America ignoring gun violence wake-up calls

Television reporter Alison Parker, 24, is gunned down while conducting an interview on Aug. 26, 2015. /Image via washingtontimes.com

Maybe this time will be different.

I doubt it.

In December 2012, the slaughter of 26 school children and educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School barely moved the needle on common sense restrictions for the possession of firearms.

Last week's slaughter of two television journalists in Virginia, which was captured on video from both the perspective of the killed and the killer, is about as close as we can get to rubbing America's collective nose in the country's gun violence problem.

Before most Americans return to sticking their collective heads in the sand, I hope at least some of them see the eye-popping U.S. gun violence statistics compiled by German Lopez for Vox:

• There have been at least 885 mass shootings since Sandy Hook.
• So far in 2015, there has been an average of nearly one mass shooting every day.
• States with more guns have more police officers who are killed in the line of duty. Every 10 percent increase in gun ownership correlates to 10 more police officers dying in homicides.
• Firearms suicides outpace firearms homicides by a wide margin. In 2013, there were 21,175 firearms suicides and 11,208 firearms suicides.
• Based on homicides by firearms per 1 million people, America is a colossal outlier among developed nations. In 2012, the American rate of homicides by firearms per 1 million people was 29.7. Switzerland posted the next-highest rate at 7.7. Australia posted the lowest rate at 1.4.

Simply put, America's love affair with guns is a cruel joke. On this issue, we are the laughingstock of the world.

Sandy Hook report: Preventing school shootings

On Dec. 14, 2012, Adam Lanza of Newtown, Conn., used this Bushmaster semi-automatic rifle in the mass killing of 26 children and educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The weapon, which is a civilian version of the M-16 military assault rifle, was equipped with a pair of 30-round ammunition magazines. /Law enforcement image

In the United States, few issues are more polarizing than guns. Even the fatal shootings of 20 young children and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut two years ago has failed to generate a consensus on ways to curb gun violence.

This week, the commission formed to advise Connecticut authorities about preventing school shootings issued its final report. The premise of the report is indisputable:

"There is at least one place, other than a home, in which every person, whether a child or an adult, should feel absolutely safe and secure from harm: school. Short of transforming our schools into gated communities or prison-like environments, however, no school can be freed entirely from the risk of violence. Nevertheless, through safe school design and operation strategies, and through closer coordination with our educators, local law enforcement, fire departments, EMS, public safety personnel, security experts and mental health professionals, our schools can become much safer environments."

The recommendations in the commission's report fall into three categories: safe school design and operation; law enforcement, public safety and emergency response; and mental and behavioral health.

While the shooter in this mass killing had been diagnosed with severe mental illness, the commission's report makes a key point about the role of mental illness in gun violence: "People with mental health challenges are far more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators." In my opinion, improving the quality and availability of mental health services in the United States would decrease the risk of mass shootings; but the primary benefit would be boosting the productivity and quality of life for those suffering from mental illness and their loved ones. 

After reviewing the commission's 277-page report, I hope widespread support can be established for these recommendations, which have been edited to remove jargon and verbose prose:

