Re: Tragedy in VA

Steve Perry19/04/2007 15:49

In article <C24D0D67.A09FA%chrisrockcliffe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Chris Rockcliffe <chrisrockcliffe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


you tell us how to solve ours, hey?

The figure I remember reading last was an old one - late 90's at 27K annum
per annum and then more recently it was well over the 30K annum level. More
killings in summertime than winter. The stats are so massaged by interest
groups that it's difficult to believe any official stats. Such stats are
obviously trying to limit damage to the pro gun arguments and police
reputations, Govt. policies. Spin is the order of the day and in the USA
there's no spin like the pro-gun spin.

CR

Spin? You mean like people who quote bullshit statistics without cites,
and claim them to be valid?

Total number of people murdered with firearms in the U.S.

'00 - 8,661
'01 - 8,890
'02 - 9,528
'03 - 9,659
'04 - 9,326

These figures include handguns, rifles, shotguns, "other guns," and
"type not stated."

No matter how you slice it, that works out to less than 25 a day, not
100. More, there were 5000 others killed by knives, blunt objects,
fists and feet, poison, explosives, fire, narcotics, drowning,
strangulation, asphyxiation and "other weapons." These numbers don't
include jet airplanes for 2001.

These are from the FBI's website. In a country of three hundred million
people.

Contrast that with 40,000 deaths a year from auto accidents; 17,000 in
miscellaneous accidents; 13,000 people died from falls, mostly in the
home; 12,000 died of poison, which includes bad food.

This is all a matter of published record, and not my faulty memory. Go
look it up.

Massaged bullshit figures like yours you mean - and bullshit figures are the
name of the game in the NRA's arguments.

Here's some official figures from a decade ago:
in 1995:
Japan 34 gun homicides
Great Britain 72 gun homocides
USA 15,835 gun homocides

200 million weapons currently in circulation in North America... In the last
three years, more than 50 people have been shot dead in five separate school
shootings. American kids are 16 times more likely to be killed by a gun and
every year 12,000 murders are committed using firearms, compared to just 350
gun-related killings in Britain, Australia and Canada. That almost
unbelievable tally makes even the daily carnage in Baghdad look tame.
(rest of article below)

From The Times April 17, 2007...
Only the names change. And the numbers
The scale of the Virginia incident is, sadly, all that distinguishes it
Gerard Baker

By the desensitising standards of routine American gun violence, yesterday¹s
shootings at Virginia Tech university were shocking only in their scale.
Over more than 20 years, Americans have got grimly used to a ritual that
plays out on the cable news every few months. The initial news is sketchy,
reports of shots fired at a campus or in a schoolyard. Then, the first
confused images of students running terrified from classrooms, black-clothed
Swat teams gingerly pressing into doorways; the press conference in which
some dazed school principal or university president mutters the first
incomplete details, with casualty estimates and emergency phone numbers for
worried relatives to call.

Finally, as the horror gradually dawns in its fullness, someone finds some
photograph of the gunman, pulled from a high-school yearbook or holiday.
Sometimes he is a fresh-faced, American-as-apple-pie-looking young man who
friends say would never harm an insect. Other times, in that first image,
the brooding face is already a sad window into a soul that is well on the
way to its ultimate destination of murderous and suicidal mayhem.

It¹s so familiar you could write the script yourself. Only the names change
? Jonesboro, Columbine, Lancaster County and now Virginia Tech. And the
numbers.

Yesterday¹s death toll of more than 30 handed Virginia Tech, a proud college
with a strong academic record and a famous sporting pedigree, the unwanted
title of worst shooting in US history. There is something slightly
unsettling about the way news reporters seize on these landmarks with the
kind of statistical excitement with which you would announce a new sporting
record. You can¹t blame them. It is the only thing that really distinguishes
one of these events from another in the public¹s mind.

Virginia Tech shootings
And the truth is that only an optimist would imagine Virginia Tech will hold
the new record for very long. Surely in a year or two the news networks will
be replaying the same footage from another college, with only the numbers
different.

