Marketing of guns to young children has high cost (5/2/13)
There are several risks linked to having guns in private households, including theft of firearms and household guns harming family members through incidents ranging from mistaken identity to childhood mishaps.
On Tuesday, a 5-year-old Kentucky boy playing with his .22 caliber "Cricket" rifle shot his little sister in the chest. The 2-year-old died before the family could get her to the hospital.
Here are some of the more stunning passages from an AP story on the incident:
- The rifle was made by a company that sells guns specifically for children - "My first rifle" is the slogan - in colors ranging from plain brown to hot pink to royal blue to multi-color swirls.
- The company that makes the rifle, Milton, Pa.-based Keystone Sporting Arms, has a "Kids Corner" on its website with pictures of young boys and girls at shooting ranges and on bird and deer hunts. It says the company produced 60,000 Crickett and Chipmunk rifles for kids in 2008.
- Sharon Rengers, a longtime child advocate at Kosair Children's Hospital in Louisville, said it is is "mind-boggling" to make and market weapons specifically for children: "We're having a big national debate whether we want to check somebody's background, but we're going to offer a 4-year-old a gun and expect something good from that?"
Reality check on gun background checks (3/28/13)
Attention U.S. gun rights advocates: You win! Game over! The fat lady has sung! The gun-toting genie is out of the bottle and even a federal army of jack-booted thugs could not collect the 310 million guns in private hands.
Gun makers and their political mouthpiece at the National Rifle Association have fought tooth and nail for the right of every American to possess a firearm. Now there are enough guns to arm every man, woman and child in the country. Regardless of your opinion about private gun ownership, firearms have established a permanent presence in American culture.
The question about whether U.S. citizens should be allowed to possess guns has been settled. The United States is a society that cherishes democracy and freedom. The right to bear arms is written into to country's constitution. The only way the government could confiscate everybody's guns is through a military coup that turned the country into a totalitarian dictatorship. If that ever comes to pass, which is highly unlikely, the condition of the country and the world will be so dire that gun ownership will be among the last of our worries.
The only question now is how do Americans keep guns out of the hands of violent criminals and people suffering from severe mental illness. To achieve that goal, strengthening background checks for gun purchases and laws against the transfer of guns to criminals should be a matter of common sense.
Most U.S. employers require new hires to undergo background checks. The federal government requires background checks for anyone working in a job related to national security. Political parties conduct background checks on candidates for public office. Reputable organizations that work with young children do background checks on employees and volunteers.
What's the problem with requiring background checks for possession of devices that can kill and maim dozens of our fellow citizens in minutes literally with the pull of a trigger?
Here are some of the justifications being put forward against universal background checks for gun purchases:
- "Republican opponents of the new background-check law (in Colorado) said it would make criminals of hunters lending each other weapons for weekend hunting trips. In response, Democrats changed the bill to give people a 72-hour grace period to share guns without triggering background-check requirements. Republicans then said the bill would imperil weeklong hunting trips." The Washington Post
- "Opponents including the National Rifle Association say background checks are easily sidestepped by criminals and threaten creation of a government file on gun owners, which is illegal under federal law." heraldnet.com
- "Mass shootings would continue to occur despite universal background checks. Criminals will continue to steal guns and buy them illegally to circumvent the requirements. When that happens, we will be back here debating whether gun registration is needed. And when registration fails, then the next step is gun confiscation." U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa
PBS telling truths about gun violence in America (2/20/13)
With all due respect to Big Bird, the crown jewel of America's Public Broadcasting System is journalism.
This week, PBS is airing After Newtown, a series of special reports on gun laws, mental illness and school security. After watching two of the Frontline special reports last night, I urge all of my fellow Americans and anyone overseas who is interested in the U.S. gun culture to watch these television programs. There is also a wealth of information available online at the link above.
PBS is providing a dispassionate, in-depth and highly professional examination of the key issues surrounding gun violence in America. It's free and literally available at your fingertips.
It's extremely hard to find this kind of unbiased information on the polarizing issue of gun violence anywhere else. I implore my fellow citizens: view this valuable information, educate yourself about aspects of the issues that are unfamiliar to you, draw your own conclusions, then contact your elected officials at all levels to help make sure effective measures are taken to rein in a problem that is killing and maiming thousands of Americans every year.
