxes for jails where criminals are woken up at 5 am eveeryday and made to work to earn thier keep by growing food for poor countries/people etc etc than pay millions for cops and proescuters to try and convict them of murder. (not to mention the cost to victims families and what the legacy costs of that are)
The acts of mental breakdowns are a direct result of spoiled rotten kids in this country and a giant failure of the liberal progressive education and mental health system. Most kids that "can't pay attention simply were never forced to pay attention when they were younger by wacking them on the back of the head and saying "pay attention" instead of trying to discuss with them why they are uninterested in your stupid story about how its not nice to throw trash on the ground because it could cause global warming.
and last but not least is domestic crime, 9 out of 10 domestic killings are folllowed up by a friend of the victim saying " I tried to warn her" Removing guns may save someones life that day, but when they stick around they will either be stabbed or bludgenoed to death. Removing guns won't fix that as much as people removing themselves from a bad situation which should not be the burden of the government except in a last case scenario. If you have no friends you can run to when someone wants to kill you then maybe you have other problems besides bad taste in men. (sorrry ladies , I know that gets many of you mad, but if you get a black eye from anyomne it aint gettin better) I say lock em up and I am fine with that. but there is often two doing that tango.
I also think that every person should be able to get from the federal government at no cost to them a license to buy a gun that they can carry with them and whenever they buy a gun the seller can call a toll free number or search it on the internet to make sure it is valid and if it is the sale can go through. If the person is arrested or in a nuthosue the license would be suspended until it is resolved. Every gun show could then have a kiosk for person to person sales and 90% of the problem is solved. If someone doesn't want to go through a background check then the seller can take their chances and go to jail for SELLING a gun without proper paperwork. and we can establish safeties and protocols so that sellers who register the sales are held harmless. I am all for responsible gun ownership.
But the fact of the matter is that no citizen should be prohibited from owning a gun capable of killing someone point blank with one shot while inside their own home. The rest is just sorting out details and compromises and both side accepting responsbilities for their roles in how we got here.
Dawg,
How ever will "CDC's research point to gun control as the best way to reduce gun violence?" I don't know how you could ever test that theory. You can examine the causes of violent behavior, pointing either to nature (genetic tendencies) or nuture (eg, exposure to violent images in the media, films, games; witnessing violence firsthand; being a victim of violence, etc). You could try to determine if legally owning a gun puts you at increased risk of gun violence, but you would have to have a control group of people who lived in the same neighborhoods and engaged in similar potentially risky behaviors (such as carrying large amounts of cash in bad neighborhoods or working at a 7/11) who didn't own firearms. How would you ever get data on the risks associated with ILLEGAL gun ownership, since the owners are exactly forthcoming about it? Could you look at societies where guns have been banned versus those where there are no gun laws and relate that to gun violence? That's already been done, and we find many examples were there is no correlation, such as Chicago, New York City, Switzerland and some of the Arab spring countries. Did gun violence increase in this country after the ban on assault weapons expired? Had it decreased significantly when the ban was in effect?
The problem with the CDC is that it has a political agenda. They have already decided, as have many MDs such as Sara, that you can reduce violence in society by passing stricter gun control laws. That is a THEORY, not a fact, that has never been proven. Declaring marijuana an illegal drug certainly hasn't stopped its usage, restricting the purchase of Sudafed hasn't stopped the meth labs. Why do we think that further restrictions on gun purchases will have any effect?
Now if you want to talk about the effects of tracing illegal weapons that are used in crimes so you can find the purchasing sources, or you want to talk about the effects of stiff sentences for those conducting straw purchases or use of firearms when committing a crime, I'm happy to move forward. But the Justice Dept and BATF have not met their responsibilities in controlling the sale of illegal weapons. Why give them more work to do going after otherwise law-abiding citizens by creating a class of criminals?
Hey Bill Marshall that was a nice thoughtful and rational post. Well done sir! I still think the spoiled kids bit is hard to prove and its relation to effects harder still; but that doesn't mean you're not right.
And this bon mot further up was the high point (at least the comic high point) of the whole discussion for me: "Some busineses allow pets and some don't but I think it is reasonable to expect that someone not bring their pet goat shopping and ask first if they do."
twinmom: It is important, I think, to get our made up facts in order, here. You have written ". . . CDC . . . has a political agenda. They have already decided, as have many MDs such as Sara, that you can reduce violence in society by passing stricter gun control laws."