Perhaps of all the elements of American exceptionalism ­ those factors,
positive or negative, that make the US such a different country,
politically, socially, culturally, from the rest of the civilised world ­ it
is the gun culture that foreigners find so hard to understand.

The country¹s religiosity, so at odds with the rest of the developed world
these days; its economic system which seems to tolerate vast disparities of
income; even all those strange sports Americans enjoy ­ all of these can at
least be understood by the rest of us, even if not shared.

But why, we ask, do Americans continue to tolerate gun laws and a culture
that seems to condemn thousands of innocents to death every year, when
presumably, tougher restrictions, such as those in force in European
countries, could at least reduce the number?

The truth is, not all Americans do oppose such measures. The US of course,
is a vast, federal nation, with different laws and cultures in different
states. In Virginia, scene of yesterday¹s shootings, they passed a law a few
years ago that did indeed restrict gun purchases ­ to a maximum of one per
week. In the neighbouring District of Columbia, on the other hand, the law
bans the possession of all guns.

DC¹s draconian measure highlights one reason tighter gun control is
difficult in the US. The federal courts recently ruled that the ban violates
Americans¹ right to bear arms, as protected by the Second Amendment to the
Constitution.

But the constitutional question is not, in fact, settled. The final legal
status of gun control rests at least in part on the composition of the
Supreme Court and can, and has, changed, over the years.

Those on the Left like to think that the reason guns remain so available
lies with the famed power of the National Rifle Association, the body that
promotes the interest of gun owners. The NRA is deemed to be so influential
that it can force members of congress or state representatives to support
permissive gun laws, for fear of losing the association¹s useful financial
support at election time.

But this is overblown. The NRA is certainly a powerful body but cannot on
its own outweigh the views of millions of ordinary Americans.

The simple truth is that Americans themselves remain unwilling to take
drastic measures to restrict gun availability. This is rooted deep in the
American belief in individual freedom and a powerful suspicion of
government. Americans are deeply leery of efforts by government to restrict
the freedom to defend themselves. A sizeable minority, perhaps a majority,
believe the risk that criminals will perpetrate events such as yesterday¹s
is a painful but necessary price to pay to protect that freedom.

The sheer scale of the carnage yesterday may after all make the Blacksburg
killings truly unique in American history. That will doubtless lead to more
self-examination and perhaps calls for new restrictions on firearms. But it
won¹t change America¹s deep-rooted and sometimes lethal commitment to its
own freedoms.

pasted from the Times site,

Thu 19 Apr 2007 The Scotsman
It's time America was gunning for a change
STEPHEN JARDINE

ISN'T it a shame when the people you admire the most disappoint the most?
Veteran actor Charlton Heston was one of Hollywood's biggest stars but sadly
will now always be best known for his fanatical love of guns.
Since he suffers from Alzheimer's and has been treated for alcoholism, that
is more than worrying. The former chairman of America's National Rifle
Association described our strict firearms regulations as "cultural
cowardice" and warned his critics would have to prise his weapon from his
"cold, dead hands". Well if that is the price that has to be paid to stop
any more massacres in the United States, it sounds like a reasonable deal to
me.

This week Blacksburg joined Columbine in the long list of American towns
tainted by mass murder at the hands of a gunman.

These tragic events are now so common they hardly make us pause anymore. The
only difference this time was the scale of the carnage and the number of
bodies laid to rest as a result of the worst shooting in US history. We all
grieve for the students whose young lives were cut short, but America itself
deserves no sympathy because the solution is simple.

Despite being an out-of-date hangover from the days of the wagon train and
the old frontier, Americans have always clung stubbornly to their
constitutional right to bear arms.

The result is big business, with more than 200 million weapons currently in
circulation in North America. The manufacturers seek to protect that
lucrative trade by spending millions on lobbying to keep gun laws lax. Mix
that with some redneck Republican politicians and you have the potent mix
that has led in recent years to some firearms bans and regulations even
being relaxed. How ironic that the Virginia Tech massacre happened in the
state which is home to America's biggest gun lobby group. Their mad
obsession has finally come home to roost.

