Thanks Niteowl, I hadn't read the article yet because I was still feeling stunned. It was one of those moments when John Donne's send not to seek for whom the bell tolls echoed loudly in my head.
NZ currently has a mass buy back of guns in response to the Mosque shootings in Christchurch. There is some resistance, but nowhere near what I imagine there would be to it being proposed in the US. I don't think it's the whole answer, but I think it's a long overdue step in the right direction.
I don't think our Australian and NZ solutions will work in the US, in part because of the deep penetration of the death cult there. But on a federal level every attempt at reform has been stymied. We don't know what will work there because they have tried nothing and (this may be wide of the mark) refuse to fund any studies into how they might fix the problem.
White supremicist shooter, again. I gathered the shooter was white when it was reported law enforcement had captured him alive. Of course, trumposhere is not describing him as a terrorist.
Late Sunday night police were still searching for a potential accomplice, but the shooter was killed in less than a minute, Gilroy Police Chief Scot Smithee said Sunday night.
It took less than a minute for Gilroy police to engage and kill the shooter and he still managed to kill or injure over a dozen people. A pretty clear demonstration that the "Good Guy with a Gun" narrative is pure fantasy.
I am so Fucking sick of this and the stupid justifications.
I am thinking about my medical colleagues who have to with the broken bodies of the victims.
Kids are dead. Kids are fucking dead.
I was reading something today about what the Dems need to do to win over Trump supporters, written by a GOPer - basically pander better, apparently. It included some bollocks about the 2nd amendment.
But the thing is, you can be in favour of that right and also regulation requiring safety devices. Because the NRA opposed this and various lawmakers capitulated, there are still hundreds of child deaths every year from kids accidentally shooting each other or themselves.
You can be in favour of the 2nd amendment rights but realise that weapons that require serious training to use by specialist infantry soldiers have no place in civilian life.
This is why I am so so sick of this bollocks.
So, if you wanna talk about the 2nd amendment, you can fuck right off. Kids are dead.
But here's the other thing. I am just an ignorant Brit.
But also I'm a doctor.
This week I held a dead child. She died because she had a really rare disease we don't even understand properly, let alone know how to treat it. There is nothing quite so sad as seeing a mother hug her one year old who's just died, the way I hold mine...
And that was a child who we couldn't prevent from dying. I burn with righteous anger at the kids who die in a way that is 1000% preventable. This is where being British is relevant to the conversation. How many school shootings have we had since Dunblane? None. And that's my final point; the kick in the teeth to grieving families every next time it happens and they are told that as far as their nation is concerned, their loved ones died for nothing.
Yep and they keep saying all they need to do is keep mentally ill people from getting guns and all will be well, when it's hatred that causes most of these mass shootings and that's not very visible.
They also keep saying good guys with guns are going to stop this and where would there be more good guys with guys than in El Paso Texas, yet 20 are dead.
((alienfromzog)) The two year old in Texas really got to me, too. Any asshole who tells me he loves his gun collection or his grandpa took him hunting or the 2nd Amendment is his god had better stay away from me right now.
One begins to wonder if it's deliberate -- that somewhere among the Powers That Be (and I'm talking Powers in the Biblical and also Walter Wink sense) there's a stealthy, malign, deeply-hidden, supernaturally-powerful force dedicated to wiping us out, one mass shooting after another. Legally-armed police sent out to "keep the peace (!!)" against -- we can no longer claim "for" --an equally-armed (but much larger) citizenry. Citizens increasingly divided, suspicious, angry, paranoid, at desperate odds with each other. Political leaders utterly dismissive of voters' will. If I were still religious, I'd believe myself locked, unwilling and doomed, in mortal combat with Satan himself.
Tempting as your scenario is, Ohher, it only works in America. The rest of the world is screwed up in different ways, true, but not in this. Or is Satan only concerned about the USA?
O no - his Satanic Majesty, (and his minions), are busy elsewhere, though His propaganda machine seems very active in Usania (or should that be Insania?).
We in Blessed Boris Island don't have such levels of gun crime, thank gods, but in my neck of the woods, it's the churches who are taking the lead in combatting knife crime...
This is where being British is relevant to the conversation. How many school shootings have we had since Dunblane? None.
Though us Brits shouldn't be too self-righteous. We export obscene quantities of arms, we kill children by proxy ... but those kids are just as dead as those who are killed in schools in the US.