Guns in America by the numbers (1/22/13)
Truth is often the first casualty in political warfare and there are plenty of untruths being spewed into the debate over gun control in the United States. The statistics listed below were picked selectively from U.S. Justice Department reports to shine light on many of the key factors and considerations related to gun violence in America:
- There are about 310 million firearms in private hands, including 114 million handguns. There were about 200 million guns in private hands in 1994.
- From 1999 to 2003, an average of 11,345 Americans were shot to death in homicides.
- Homicides committed with firearms peaked in 1993 at 17,075.
- About 68 percent of the 16,929 murders in 2007 were committed with firearms.
- In 2008, 303,880 victims of violent crimes stated they faced an offender with a firearm.
- Incidents involving a firearm represented 7 percent of the 5.1 million rapes, sexual assaults, robberies, and aggravated and simple assaults committed in 2008.
- According to a 1997 survey of prison inmates, 80 percent of the convicts who had possessed a gun at the time of their arrest obtained the weapon from family, friends, a street buy, or an illegal source.
- Of the 55 law enforcement officers killed in 2005, 50 were shot to death, and 45 of those cop killers were armed with handguns.
- An estimated 57,500 nonfatal gunshot wounds from assaults were treated in hospital emergency departments from June 1992 through May 1993. Over half of those victims were black males.
- From the inception of the Brady Act in 1994 to the end of 1999, about 536,000 of the more than 22.2 million individual applications to purchase or pawn firearms were rejected based on federal, state or local laws. The Brady Act is named for Jim Brady, a former White House press secretary who survived a gunshot wound to the head inflicted during an assassination attempt on President Reagan.
- In 1999, of the 123,000 gun purchase rejections made by state and local agencies, 73 percent were rejected because of a felony conviction or indictment. Domestic violence convictions or restraining orders accounted for 11 percent of the rejections.
- In 2011, about 45 percent of Americans over age 18 had guns in their homes.
NRA's opening salvo on gun control blasts Obama (1/16/13)
The NRA's first ad campaign since since the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School clearly shows any attempt to pass new gun control laws in Congress is going to face unyielding political resistance. The ad started running Jan. 16, hours before President Obama's unveiling of the White House's plan to curb gun violence.
It's rare for political ads to target the president's children. It's also a rare crowd of students that attends Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C., where Sasha and Malia Obama take classes. The first children's classmates include the kids of other top government officials, diplomats and wealthy business leaders. Sadly, it's common worldwide for private schools with the kind of clientele found at Sidwell Friends to be armed and secured facilities.
The NRA's claim that President Obama cares more about his children than those of ordinary Americans is clearly a manipulation of the facts aimed at flaming emotions rather than seeking ways to staunch gun violence. If you winced during the 2012 presidential election's open silly season in political advertising, you better brace yourself for the assault on reason and productive dialogue that is being unleashed over gun control.
Newtown: Obama launches gunfight month after Sandy Hook massacre (1/14/13)
Children are led from Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., after a gunman killed 20 first-graders. /Image via AP
Exactly one month after 20 first-graders were shot to death in Newtown, Conn., President Obama foreshadowed his strategy and objectives in the battle ahead over new laws to curb gun violence.
Whether you like Obama or not, he has the admirable quality of generally doing what he says he's going to do. Soon after the Dec. 14 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the nation's chief executive said Vice President Joe Biden was going to lead an effort to review federal guns laws and find more ways to prevent mass shootings.
At a press conference Monday, Jan. 14, Obama said he would be unveiling the fruit of Biden's labor by the end of the week. While careful not to reveal too many details, the president once again called for a "meaningful ban" on assault weapons and large capacity ammunition clips.
In a sign that the national outrage sparked in Newtown continues to burn, a Pew Research Center poll conducted last week found growing support for several gun control measures. There was overwhelming support for new measures to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill and to strengthen background checks. About 55 percent of those polled favored bans on assault weapons and large capacity ammunition clips.
The first big political struggle of 2013 is heating up.
Mass shootings: Four more dead in Aurora (1/5/13)
Ironically, one of the strengths in the movement to curtail U.S. gun violence is continued gun violence across the country.
On Jan. 5, a gunman and three others were shot to death in Aurora, Colo., where another gunman killed 12 people and wounded 58 at a movie theater in July 2012.
For a quantitative perspective on U.S. gun violence, check out slate.com's collaboration with twitter maven @GunDeaths. According to @GunDeaths, there have been at least 429 gun homicides in the United States since the Sandy Hook Elementary School schooting last month.