They say "guns don't kill, people do". But only someone armed with a gun can
kill on the scale seen at Virginia Tech. Surely this must be the final
wake-up call for America? From the Amish schoolgirls gunned down in
Pennsylvania last autumn to this latest tragedy in Virginia, the common
factor is disillusioned young men who want to settle scores through murder
and have the means to do so easily at their disposal. That is the heart of
the problem.

The rest of the world has no shortage of angry young men, dumped by
girlfriends and rejected by friends or colleagues, but only America has the
lunatic approach to gun ownership that repeatedly allows their dark dreams
to become reality.

From the Port Arthur Massacre in Tasmania to the slaughter of the innocents
at Dunblane Primary School, of course madmen can surface anywhere to inflict
evil. But in Australia, Scotland and elsewhere, the bitter experience
quickly led to tougher restrictions on gun ownership. Here, recent incidents
involving airguns have also provoked tighter rules but time and again,
America refuses to learn the harsh lesson.

In the last three years, more than 50 people have been shot dead in five
separate school shootings. American kids are 16 times more likely to be
killed by a gun and every year 12,000 murders are committed using firearms,
compared to just 350 gun-related killings in Britain, Australia and Canada.
That almost unbelievable tally makes even the daily carnage in Baghdad look
tame.

On that subject, can you imagine what carnage potentially lies ahead when
the battle-weary veterans of Iraq start to filter their way back to civvy
street in small-town USA with psychological scarring and itchy trigger
fingers?

One thing is certain and that is, for the sake of the poor dead students at
Virginia Tech, America needs to change. There are no communists hiding under
the bed or post-Apocalypse anarchists about to break into their homes to
steal the peanut butter and cookies. The biggest danger facing America is
Americans with guns.

The Wild West has long gone and their way of life no longer requires
universal access to powerful and deadly weaponry. Americans themselves need
to think long and hard about events this week. From Hollywood to rap music,
the entire approach to gun culture needs to change. But politicians will
have to drive the legislation forward. Some are saying it should form a key
part of the Democrat campaign in the next elections. It can't wait that
long. America needs to tighten up its crazy guns laws now because otherwise,
another campus massacre is only a matter of time.

(pasted from The Scotsman)

CR

.

Relevant Pages

  • CCRKBA SAYS APRIL 16 =?windows-1252?Q?=91LIE-INS=92_ARE_FOR_?= =?windows-1252?Q?LYIN=92_
    ... Seung Hui Cho murdered 32 students and teachers who could not defend themselves because Virginia Tech and hundreds of other college and university campuses are “gun-free zones” where law-abiding students and faculty have been legislatively or administratively disarmed and deliberately left defenseless. ... It is time for America to turn its back on this dangerously deceptive ideology. ...
    (talk.politics.guns)
  • Re: Euros Blame Charlton Heston For VT Shooting
    ... You have respectable newspapers from England, France, Italy, Spain and Germany presenting reasoned arguments for why America experiences these periodic school bloodbaths and you call it "hysteria"? ... "buying a machine gun is often easier than getting a driver's ... ban on semi-automatic weapons under the then Republican-controlled ...
    (soc.history.medieval)
  • Re: Euros Blame Charlton Heston For VT Shooting
    ... You have respectable newspapers from England, France, Italy, Spain and Germany presenting reasoned arguments for why America experiences these periodic school bloodbaths and you call it "hysteria"? ... "buying a machine gun is often easier than getting a driver's ... is a dramatic episode of school violence ...
    (soc.history.medieval)
  • Re: "COLUMN: A little gun control would be good for America"
    ... America is known for its trendsetting. ... A shocking act of violence here recently threw the issue of gun ... early June when a taxi driver went on a shooting spree. ... One person interviewed following the shootings summed up the British ...
    (talk.politics.guns)
  • Re: "COLUMN: A little gun control would be good for America"
    ... America is known for its trendsetting. ... A shocking act of violence here recently threw the issue of gun ... early June when a taxi driver went on a shooting spree. ... One person interviewed following the shootings summed up the British ...
    (talk.politics.guns)