Yet you supply no references to support this claim. As to the CDC, I have made an effort to find such evidence myself, and have come up empty. On the other hand, I do find a news article which refers to CDC funded studies (not in-house studies) indicated that homicides in the home tended to occur more often in homes with guns. I have read the New England Journal study which is the source, and find no suggestion that tighter gun control, or even any control at all was recommended by the NEJ. What they reported was, "People who keep guns in their homes appear to be at greater risk of homicide in the home than people who do not." Their recommendation was this: "this observation should prompt physicians, social workers, law-enforcement officers, and the courts to work harder to identify and protect victims of battering and other forms of family violence. Early identification and effective intervention may prevent a later homicide." This hardly seems to advocate any particular control. Source material is as follows:
http://vitals.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/16/16532333-obama-plan-eases-fre...
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199310073291506#t=articleTop
You have cast suspicion on the CDC at least twice, noting their biases in one place and their agenda in another; in the former case claiming you know this because you work in health care. Since you have subsequently agreed that your career status does not imbue you with authority on the CDC policy, you might allow that production of evidence would at least provide some factual material to support what evidently is your own bias. Fair is fair; I've dragged the NEJ into this, kicking and screaming; you at least can produce something of similar credentials to indicate the biases and agenda of the CDC. Or, maybe SOMEBODY can. I really don't care whether it is the CDC or the Cornell Law Review or anyone else; all I care about is some inquiry whose administrator is above repute and whose study and analysis conforms to generally accepted scientific and unbiased methods.
As to your claim that Sara, herself, follows form with the CDC "agenda," again, we have the evidence problem. She has, indeed come out in favor of the new opportunities arisjng from the current dialog prompted by the Newtown massacre: ". . . Obama unveiled a sweeping gun control plan that includes actions gun control advocates have long pushed for: requiring criminal background checks for all gun sales, restoring the assault weapon ban, eliminating high-capacity magazines, increasing mental health resources that would allow for detection of troubled youths like Adam Lanza before they harm others and themselves, and reviewing and strengthening security in our public schools." I, personally, think that the ban on assault weapons and magazines is probably worthless, but I can't find much fault with the other initiatives. There is of course the wording about what "gun control advocates have long pushed for," but leaving aside the assault style and high capacity magazines, is any one in the "non-control" camp really threatened by the idea of pinpointing troubled souls and increasing security? Certainly not the NRA - their recommendation was to increase security.
". . .gun CONTROL is beyond the scope of such public health investigations." Perhaps people should be a bit more exacting in their language, since the idea of controlling guns (however that might be done) seems to have cross pollinated to the idea of controlling the circumstances which might cause or contribute to the effects of violence perpetrated principally through the use of fire arms, or controlling environments in which many people might present attractive targets, or controlling consequences when guns have been used to kill and hurt innocent people. I see only occasional recommendations by contributors to this topic that direct control of the guns themselves (to the extent of a meaningful reduction in homicides) is possible either under constitutional law or even as a practical matter.
And this VERY INTERESTING COMMENT: "It would be akin to advocating the use of aspirin long before we identified all potential causes of a headache." Exactly. Surely this notion would lend support to the idea of a comprehensive study to determine, or at least inform, as to how we got where we are when it comes to shooting the kids in a school, and similar bad behavior.
Yet, for whatever reason, you disqualify the CDC as a logical place to engage the inquiry, owing to a political agenda which is neither specified nor supported by documented fact. Facially, it would appear that the only agenda at work here is yours. Can you say what it is?
twinmom, CDC does not have a political agenda other than public health. If their scientists talk about gun control, it's because the data support it. Research has already shown that owning a gun or having a gun in the house puts you and the people in the house at greater risk of injury--I believe the figure is 25% greater. The experience of other countries--Australia is a notable example--is that if you reduce the number of guns in circulation, you reduce gun violence. It's not complicated, and the research is there, and there would be more research if CDC weren't held back from doing more.
twinmom, CDC does not have a political agenda other than public health. If their scientists talk about gun control, it's because the data support it. Research has already shown that owning a gun or having a gun in the house puts you and the people in the house at greater risk of injury--I believe the figure is 25% greater. The experience of other countries--Australia is a notable example--is that if you reduce the number of guns in circulation, you reduce gun violence. It's not complicated, and the research is there, and there would be more research if CDC weren't held back from doing more.