This is where being British is relevant to the conversation. How many school shootings have we had since Dunblane? None.
Though us Brits shouldn't be too self-righteous. We export obscene quantities of arms, we kill children by proxy ... but those kids are just as dead as those who are killed in schools in the US.
100% correct; there's plenty of blood on our collective hands too.
However, with certain important caveats, that just doesn't change the fact that the British experience (and the Australian, and the South African*) shows that proper gun control laws are effective.
AFZ
*The South African experience is particular relevant for two reasons: firstly we're talking about a society with more violence than the US hence the arguments about the wider culture meaning that gun-control would never work are undermined and secondly because of the lead taken by the medical profession in pressurising for legislation because they were so fed-up of treating children who'd been shot. I can find the reference for the follow-up paper that showed it worked, if anyone is interested.
No, no thanks for that. Yes, some people tend to get self-righteous about American gun violence. But I'd much rather it were one country that was mental instead humanity as a whole. In reality, he is correct; but that is ever so fucking bleak.
@alienfromzog the issues around gun control here in South Africa are interesting. I live in the Cape but rarely post because the situation is complex and I think generalising/comparing is often not helpful. That said, it is almost impossible as a private citizen to get your hands on a gun now without a great deal of jumping through hoops, documentation and bureaucracy.
This wasn't the case in the 1980s when police gun violence and use of live ammunition to control crowd protests was notorious. Most of the white minority were armed to the teeth and racially motivated shootings, accidental shootings as well as domestic violence-related shootings were escalating. In South Africa it is legal to shoot to kill in defence of property. After children stealing fruit were shot dead on a farm, the focus on children as victims entered public awareness. The connection between disturbed or angry men assaulting or shooting women and children in domestic violence incidents and then going on shooting sprees as a hate crime aimed at public groups became clear long before this was understood elsewhere. Mental-health professionals lobbied for men undergoing anger management treatment to hand over weapons.
After 1994, the illegal flow of weapons and availability of handguns in South Africa meant that black people were arming themselves and the shift in perceptions around gun control changed rapidly. Not just because of crime or gang-related violence but because the playing fields were being levelled. The assumptions that had been prevalent under apartheid no longer held true. If a white man in a fit of road rage pulled out a gun and pointed it at a black teen, the chances were that the teen would shoot back. If guns were sold at a weapons fair or gun show, the majority of buyers would be black and affluent enough to afford semi-military hardware.
Our gun laws are now extremely tough. Unfortunately, the number of weapons still out there remains a problem.
@alienfromzog the issues around gun control here in South Africa are interesting. I live in the Cape but rarely post because the situation is complex and I think generalising/comparing is often not helpful. That said, it is almost impossible as a private citizen to get your hands on a gun now without a great deal of jumping through hoops, documentation and bureaucracy.
This wasn't the case in the 1980s when police gun violence and use of live ammunition to control crowd protests was notorious. Most of the white minority were armed to the teeth and racially motivated shootings, accidental shootings as well as domestic violence-related shootings were escalating. In South Africa it is legal to shoot to kill in defence of property. After children stealing fruit were shot dead on a farm, the focus on children as victims entered public awareness. The connection between disturbed or angry men assaulting or shooting women and children in domestic violence incidents and then going on shooting sprees as a hate crime aimed at public groups became clear long before this was understood elsewhere. Mental-health professionals lobbied for men undergoing anger management treatment to hand over weapons.
After 1994, the illegal flow of weapons and availability of handguns in South Africa meant that black people were arming themselves and the shift in perceptions around gun control changed rapidly. Not just because of crime or gang-related violence but because the playing fields were being levelled. The assumptions that had been prevalent under apartheid no longer held true. If a white man in a fit of road rage pulled out a gun and pointed it at a black teen, the chances were that the teen would shoot back. If guns were sold at a weapons fair or gun show, the majority of buyers would be black and affluent enough to afford semi-military hardware.
Our gun laws are now extremely tough. Unfortunately, the number of weapons still out there remains a problem.
Funny that.
White people armed = no gun control
Black people armed = gun control
Same thing happened in 1960's California. Gun control laws there were driven in large part by the Black Panthers exercising their rights to open carry.
Maybe the secret to gun control in the US is to fund a large scale arming of law-abiding black and brown people.
