From the Washington Post. The information was collected after the Aurora, CO massacre.
1. Shooting sprees are not rare in the United States.
2. 15 of the 25 worst mass shootings in the last 50 years took place in
the United States.
3. Lots of guns don’t necessarily mean lots of shootings, as you can see
in Israel and Switzerland.*
4. Of the 11 deadliest shootings in the US, five have happened
from 2007 onward.
5. America is an unusually violent country. But we’re not as violent as
we used to be.
6. The South is the most violent region in the United States.
7. Gun ownership in the United States is declining overall.
8. More guns tend to mean more homicide.
9. States with stricter gun control laws have fewer deaths from
gun-related violence.
10. Gun control, in general, has not been politically popular.
11. But particular policies to control guns often are.
12. Shootings don’t tend to substantially affect views on gun
control.
Here’s an interesting article related to this.
http://www.waff.com/story/20353221/no-rise-in-mass-killings-but-their-impact-is-huge
7) Gun sales are at record levels and have been for 4 years. That is one poll, done over the phone. I wouldn’t tell anyone about ownership in a poll. Perhaps population growth has outstripped ownership. But there needs to be more study.
8) Perhaps the study should have been done by city instead of state. See Chicago. Or DC vs Northern Va. The number of guns in Virginia has risen and gun violence has dropped.
11) The surveys are nice. The devil is the details. And most people that answer the surveys have no idea what the individual polices would actually entail.
But..overall a decent article, especially for an anti-gun paper like the Wash Post.
I suggest you look up NY State congresswoman, Carolyn McCarthy, and read the fervent plea she made in “CBS Sunday” this morning. Her husband was killed, along with five others, on the Long Island RR in December 1993. Her son was seriously wounded.
Instead of going into seclusion after this tragedy, she decided to run for Congress and in that way try to make a difference. I admire people who use a bad happening and turn it
into something good. “Don’t get mad – Get even!”
http://anarchistsoccermom.blogspot.com/
must read narrative of a mom dealing with a child who sounds very much like Adam Lanza.
Something that I have not heard mentioned as a possible culprit in all this are the hideous music that had dog whistle words for violence. Even more deadly are some of the video games that are so extremely violent. Human beings, (read–our kids) can simulate mowing down hudreds of human beings in cold blood.
At what point do we become desensitized? At what point does it not matter? At what point do we fail to separate animated “enemies” and real, living, breathing humans, children. etc?
Is our media making people mentally ill?
I wonder if it could be arranged in cases like this to never speak the killer’s name again. I wish all trace of him could be erased from the earth as if he never existed at all. Then I wonder if sick people would continue to do this. I’m heartsick for the families and town that will never be safe or whole again.
@Moon-howler
That is an argument making the rounds. My belief is that due to the amount of media with violent content and the millions of viewers/gamers/etc…is that it does not…with a caveat.
It does not cause violence among 99.9% of the people. It may desensitize people, but does not cause them to commit violence.
Then there are those that DO fall into the category…but we call those people mentally ill.
I do think that modern society DOES desensitize kids and adults. That’s one reason why my daughter’s media influences that are under my control are just that…controlled. We have no gaming consoles. She listens to no rap. We don’t take her to see violent movies. Skyfall will be one of the first. If we do see a violent movie, it tends to be an older WWII, western, etc…. or the violence is completely cartoonish.
Here’s an article that I think you will find interesting. The comments are good.
http://pjmedia.com/drhelen/2012/12/16/if-the-second-amendent-is-to-blame-for-mass-murder-then-the-first-is-to-blame-as-well-do-we-get-rid-of-both/
here’s a great one:
I think it has a lot to do with the First Amendment – misapplication thereof. We long ago censored public executions: hangings, guillotinings, public stonings, etc because it was recognized as a gruesome form of public entertainment, but fictitious depictions of gruesome killings for fun are protected speech!? “Maceth” is a much needed morality play, but in “The Dark Knight Rising” the Joker is having too much fun for no other reason than titillation. I say bring back censorship.
Cargo, I started to say this earlier and I got distracted. Unless you keep your daughter in a bubble or hermetically sealled, she is going to be exposed to the modern world. I dont care how much you think you are shielding her, the crud of the world gets through. Soes she have friends? Do her friends have a cell phone? Does she do sleep overs? Does she go to public school? Does she go to Sunday School?
If you answer yes to any of those things, you child has been exposed and in some ways is desensitized.
I am not trying to be a know it all here but I have dealt with more kids than you can shake a stick at and I have kids and grandkids. I have found out all sorts of things that I thought I had protected mine from. You just wouldn’t believe what seeped through the filters I thought were in place.
Don’t give up though. Keep trying. Just know you can’t going to be 100% successful.
@Moon-howler
Oh… I know that. I don’t have to contribute to it. I talk to her about these subjects all of the time. I’ve taken her shooting. She knows gun safety. We talk about what guns can actually do.
When I say desensitized, I mean that she sees these things and DOESN’T think about them. She knows about such games a HALO, Call of Duty, etc…. As I said, I don’t think that exposure to those does much damage. Neither does exposure to the darker music, etc. But over time it can desensitize.
Besides, not having those things makes her pay more attention to reading and going outside to play instead of playing a video game.
And that is a good thing.
Mental illness and guns are the first tier of the problem. Peeling back the onion, the next level of discussion has to be video games and violent movies which will stir up all the 1A people. Lots of folks are going to have to be lodged out of their comfort zones before this is all over and on the path to recovery.