Newtown: Narrow window for nation to act (12/31/12)
Citing the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings, President Obama threw down the gun control gauntlet Sunday in an interview with NBC's Meet the Press. At the end of the 4-minute portion of the interview that focused on gun violence, Obama gives a frank assessment of the political struggle ahead over new laws and other measures to stanch the bloodshed: "(Are we) actually shook up enough by what happened here that it does not just become another one of these routine episodes where it gets a lot of attention for a couple of weeks and then it drifts away. It certainly won't feel like that to me. ... That was the worst day of my presidency, and it's not something I want to see repeated."
For more insight on the politics of gun control in Washington, check out Meet the Press host David Gregory's smirk as he presses Obama about the difficulty of getting gun control laws through Congress. It's also interesting to note the dislike-to-like ratio on this YouTube clip of the Obama interview is running about 18-1.
Gun violence: 'clear ambush on first responders' (12/26/12)
A house burns in Webster, N.Y., on Christmas Eve morning, when police say a 62-year-old convicted killer went on a rampage that left three dead, three wounded and seven homes razed. /Jamie Germano photo via Reuters
A report today from The Buffalo News shows chilling parallels between the Newtown school shooting and the carnage unleashed in Webster, N.Y., on Christmas Eve. Just as in Newtown, a Bushmaster .223 caliber rifle is the likely weapon used in Webster to shoot four firefighters and an off-duty police officer. Just as in Newtown, a deranged man in Webster got his hands on a deadly arsenal and unleashed a planned attack on his community.
According to Webster Police Chief Gerald Pickering, William Spengler, who had served 17 years in prison for killing his grandmother with a hammer and was living in a Webster house with his sister, typed a three-page letter before killing two firefighters, wounding three other first responders, and burning down seven homes. The body of Spengler's sister was found in the ruins, but it's not known yet whether she was shot to death or died in the inferno.
Pickering called the Webster shooting a "clear ambush on first responders" and read one line from Spengler's letter: "I still have to get ready to see how much of the neighborhood I can burn down, and do what I like doing best, killing people."
Police: Webster shooter had 'mental health issues' (12/24/12)
William Spengler served a lengthy prison sentence for manslaughter after beating his grandmother with a hammer in 1980.
"Just looking at the history, obviously this is an individual who had a lot of problems, to kill his grandmother. And I'm sure there were ... mental health issues involved."
- Police Chief Gerald Pickering, Webster, N.Y., Dec. 24, 2012
Gun violence: Firefighters follow first-graders (12/24/12)
Firefighter Joseph Hofstetter was hospitalized after the Christmas Eve shooting in Webster. After arriving in guarded condition at Strong Memorial Hospital, he was upgraded to stable the night before Christmas. /Image via whec.com
Volunteer firefighter Theodore Scardino was listed in guarded condition at Strong Memorial the night before Christmas. /Image via whec.com
Webster firefighter shooting suspect William Spengler. /Webster Police image
Another incident that makes you wonder: How bad does gun violence have to get before Americans embrace effective action to curb the carnage?
Newtown: Stricter federal gun control a longshot (12/23/12)
Guns seized in California. /Image via oag.ca.gov
Looks like the country is evenly split on stricter gun control. The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press released a national poll Dec. 20 that found Americans divided on gun control and gun rights, with little change in opinions after the Sandy Hook killings.
Given the gridlock track record of the current Congress, continued Republican control of the House and Democratic control of the Senate next year, and the Second Amendment's status as a third raid of GOP politics, major gun control legislation is going to face stiff opposition in Washington.
Newtown: NRA gun-violence plan panned (12/21/12)
The National Rifle Association's plan to fortify U.S. schools, including the posting of armed guards, to help protect them from mass shootings is drawing scorn and ridicule. The NRA's stubborn refusal to back down from its extremist positions on gun regulation are in stark contrast to comments I have heard over the past week from friends and family members who own firearms.