Conclusion:
Compared with the earlier study, this study showed a significant reduction in the number of children presenting with a firearm-related injury. Mortality and inpatient stay were also significantly reduced. The study shows the impact that the Firearms Control Act has had in terms of paediatric firearm-related injury and provides evidence that the medical profession can play an important role in reducing violence.
The reason I know about this is because, a few years ago I saw the group responsible present at a conference. I also note when searching for this, I found large data series that confirm the effectiveness of the law.
International comparisons must always come with caveats but the point remains; strict gun-control laws work in countries all over the world. There is not a good reason why they would not work in the US. I think the fact that the medical profession was part of the campaign for the law change was significant and I have seen a few US doctors speaking out. I wholeheartedly support them. Especially when I've seen idiots telling them to stay in their lane...
I come back to my earlier point; it is heartbreaking being with parents who have just lost a child when it really, really wasn't preventable. As a professional, as a human being, I remain deeply angry at the thought of being in that position when the cause is totally and utterly avoidable.
I also agree with the point about how racism clearly is part of the problem.
I don't think our Australian and NZ solutions will work in the US, in part because of the deep penetration of the death cult there.
Unfortunately probably true. Not only because of the gun fetish, and the proliferation of guns, but the size of the American gun industry and the huge economic vacuum it would leave absent some intense government jobs program that would also be politically unthinkable.
FYI: Our federal Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have wanted to declare gun violence a public health emergency, but Congress won't let them. Don't remember exactly how they prevented it--possibly threatening their funding for other things.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the "Small arms, ammunition, and other ordnance and accessories" industry currently employs about 45,000 people. For comparison, non-farm payroll employment in the US grew by an estimated 164,000 jobs in July 2019 alone.
I am a USA citizen. Female, "white". On gov't or legal documents I cross out the race choices and hand write "human".
This being Hell, I have this to say: How can we control or forbid sale or ownership of any kind of guns, when OUR government eagerly and greedily sells guns, ammo, missiles, bombs, war machinery to Arab rulers? Stuff which kills innocent victims in war-torn places? Yes, children. Families. Funds and supplies warriors in Africa, in South America? Stirs up and inflames hot-headed idiots both here, and abroad? It makes me weep, and makes me not want to keep on experiencing this insanity in my old age. This is Hell all right.
That white men posting white supremacist manifestos quoting Trump are white supremacists, are racists, are terrorists - apparently this an extremely complex idea for Fox and the Goposphere to grasp.
FYI: Our federal Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have wanted to declare gun violence a public health emergency, but Congress won't let them. Don't remember exactly how they prevented it--possibly threatening their funding for other things.
It really is a scandal. The CDC has a well-deserved international reputation. I often quote various pieces of work by them. The fact that there are over 30,000 firearm-related deaths in the US each year means that it is inescapably a public-health issue. And so we are left with the fact that in a democratic society, the government's own experts have been blocked from efforts to research what might be done to reduce this horrendous death-toll.
It's important because there is some really good research out there. For example, the evidence shows that carrying a gun makes you much more likely to be shot. Having a weapon does not protect you.
Similarly, there's lots of international data around suicide. Access to means is one of the most important risk factors. Which is why in the UK, farmers have a high suicide rate. They're one of the few groups that have firearms lying around. IIRC, around half of the US firearm deaths are suicide. A huge chunk of these could be prevented if people didn't have guns. This is true because the vast, vast majority of suicides are impulse decisions. It's almost impossible to stop the well-planned suicide but they are very rare. Most people who kill themselves are desperate and it's a spur-of-the-moment thing. This is why limiting paracetamol sales has been so effective in the UK. People take however many pills are in the cupboard - for most of us, it'll be 10 or so. Not the bottle of nearly 100 that we all had in the 80's.
As I said, that the CDC is blocked from this work by Congress is a scandal.
That white men posting white supremacist manifestos quoting Trump are white supremacists, are racists, are terrorists - apparently this an extremely complex idea for Fox and the Goposphere to grasp.
Do they believe this fucking bullshit? The Republicans? Really? The NRA and Trump? They have no courage. None at all. What fucking cowards they all are.
If you give fucking crazy morons machine guns, they are going to use them. Is there something we're missing? Does the party of Lincoln know something we don't? Or will commission a study to find out, financed by the NRA?