Oh, and ATF has not done its job because NRA lobbyists successfully got its funding cut.
"repute" = "reproach." My error.
dawg, CDC does have an agenda as does almost all Government programs... the EPA is full of tree huggers who study their field of "concern" and end up becoming the team leader for whatever agenda they want... The decks are stacked... just like the EEOC is full of people who believe every minority women or gay is a victim and goes after the enployers with a vengance. Just like the SEC is full of bussiness majors who believe in self regulation of wall street and the people at fannie mae in the community reinvestment department encouraged the lowering of standards to let minorities get a home and the business majors who like money said sure and between them and their preconcieved notions almost took the country down. The EPA has been accused of bias from all sides based on money and agendas.
So if the CDC wants to gather evidence to come to a conclusion that guns and health have a correlation so that insurance companies can jack up rates on gun owners so that liberals can get their way and have guns given up to save on health insurance bills then it is good that congress opposes it. That is not the way we should attempt to regulate a Constitutional right. Especially since if we gave them that right based on the correlation yet took away their "right" to charge women more than men and people with prexisiting conditions more than those without we would really putting a fat dog on thin ice.
I don't think we need another government study to conclude that people who live in a house with a gun are more liekly to be shot than a person living in a home without one just like we don't need a study to determine if people in san diego are more or less likely to injured by a snowball than people in minealoplis minnesaota.
Dawg wrote:"CDC does not have a political agenda other than public health. If their scientists talk about gun control, it's because the data support it. "
Take a look at this systematic review (aka meta-analysis) of numerous studies that examined various firearms laws and the reduction of violence, from the CDC in 2005, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine:
http://www.thecommunityguide.org/violence/viol-AJPM-evrev-firearms-law.pdf
Their analysis revealed that the "evidence is insufficient to determine whether the
degree or intensity of firearms regulation is associated with decreased (or increased) violence."
I commend these scientists for reporting their findings, which suggest that there ISN'T sufficient evidence to support bans on specific firearms or ammunition, acquisition restrictions, waiting periods, licensing and registration, shall issue concealed weapons permits, child access, zero tolerance in schools, or combination laws. What I fault the CDC for, however, is their unwillingness to speak up about their findings when legislators or the WH propose additional legislation to restrict gun ownership, knowing full well that the data simply isn't there to support such measures as being an effective means to reduce violence. At the same time, the CDC has identified several risk factors in adolescents that are associated with later violence, but I don't hear the outcry from them to politicians advocating for prevention/reduction of those risks and to abandon unproven gun control legislation. Instead they are silent. Bias maybe, or have they been muzzled, not by the NRA, but by this Administration which has zero tolerance for dissension?
In her article, Sara stated, " If we passed legislation that made guns and ammunition as difficult to obtain as a box of Sudafed (which is still not difficult), young lives would be saved." That suggests to me that she is calling for gun control (and the title of her article also suggests that she sees gun control as the way to reduce violence). While she recognizes the role of the CDC because this is a public health issue, she fails to acknowledge their findings which are not supportive of her personal views on more gun control. I feel that she is either ignorant of the CDC report or is misleading the public. So much for her expert opinion.
Our nation has been in shock over the senseless violence we have recently witnessed, and we desperately seek answers and want to prevent any further incidents. It is easy to jump on the gun control bandwagon, because we so passionately want to do something, anything, as quickly as possible. Obama wants to look like a hero, so he quickly puts together an executive order - limit magazine size, universal background checks, mental health services, etc etc. OK, he's done something. Then he bullies you into believing that it must be ok, Who wouldn't want background checks? Take a hard look at that reality sometime. Sorry I don't have any more time to explain it to you, but here is an article well worth the read, explaining the problems with the current background check system and issues related to the mentally ill:
http://www.jaapl.org/content/36/1/123.full.pdf+html
(And Dawg, read it and you will see that the problem here is not with funding cuts to the BATF, the FBI maintains the database and it is the STATES and mental health professionals who are the problem)
I would love to see a reduction in violence in our country in all its forms. But until you put some effort into developing an effective background check system, until you prosecute and punish those who break our current firearm laws, devote more efforts towards eliminating gunrunning operations, and work towards preventive programs in our youth, we will continue to see surges in violence. We can put a bandaid on it by passing more firearm restrictions and create the illusion that we have done SOMETHING, but it won't really matter.