Here's a sample of comments made in response to the NRA plan that was unveiled Dec. 21 (Boston Herald, USA Today and Wall Street Journal reports):
"Instead of offering solutions to a problem they have helped create, they offered a paranoid, dystopian vision of a more dangerous and violent America where everyone is armed and no place is safe." - New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg
"There's no guarantee that the first person a mass killer targeted wouldn't be any armed guard, especially a suicidal killer with nothing to lose. I had hoped that the NRA was going to announce its support for meaningful gun control." - New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly
"The issue is not arming school safety agents. The issue is taking dangerous assault weapons out of the hands of deranged people and criminals." - Gregory Floyd, president of the union representing New York school safety agents
"Such action would turn our schools into armed camps while enriching those who make assault weapons and the most devastating types of ammunition." - Ernest Logan, president of the New York principals union
"This is not Wyatt Earp walking down the street where you have to have a challenge. I don't have any respect for people with their own agenda and not our country's agenda." - Louisville University basketball coach Rick Pitino
"They blamed the media, they blamed video games, they blamed movies, they blamed the president, they blamed everything other than mentioning any responsibility of the proliferation and easy access to guns." - Elliot Fineman, CEO of the National Gun Victims Action Council in Chicago
"This was a missed opportunity to create another conversation at a higher level where the American people are right now." - Michael Steele, former Republican National Committee chairman
"What they announced today is not a plan, but a ploy to bring more guns into our neighborhoods. I don't believe the answer to gun violence is more guns." - Boston Mayor Tom Menino
"The NRA's proposal to bring armed guards into every school in our nation is impulsive and wrongheaded. We must seek sensible approaches to school safety and to ensuring that dangerous weapons such as assault rifles are strictly regulated so that there will never be another tragedy like the one that occurred in Newtown one week ago." - Massachusetts Teachers Association
Newtown: Reaction of gun rights advocates (12/17/12)
For those of us curious about whether the massacre of 20 first-graders will jolt the United States into effective action against gun violence in general and assault weapon shooting sprees in particular, it's interesting to gauge the reaction to Newtown's torment among staunch gun advocates.
At least two gun rights advocates, former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, are calling for meaningful reforms to blunt easy access to military-style firearms. Scarborough and Manchin's willingness to embrace "reasonable" solutions to the country's gun violence problem is a welcome change to the stiff, ideologically driven opposition to any efforts in Washington or statehouses to come to grips with the thousands of annual U.S. homicides involving guns.
But if you're waiting for the National Rifle Association, the premier U.S. gun rights organization with a powerful lobbying machine at the national, state and local level, to be part of the solution, don't hold your breath.
It's been three days since the Newtown shootings, and the NRA has made no public comment on the incident. There's not a word to be found on the NRA website about Newtown. According to techcrunch.com, the NRA has hidden its Facebook page from public viewing to avoid "flaming" against the group and its members. And The Daily Beast reported that the NRA's National Firearms Museum at its headquarters in northern Virginia was "silent and somber" the day after the Newtown shootings.
Some of the solutions to U.S. gun violence, such as the secure storage of firearms in American homes, are largely out of lawmakers' reach. But many necessary steps, such as restricting or banning access to assault weapons, will require new laws and the cooperation of the NRA, which not only has lobbying clout but also tremendous influence over a wide swath of American voters.
Does the horrific violence unleashed in Newtown represent a tipping point for American gun culture? Or will the ineffectual pattern of the past, mourning and revulsion followed by a return to the status quo, persist?
Newtown: Second Amendment challenge (12/14/12)
Children are led from Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., after a gunman killed 20 first-graders. /Image via AP
The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
It's a monstrous leap from a well-regulated militia to a disturbed young man shooting 20 first-graders multiple times with an assault rifle. Since the 1999 Columbine High School attacks, U.S. school shootings have claimed the lives of more than 80 students in two dozen incidents from coast to coast. At what point will Americans be shocked into action?
Twenty first-graders dead.
Keeping guns, particularly assault weapons, out of the hands of young children and the mentally ill through gun safety, regulation and law enforcement could and should pass constitutional muster.
Newtown: Hidden cost in U.S. mental health system (12/14/12)
Jared Loughner, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, Cho Seung-Hui, James Holmes, now a disturbed Connecticut 20-year-old gunning down first-graders. All of them, and many other infamous U.S. mass killers, mentally ill and armed.
Americans can and will argue the merits of gun regulation ad infinitum after the slaughter of innocents in Newtown. But the time to argue the merits of improving mental health care in the United States has passed. The Mental Health Parity Act of 2008 called on doctors and insurance companies to treat mental health and medical health conditions on equal grounds. As many individuals and families who seek mental health services discover every day, getting good, affordable mental health care remains even harder than getting good, affordable medical health care.
We pay across the board for undervaluing mental health. Dozens of families paid the dearest prices at Sandy Hook Elementary.
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