We had unconscionable levels of gun violence in the US before Trump was inaugurated, and we'll have unconscionable levels of gun violence after he's out of office. We didn't do anything when a classroom full of six-year-olds was massacred in 2012. Nothing will change unless and until the stranglehold the NRA has on Republicans in Congress is loosened.
We had unconscionable levels of gun violence in the US before Trump was inaugurated, and we'll have unconscionable levels of gun violence after he's out of office. We didn't do anything when a classroom full of six-year-olds was massacred in 2012. Nothing will change unless and until the stranglehold the NRA has on Republicans in Congress is loosened.
Which is impossible. America has to fall. Without nuclear war. Which is impossible.
We had unconscionable levels of gun violence in the US before Trump was inaugurated, and we'll have unconscionable levels of gun violence after he's out of office. We didn't do anything when a classroom full of six-year-olds was massacred in 2012. Nothing will change unless and until the stranglehold the NRA has on Republicans in Congress is loosened.
In following the current saga of corruption and mismanagement at the NRA, leading many members to quit the organization and thus threatens their income, I have some hope that the NRA is losing some of its power. They're beginning to show some signs of failure.
The Gun Violence Archive is an online archive of gun violence incidents collected from over 6,500 law enforcement, media, government and commercial sources daily in an effort to provide near-real time data about the results of gun violence. GVA is an independent data collection and research group with no affiliation with any advocacy organization.
Mission Statement
Gun Violence Archive (GVA) is a not for profit corporation formed in 2013 to provide online public access to accurate information about gun-related violence in the United States. GVA will collect and check for accuracy, comprehensive information about gun-related violence in the U.S. and then post and disseminate it online, primarily if not exclusively on this website and summary ledgers at www.facebook.com/gunviolencearchive and on Twitter @gundeaths. It is hoped that this information will inform and assist those engaged in discussions and activities concerning gun violence, including analysis of proposed regulations or legislation relating to gun safety usage. All we ask is to please provide proper credit for use of Gun Violence Archive data and advise us of its use.
GVA is not, by design an advocacy group. The mission of GVA is to document incidents of gun violence and gun crime nationally to provide independent, verified data to those who need to use it in their research, advocacy or writing.
I also came across a review of them by Media Bias / Fact Check. I hadn't heard of the site before, but it looks like a good resource.
We had unconscionable levels of gun violence in the US before Trump was inaugurated, and we'll have unconscionable levels of gun violence after he's out of office. We didn't do anything when a classroom full of six-year-olds was massacred in 2012. Nothing will change unless and until the stranglehold the NRA has on Republicans in Congress is loosened.
"Perhaps the president should instead consider the fact that El Paso police found an online manifesto believed to have been posted by the 21-year-old suspect. In it, the author unloads about his hatred of immigrants, saying he's against the "hispanic invasion of Texas."..President Trump has also described the immigration from Central America as an "invasion."
Don't think he can deny a link between what he says and what he inspires.
"Perhaps the president should instead consider . . . "
. . . la la la la la.
Whenever I come across some pundit using words like "consider" or "think" or "weigh options" in relation to this president*, I quit reading.
He's a fucking amoeba. Poke it, and it reacts. That's all there is. He has the same capacity for "considering" that the potato beetles currently devouring my Swiss chard have. And about the same level of moral development.
These shootings? They don't "poke" him. He didn't get shot, did he? His properties are still intact and his businesses running. Nor did Ivanka or Melanoma or Barron come under fire (assuming some basic level of care there, though that's questionable). So it's "I really don't care, do u?"
Yes, he can deny. Don't expect him to behave like a reasonable, functioning person. He's not.
Re "Hispanic invasion": Is there any suggestion of whether the shooter meant the illegal immigrants at the southern border, or Hispanics in general, or "I don't like brown people"? If it's the second, Texas is a really strange place to make that stand.
(I haven't read up on any of the incidents. For some time, I've been too overwhelmed by more and more bad stuff in the world, and I'm treading water by not focusing much on any of it.)
The NYT doesn't have funnies (alas), but it's a good paper. Those who work there do have a certain amount of attitude, though.
When I was freelancing for them, I did a story about an impressive musical product whose name ended with "Disc." My editor changed it to "Disk." When I pointed out that it was the product's name, he replied, "That's not our style."
I'm well acquainted with editorial style (Oxford commas are Right Out at far too many newspapers), but I'd never heard of unilaterally changing the name of a commercial product to suit before.
(And, of course, I had to take the complaints from the developers and the people who couldn't find it under its misspelled name.)