Did not watch that vid dawg but we will say they are related. You can pick your friends but not your family. :)
The gun control issue is pretty much DOA. Feinstein's bill is strictly for show. The President's power is limited and he is telling most of you what you want to hear.
The House and Senate do not have the votes to do much more than stricter background checks which I am against but have to accept if passed.
I heard an interesting tidbit from the lefts mini-god the other day. Emmanual admitted that guns are not the primary problem with Chicago's homocide problem. He pointed the finger at morals and parenting issues with some other social issues.
I think Ponce has a point about the "agendas," when referring to the predispositions of many of the people at CDC, or Environment, or the Pentagon, for that that matter. Thus we hear that many people have chosen their career because they want to "help people," or "defend the country," etc.
But the personal agendas of individuals should not be taken as an "agenda" for their employer, and surveys and studies should be designed from the ground up to be as free of bias as possible, or otherwise have some way to control for bias which might arise from a private agenda. The employer or agency will often have a mission statement or slogan which strongly suggests their agenda. In the case of CDC, it is "Saving Lives. Protecting People," a slogan which is actually trademarked.
All that said, the existence of a personal agenda can be very disruptive and misleading when it is advanced by the top people in the business or agency, whose public rhetoric can and often does distort the findings of the workers in their organizations. Thus, our attention to very seriously flawed business conduct was sometimes diverted by leading figures in the financial community, with the results we suffered as a consequence. Locally, we have seen somewhat the same thing with respect to the adventures of Helen Dragas whose "agenda" prevailed despite an evident lack of substantive material to support her termination of Teresa Sullivan.
Is this happening with CDC? Probably. I would expect it to occur there only because I expect it to occur everywhere. The counter-measure, when it comes to studies based on scientifically collected and analyzed data, is that the studies themselves are out in the open for peer review; indeed for review by anyone. Thus, a suspicious agenda among the leadership of an organization does not necessarily condemn the work of that organization; the only way to know if the work itself if tainted is to look at the work, or entrust review to disinterested parties.
Now as to the study cited by twinmom from The American Journal of Preventive Medicine, there is a bit of high mowing when it comes to reading it, but she accurately states the conclusion that data was insufficient to determine the effect of gun regulation measures on violent crime. Indeed. And, aside from the insufficiency of the data, we now must also consider the age of the data - nearly ten years old. This leaves out some of the more violent and massive killings which have promoted to present day concern. The AJPM article is actually a "study of studies," which carries (as the contributors do note) certain issues respecting validity of the baseline data itself. This study, like others, simply seems to say we need more data.
But the current concern may be prompted by an instinctive sense that the situation has become worse over the past few years. The body count, scanned over a period of years or decades, may facially give the impression that the situation is no worse -maybe even better- now then it has been since we started counting bodies. But in fact, if my data are correct, there IS a surge in MASS killings. The table below lists individual killing sprees from 2005 to the present.
Red Lake, Minn. 2005 10
Nickel Mines, Pa. 2006 11
Blacksburg, Va. 2007 33
DeKalb, Illinois 2008 23
Tuscon, Arizona 2011 18
Aurora, Colo. 2012 50
Oak Creek, Wis. 2012 10
Newtown, Conn. 2012 26
I find nothing comparable to this cycle of mass murder in the preceding years (but I could be wrong). Given the absence of contemporary study data, it would appear that if we are to find any useful information in these events, then a study would be a good idea.
Sara suggests, incorrectly, I think, that legislation which made guns and ammo more difficult to obtain would save young lives. I suppose that in the strictest sense, if any legislation COULD do that, then a life might be saved. But that doesn't address the issue of existing stockpiles, and is probably a non-starter politically.
In the end, we are left with what we CAN do, and that would appear to include armed security immediately, and a serious scientific analysis of conditions which might cause or contribute to the problem.
I notice that the CDC was no where in sight at the big Senate conference on gun violence today. So obviously, our lawmakers do not believe they have any useful information on the topic, or, their information contradicts what they want to hear.