The increasingly poor editing and proofreading in newspapers can largely be ascribed to management not paying editors enough, as well as not hiring trained and experienced staff because inexperienced are less expensive.
The same thing is true of investigative research. Years ago I led a well-funded project on firearm homicides in South Africa. There were travel expenses for visiting archives in magistrates courts all around the country, funding for interviews with ballistics experts and mortuary archivists (yes, I know it sounds morbid) and time to compile, check and evaluate a large body of information. Then the research team held interviews with senior journalists, shared published findings and sources.
The resulting media articles led to a small but significant change in policing tactics for crowd control. At the time, police were discouraged from using live ammunition and were using 'dead' ammunition (rubber bullets and stun grenades): my research showed how many protesters (mostly children) were blinded or brain-damaged by rubber bullets. Restrictions on use of non-deadly force were put in place.
Decent funding made all that kind of research and accurate extensive media coverage possible. Now I read amateurish sensationalised media accounts of the protests in Hong Kong (South China Morning Post, I'm looking at you) and it's clear that the journalism is not just inadequate but often speculative and partisan.
What was Pontius Pence thinking as he looked over trump's shoulder in that picture? Probably, as trump said Toledo, then it was Toledo, and he agrees with it, and that's what the record must say. I have no words to describe my revulsion for that, that.. thing.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the "Small arms, ammunition, and other ordnance and accessories" industry currently employs about 45,000 people. For comparison, non-farm payroll employment in the US grew by an estimated 164,000 jobs in July 2019 alone.
Thanks for that.
It's very possible and believable that the numbers are being massaged and inflated by the industry and its advocates.
According to the New York Times, Joe Biden also got it wrong: "At a fund-raiser, Mr. Biden referred to 'the tragic events in Houston today and also in Michigan the day before,' according to a pool report."
Another reason for Biden NOT TO BE RUNNING and get the fuck out of the way for a new generation of leaders who might actually have a fucking clue about what is going on in this country. If anybody does. Or can.
In his speech today, Trump offered prayers for Toledo, Ohio, not Dayton, Ohio, where the shooting was. Joe Biden has also mistakenly said that the shootings were in Houston and Michigan. Hoo boy.
Comments
NZ currently has a mass buy back of guns in response to the Mosque shootings in Christchurch. There is some resistance, but nowhere near what I imagine there would be to it being proposed in the US. I don't think it's the whole answer, but I think it's a long overdue step in the right direction.
How long, O Lord?
The coroner has since said that the shooter killed himself. And I'm not sure I buy that the police responded so quickly.
FWIW.
I am so Fucking sick of this and the stupid justifications.
I am thinking about my medical colleagues who have to with the broken bodies of the victims.
Kids are dead. Kids are fucking dead.
I was reading something today about what the Dems need to do to win over Trump supporters, written by a GOPer - basically pander better, apparently. It included some bollocks about the 2nd amendment.
But the thing is, you can be in favour of that right and also regulation requiring safety devices. Because the NRA opposed this and various lawmakers capitulated, there are still hundreds of child deaths every year from kids accidentally shooting each other or themselves.
You can be in favour of the 2nd amendment rights but realise that weapons that require serious training to use by specialist infantry soldiers have no place in civilian life.
This is why I am so so sick of this bollocks.
So, if you wanna talk about the 2nd amendment, you can fuck right off. Kids are dead.
But here's the other thing. I am just an ignorant Brit.
But also I'm a doctor.
This week I held a dead child. She died because she had a really rare disease we don't even understand properly, let alone know how to treat it. There is nothing quite so sad as seeing a mother hug her one year old who's just died, the way I hold mine...
And that was a child who we couldn't prevent from dying. I burn with righteous anger at the kids who die in a way that is 1000% preventable. This is where being British is relevant to the conversation. How many school shootings have we had since Dunblane? None. And that's my final point; the kick in the teeth to grieving families every next time it happens and they are told that as far as their nation is concerned, their loved ones died for nothing.
Incan-fucking-descent.
AFZ
@Doublethink: Yep and they keep saying all they need to do is keep mentally ill people from getting guns and all will be well, when it's hatred that causes most of these mass shootings and that's not very visible.
They also keep saying good guys with guns are going to stop this and where would there be more good guys with guys than in El Paso Texas, yet 20 are dead.
((alienfromzog)) The two year old in Texas really got to me, too. Any asshole who tells me he loves his gun collection or his grandpa took him hunting or the 2nd Amendment is his god had better stay away from me right now.
We in Blessed Boris Island don't have such levels of gun crime, thank gods, but in my neck of the woods, it's the churches who are taking the lead in combatting knife crime...
All shall have 'prizes'...
100% correct; there's plenty of blood on our collective hands too.
However, with certain important caveats, that just doesn't change the fact that the British experience (and the Australian, and the South African*) shows that proper gun control laws are effective.
AFZ
*The South African experience is particular relevant for two reasons: firstly we're talking about a society with more violence than the US hence the arguments about the wider culture meaning that gun-control would never work are undermined and secondly because of the lead taken by the medical profession in pressurising for legislation because they were so fed-up of treating children who'd been shot. I can find the reference for the follow-up paper that showed it worked, if anyone is interested.
This wasn't the case in the 1980s when police gun violence and use of live ammunition to control crowd protests was notorious. Most of the white minority were armed to the teeth and racially motivated shootings, accidental shootings as well as domestic violence-related shootings were escalating. In South Africa it is legal to shoot to kill in defence of property. After children stealing fruit were shot dead on a farm, the focus on children as victims entered public awareness. The connection between disturbed or angry men assaulting or shooting women and children in domestic violence incidents and then going on shooting sprees as a hate crime aimed at public groups became clear long before this was understood elsewhere. Mental-health professionals lobbied for men undergoing anger management treatment to hand over weapons.
After 1994, the illegal flow of weapons and availability of handguns in South Africa meant that black people were arming themselves and the shift in perceptions around gun control changed rapidly. Not just because of crime or gang-related violence but because the playing fields were being levelled. The assumptions that had been prevalent under apartheid no longer held true. If a white man in a fit of road rage pulled out a gun and pointed it at a black teen, the chances were that the teen would shoot back. If guns were sold at a weapons fair or gun show, the majority of buyers would be black and affluent enough to afford semi-military hardware.
Our gun laws are now extremely tough. Unfortunately, the number of weapons still out there remains a problem.
White people armed = no gun control
Black people armed = gun control
Same thing happened in 1960's California. Gun control laws there were driven in large part by the Black Panthers exercising their rights to open carry.
Maybe the secret to gun control in the US is to fund a large scale arming of law-abiding black and brown people.
This is the research I was referring to:
The reason I know about this is because, a few years ago I saw the group responsible present at a conference. I also note when searching for this, I found large data series that confirm the effectiveness of the law.
International comparisons must always come with caveats but the point remains; strict gun-control laws work in countries all over the world. There is not a good reason why they would not work in the US. I think the fact that the medical profession was part of the campaign for the law change was significant and I have seen a few US doctors speaking out. I wholeheartedly support them. Especially when I've seen idiots telling them to stay in their lane...
I come back to my earlier point; it is heartbreaking being with parents who have just lost a child when it really, really wasn't preventable. As a professional, as a human being, I remain deeply angry at the thought of being in that position when the cause is totally and utterly avoidable.
I also agree with the point about how racism clearly is part of the problem.
AFZ
Unfortunately probably true. Not only because of the gun fetish, and the proliferation of guns, but the size of the American gun industry and the huge economic vacuum it would leave absent some intense government jobs program that would also be politically unthinkable.
This being Hell, I have this to say: How can we control or forbid sale or ownership of any kind of guns, when OUR government eagerly and greedily sells guns, ammo, missiles, bombs, war machinery to Arab rulers? Stuff which kills innocent victims in war-torn places? Yes, children. Families. Funds and supplies warriors in Africa, in South America? Stirs up and inflames hot-headed idiots both here, and abroad? It makes me weep, and makes me not want to keep on experiencing this insanity in my old age. This is Hell all right.
It's the Dickey Amendment.
It really is a scandal. The CDC has a well-deserved international reputation. I often quote various pieces of work by them. The fact that there are over 30,000 firearm-related deaths in the US each year means that it is inescapably a public-health issue. And so we are left with the fact that in a democratic society, the government's own experts have been blocked from efforts to research what might be done to reduce this horrendous death-toll.
It's important because there is some really good research out there. For example, the evidence shows that carrying a gun makes you much more likely to be shot. Having a weapon does not protect you.