""We must do something," Giffords said". As I predicted, there is a call to do "something", but no one seems to be able to engage in rational discussion to decide what the best "something" is. Feinstein, of course, isn't happy with the members of the panel, since she didn't get to skew it her direction, so she is calling up her own panel, to tell her what she wants to hear (on the taxpayers' dime of course).
While I have the greatest respect for Giffords, and sympathize with what she has been through, I question the logic of inviting her, and her husband, to the panel since they are only there as victims. That alone does not qualify them as experts on finding a sensible solution, it only enjects emotion into the discussion when we should be as objective as possible.
As a practicing surgeon, I too appreciate and condemn the same horrors of gun violence that Dr Rasmussen so articulately rejects. But as a longstanding member of the NRA, I strongly disagree with her conclusions on how to end it. Anyone with objectivity and a handle on the facts understands that outlawing scary looking guns and big clips will do nothing to curb this problem. And while we all agree on the need to keep guns away from criminals and the mentally deranged, it cannot come at the expense of undermining the rights of law abiding citizens.
OK, Ed, so how DO you address the issue? Any thoughts?
Read about the Australian gun buyback program here: http://andrewleigh.org/pdf/GunBuyback_Panel.pdf
And if you are researching it online, beware the phoney "it didn't work" propaganda out there; see http://www.factcheck.org/2009/05/gun-control-in-australia/
Dawg's sources indicated Australian gun control laws and buy-back program was well correlated with a substantial reduction in homicides in which guns were used.
We should so also note that Australia has no domestic producers of fire arms, and that the armed percentage of the population was 7%. By contrast, over 30% of Americans own guns and domestic production is significant.
@JSGeare, even with the huge number of guns in circulation, buyback programs would help make a dent in things--I'm sure a lot of people with guns could use some cash. But buybacks will only work if obtaining guns is made more difficult. I would love to see guns treated like cars, with the attendant liability and user fees/property taxes. Heck, we could tax guns to fund Obamacare! FTW!
This debate has become a nasty argument where neither side is willing to concede that some of the other side's points might make sense. Unless both sides are willing to give a bit, things will only get worse. Please see the review below of an essay written by Stephen King. It took me a little over an hour to read it last night. He talks sense, which you don't hear a whole lot of when this subject is "discussed." He is a gun owner. His opinions are in agreement with points from both sides.
I am not selling anything. The essay does cost 99 cents, which is donated to the the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence (Mission Statement below editorial review).
Editorial Reviews Amazon.com
There are a handful of subjects in America so emotional and polarizing that the national dialogue around them amounts to little more than a shouting match. Chief among these is the subject of guns. In this intimate and moving Kindle Single, Stephen King employs all his gifts as writer and citizen to address gun violence in America. But why should we care what Stephen King has to say? As it turns out, there are a number of reasons. Despite his "liberal creds," King is an unapologetic gun owner himself. He is also the author of a novel--published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman--that has served as a "possible accelerant" for at least four real-life high school shooters. King had his publisher take that book off the market long ago, but the guns and the occasional bursts of unfathomable violence remain. When division is everywhere, is it possible for someone to argue passionately for the middle road? That is what King seeks to do here--this is a frank and thoughtful contribution to a dialogue in dire need of voices from the "all-but-deserted middle." --Chris Schluep
Brady Campaign Mission Statement
The Brady Campaign works to pass and enforce sensible federal and state gun laws, regulations, and public policies through grassroots activism, electing public officials who support common sense gun laws, and increasing public awareness of gun violence. Through our Million Mom March and Brady Chapters, we work locally to educate people about the dangers of guns, honor victims of gun violence, and pass sensible gun laws, believing that all Americans, especially children, have the right to live free from the threat of gun violence.
The only help a buyback program does is getting the gun out of the persons selling the guns home which presumes they are not a criminal and presumeably don't like or don't feel a need for a gun. We could save a lot of money buy not buying them back and if they don't like it sell it to a pawn shop or buy a gun safe.
It does no common good beyond that because of a free market will simply fill in the demand.
It is no different than of we had a hamburger buyback program to prevent obesity. People could sell their hamburger meat to the government but everybody that wants one will just go thru the drive thru and get one.
I don't see how it can reduce it other than marginally and I would imagine if we instead spent the money locking up ganbangers for life we would save more lives.
When a gangbanger is off the street he is no longer killing, he is no longer making babies and he is no longer big man on campus in the hood. The problem we have is the nation comes to a halt when 20 six year olds are shot by a deranged nut case but we let 2 people a day die on the streets of chicago and do nothing.
You cannot blame the NRA for the people in the Hood who refuse to tell the cops who the killers are. even though they are living off the public dole and never pay any taxes beyond cigarrette and alcohol and have no interest in changing their status quo.
I have a question for the people who want gun regulations.. Would you be willing to accept a major crackdown in urban areas that involved locking people up for gun crimes and keeping them in jail even though statistically it woud affect minorities more ? Would you be willing to accept that as a compromise for more gun regulation? The reason I ask is that more gun regulation would make an almost non measraable difference in gun crime, but a major permanent crackdown in the gun raveged neighborhood would.
Dawg- How is a buy back program going to effect gun violence? Criminals and/or crazies are not going to sell their guns.
@ yeild..."This debate has become a nasty argument where neither side is willing to concede that some of the other side's points might make sense. Unless both sides are willing to give a bit" Give a bit? Do you know how much red tape is involved in owning a gun in most places? I would say that quite a bit has been given...
@Whoa Nelly, the ones who need the $$$ will sell, as will the ones who need to get rid of stolen weapons.
@Dawg- You would have to offer an inflated price, otherwise any one wanting to sell a gun just goes to a pawn shop. Does the tax payer really need another cash for clunkers fiasco?
I guess you being a liberal, government fiscal responsibility is not important. Make the rich finance it ...right?
I see where you are coming from, Dawg, and I should have emphasized that the Aussie buy back program was part of a larger effort which involved cracking down on guns sales, forbidding certain kinds of guns, etc., etc. That, plus the fact that such a small percentage of people in Australia owned guns (as compared to the US) made their program measurably successful, is the measure is a reduction in the homicide rate on account of fire arms. In the US, the 2nd amendment is so important to many that any effort to replicate the Australian program simply would never get off the ground.
Bill Marshall's idea might have utility in terms of reducing the guns held by criminals generally. But on the other hand, the mass killings we have witnessed occurred in areas not generally associated with "the bad part of town." And his suggestion doesn't offer much in the case of mentally challenged people who may have a clean sheet and otherwise don't present as an obvious risk until it's too late.
So, we are left with trying to identify those individuals who in effect are walking time bombs. About the only way to manage that risk is a quick intervention when things start to go all wrong or certain red flags present themselves; prevention or reliable early warning seems impossible, at the moment. This is why I'm in favor of armed security at schools and other venues which present targets of opportunity. I don't LIKE the idea, simply because of the threat message it reinforces, but I can think of no other method to address the problem (mass murder) where it is likely to occur. The NRA is also in favor of it, which presents an attractive opportunity for groups who are otherwise in disagreement on the shooting problem to find some common ground.
The kind of violence which most horrifies us and calls attention to the issue at hand is the mass slaughter of innocents. Blood feuds, homicide associated with another crime, domestic arguments which go out of control, etc., while equally as deadly for the targets, nonetheless present as individual events from which we may detach ourselves or at least imagine that we are detached. But the apparently random killing of many people in the same place and at the same time and in public space is another matter, entirely. I believe it is just this kind of attrition which has been on the rise in the recent past.
Many people have discredited the corrective actions offered by others either because the corrective answer would be unconstitutional, or because it won't work, or for some other reason. Does this therefore mean that nothing at all can be done?
If that is what it DOES mean - that no relief can be offered - then we are just stuck with it, and have a nice day.
Meanwhile, cam anyone suggest some adjustment which meets the following criteria:
1. Can actually be accomplished as a practical matter, and,
2. Has a reasonable chance of being effective, and,
3. Does not challenge the second amendment
If no one can offer anything which passes the above 3 tests, then let that person say so, and tell us that this is just a problem we'll need to live with.
Or, otherwise, suggest something which does pass the above 3 tests.
You'll note liberals specifically quote ARMED HOMICIDES declined in Australia over the time between the gun ban and the present, which is a very small subset of crimes.