Similarly, there's lots of international data around suicide. Access to means is one of the most important risk factors. Which is why in the UK, farmers have a high suicide rate. They're one of the few groups that have firearms lying around. IIRC, around half of the US firearm deaths are suicide. A huge chunk of these could be prevented if people didn't have guns. This is true because the vast, vast majority of suicides are impulse decisions. It's almost impossible to stop the well-planned suicide but they are very rare. Most people who kill themselves are desperate and it's a spur-of-the-moment thing. This is why limiting paracetamol sales has been so effective in the UK. People take however many pills are in the cupboard - for most of us, it'll be 10 or so. Not the bottle of nearly 100 that we all had in the 80's.
As I said, that the CDC is blocked from this work by Congress is a scandal.
AFZ
Do they believe this fucking bullshit? The Republicans? Really? The NRA and Trump? They have no courage. None at all. What fucking cowards they all are.
Which is impossible. America has to fall. Without nuclear war. Which is impossible.
Gun Violence Archive
From the "About" page:
I also came across a review of them by Media Bias / Fact Check. I hadn't heard of the site before, but it looks like a good resource.
https://www.dw.com/en/opinion-america-s-weekend-of-terror/a-49891302
"Perhaps the president should instead consider the fact that El Paso police found an online manifesto believed to have been posted by the 21-year-old suspect. In it, the author unloads about his hatred of immigrants, saying he's against the "hispanic invasion of Texas."..President Trump has also described the immigration from Central America as an "invasion."
Don't think he can deny a link between what he says and what he inspires.
. . . la la la la la.
Whenever I come across some pundit using words like "consider" or "think" or "weigh options" in relation to this president*, I quit reading.
He's a fucking amoeba. Poke it, and it reacts. That's all there is. He has the same capacity for "considering" that the potato beetles currently devouring my Swiss chard have. And about the same level of moral development.
These shootings? They don't "poke" him. He didn't get shot, did he? His properties are still intact and his businesses running. Nor did Ivanka or Melanoma or Barron come under fire (assuming some basic level of care there, though that's questionable). So it's "I really don't care, do u?"
Re "Hispanic invasion": Is there any suggestion of whether the shooter meant the illegal immigrants at the southern border, or Hispanics in general, or "I don't like brown people"? If it's the second, Texas is a really strange place to make that stand.
(I haven't read up on any of the incidents. For some time, I've been too overwhelmed by more and more bad stuff in the world, and I'm treading water by not focusing much on any of it.)
ECraigR--
Well, you can always skip to the crossword and the funnies.
Mentioned in the interests of helping people cope with the ongoing situation.
When I was freelancing for them, I did a story about an impressive musical product whose name ended with "Disc." My editor changed it to "Disk." When I pointed out that it was the product's name, he replied, "That's not our style."
I'm well acquainted with editorial style (Oxford commas are Right Out at far too many newspapers), but I'd never heard of unilaterally changing the name of a commercial product to suit before.
(And, of course, I had to take the complaints from the developers and the people who couldn't find it under its misspelled name.)
The same thing is true of investigative research. Years ago I led a well-funded project on firearm homicides in South Africa. There were travel expenses for visiting archives in magistrates courts all around the country, funding for interviews with ballistics experts and mortuary archivists (yes, I know it sounds morbid) and time to compile, check and evaluate a large body of information. Then the research team held interviews with senior journalists, shared published findings and sources.
The resulting media articles led to a small but significant change in policing tactics for crowd control. At the time, police were discouraged from using live ammunition and were using 'dead' ammunition (rubber bullets and stun grenades): my research showed how many protesters (mostly children) were blinded or brain-damaged by rubber bullets. Restrictions on use of non-deadly force were put in place.
Decent funding made all that kind of research and accurate extensive media coverage possible. Now I read amateurish sensationalised media accounts of the protests in Hong Kong (South China Morning Post, I'm looking at you) and it's clear that the journalism is not just inadequate but often speculative and partisan.
Lord, have mercy.
But it's OK...doubtless his ineffable Thoughts, and Prayers, are with the people of Toledo, so they, at least, will be Blessed.
Thanks for that.
It's very possible and believable that the numbers are being massaged and inflated by the industry and its advocates.
According to the New York Times, Joe Biden also got it wrong: "At a fund-raiser, Mr. Biden referred to 'the tragic events in Houston today and also in Michigan the day before,' according to a pool report."