What they work hard to keep under wraps is that armed homicide rates declined in the United States at almost exactly the same rates. More to the point, violent crime rates actually EXPLODED, and gun related non-homicide rates did not change:
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=17847
" In 2006, assault rose 49.2 percent and robbery 6.2 percent.
Sexual assault -- Australia's equivalent term for rape -- increased 29.9 percent.
Overall, Australia's violent crime rate rose 42.2 percent."
Don't believe the cowards who have no compunction lying to you in order to make you soften your stance against gun control. Believe the statistics.
Sorry, reverse armed homicide rate with overall homicide rate.
@Dawg wrote, "the ones who need the $$$ will sell, as will the ones who need to get rid of stolen weapons."
Now why would they sell it to the town/police department for a pittance, risk that it will link them to a crime, when they can sell it on the street where it is worth more?
Ask police officers who have been involved in gun buybacks, and they will tell that what shows up is broken junk, or a widow getting rid of her husband's collection, or someone moving across country who doesn't want the hassles of taking them along, or family antiques. Years ago, an officer I knew in Massachusetts told me someone had turned in an antique Colt dragoon in fabulous condition, and he was crying because the program had stipulated that all buybacks had to be melted down.
All well and good. Now, is there anything we can do, according to the 3 tests I gave above, about the problem at hand? Or, perhaps, there really is no problem.
"Meanwhile, can anyone suggest some adjustment which meets the following criteria
1.Can actually be accomplished as a practical matter, and,
2. Has a reasonable chance of being effective, and,
3. Does not challenge the second amendment"
Sure... we need to change the national way of thinking and stop reffering to people who do these mass killings as "troubled but brilliant" or "in need of proper mental counseling"
We need to call them what they are SELFISH A-HOLES who deserve the scorn of society for taking their problems out on others. If one of these guys had raped 20 kids and then killed himself people would be saying good riddance. Why? People that do these mass shootings are not nessasaraily mentaly ill they might just be incredibly selfish. Deranged people are more often discreet or go "postal" over the last straw.They do not sit home and mentally masturbate about how they are going to make things "fair" with their actions because they are in need of mental healthcare, they do it because they were taught that they deserve fairness or social justice or whtever other BS lie their parents promised them that didn't come true.
If we taught our children that you have an obligation to carry your own weight regardles of how difficult it is and that the only thing guaranteed is a fair shot at love and happiness so get a helmet and quit whining we will have a "reasonable" chance at reducing massacres.
The fact is america is a giant country where it is easier to make a gun than it is to make moonshine meth or crack. So if we make some sreoius regulations for owning a gun , we may make it harder for these spoiled brats to go to elemetary schools, but we may actually see a giant increase incriminal ownership as the unemployeed auto mechanics start making "saturday night specials' (like they did when DC outlawed gun sales) except with the new technologies available as extremely dangerous weapons.
We need to change mindsets of those who would kill.
That isn't against the 2nd amendment and it will not fix it tommorrow but will be a good start.
So why not registration and insurance requirements like we have for cars? A gun tax to pay for the public health costs associated with guns would be nice, too.
Also, the gun lovers would win more hearts and minds by not coming across as survivalists or paranoid nut jobs waiting for the black helicopters.
Looks like no one has any solutions we can actually put into action with a reasonable prospect of success. Which kind of explains the situation we are in.
Sad, that.
But, at least, we know where we stand. There is no hope. Not the news I hoped for, but it is the news I needed to know.
Lock 'n load.
Here's a great story about the ATF, the agency that will be responsible for enforcing many of the new gun laws proposed by Obama and Feinstein.
http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/watchdogreports/atfs-milwaukee-sting-op...
I rest my case.
So why not registration and insurance requirements like we have for cars? A gun tax to pay for the public health costs associated with guns would be nice, too.
Well, when your car is stolen the liability insurance is canecelled the moment it leaves your domain. so if someone steals your car and runs over someone with it insuance doesn't cover it. The same would be true for guns. Homeonwers insurance already covers liability created from gun accidents., and if the policy is over two years old life insurance covers the suicides.
If you want a sin/health tax for guns then you first must show where guns are on the list of deaths in america and see how you culd possibly make that fly.
I am all for accountability and liability for misuse of guns, but the fact of the matter is the kids in Newtown were killed with a stolen gun and even if they had been locked in a safe they were still stolen guns and there is nobody to sue.
We need to change PEOPLE.