• Requiring classroom and other safe-haven areas to have doors that can be locked from the inside. 
• All exterior doors in K-12 schools should be equipped with hardware capable of implementing a full perimeter lockdown.
• School custodians should be included as members of school security and safety committees. Custodians have a wealth of knowledge and experience to share about the physical school building and grounds.
• Mandatory background checks on the sale or transfer of any firearm, including long guns, at private and gun show sales.
• A ban on the possession or sale of all armor-piercing and incendiary bullets.
• Evaluate the effectiveness of federal law in limiting the purchase of firearms via the Internet to only those individuals who have passed background screening.
• Prohibit the possession, sale or transfer of any firearm capable of firing more than 10 rounds without reloading. This prohibition would extend to military-style firearms as well as handguns. Law enforcement and military would be exempt from this ban.
• To allow, at a judge's discretion, the opportunity to temporarily remove any firearms, ammunition, and carry permits from a person who is the subject of a restraining order, civil protection order or family violence protective order, at the time of the issuance of that order.
• Recognizing that mental health is more than the absence of mental illness, build systems of care that go beyond treating mental illness to foster healthy individuals, families and communities.
• Build a mental health system that targets detection and treatment while building stronger communities of care.
• Addressing a fragmented and underfunded behavioral health system tainted by stigma requires building a comprehensive and integrated approach to care. This approach should stress family involvement and community resilience. Care should be holistic and involve pediatric and adult medical facilities from birth to adulthood, with efforts to ensure continuity of care.
• Many students and their families live under persistent and pervasive stress that interferes with learning. There are many potential resources such as school-based health centers that should provide access to preventive care.
• Schools should form multidisciplinary teams to assess and support children who may pose a risk to others or themselves due to toxic stress, trauma, social isolation or other factors.
• For many children, schools offer the only access to health assessment services. Schools should increase the availability of guidance counselors, social workers, psychologists, and other health professionals during and after school.
• Increase the behavioral health workforce.
• Funding decisions about behavioral health must look beyond the model that has prevailed over the past several decades to embrace psycho-social interventions, services directed toward the achievement of functional skills, and other efforts to engage the whole person, which frequently offer the best prognosis for recovery.
• Commercial health insurance should cover the full range of services available through the public behavioral health system, including programs that provide housing and occupational support for individuals struggling with severe mental illness. 
• A diagnosis of mental illness does not have to mean an end to achieving one‘s life goals. Systems of care that promote wellness generally and recovery for those who struggle with behavioral health challenges and the effects of traumatic stress can help to diminish stigma and its effects.
• For adolescents and adults facing mental health diagnoses, effective psycho-education of both individuals and families can decrease stigma. Psycho-education involves teaching individuals and families about mental illness and its treatment, as well as strategies for handling typical challenges that might arise with a particular condition. The goal of such programs is to recognize that someone considered "different" or "odd" may need professional help.

Newtown: Open letter to those touched by shooting

Two-year-old Addison Strychalsky of Newtown, Conn., pets Libby, a Lutheran Church Charities comfort dog, days after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. /AP photo by David Goldman

I grew up in Connecticut. My heart will forever grieve for the shattered families of Newtown.

On top of a torment that will never go away, you face a terrible choice: silence or martyrdom.

Avoiding the spotlight is surely the safest way to guard your families against the pain associated with the loss of your children. In terms of human suffering, you have endured enough. You have no obligation to risk more.

As today's release of the local police 911 tapes has shown, if the Sandy Hook Elementary shootings become the icon of unbearable gun violence, then a reliving of the event will be part of the bargain. Your story could be a catalyst for change, creating something positive out of a hideously negative event. But the story would be told again and again.

Some of you want silence. Others want some gain to come out of a horrendous loss.

So much was taken out of your control. And more shocks will surely come: the Connecticut State Police tapes, the five-year anniversary, the 10-year anniversary, the stray revelations.

It would not be easy, but there is a conscious step you could take. Your 20 families share an unwanted bond. You can bear that bond in clans of silence or martyrdom. Or you can come together and choose a shared path.

As the situation stands now, periodic media frenzies are inevitable.

You are public figures who wish nothing more than a return to the private lives you had before Dec. 14, 2012. It is a terrible burden no one should have to bear.

Newtown: Meaningless death of 20 young children?

Snow blankets teddy bears last December in Newtown, Conn., at a sidewalk memorial to the first-graders and educators shot to death at Sandy Hook Elementary School. /AP photo

Nothing.

The first anniversary of the mass shooting that claimed the lives of 20 first-graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School will soon pass. Nothing has been done to stop the spread of military-style assault firearms. Nothing has been done to stop criminals and those suffering from severe mental illness from gaining access to these weapons.

A century ago, it took the death of 146 people in New York's Triangle Shirtwaist Factory inferno to curb sweat shops in America. Most of the dead were young women.

When it comes to entrenched U.S. political forces such as the gun industry, it apparently can require the wholesale slaughter of innocents to dislodge them.

How many people will have to die in a school or some other public place before constitutional limits on military-style firearms are established? Will the death of 20 first-graders be meaningless or the beginning of the kind of changes that have saved countless worker lives since the Triangle Fire?

On March 25, 1911, A New York City police officer stands guard over Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire victims as he watches the sweatshop blaze rage more than 100 feet above. /Image via thehistoryblog.com

Newtown: State's attorney releases shooting report

Excerpts of Connecticut State's Attorney report, Nov. 25, 2013

"On the morning of December 14, 2012, the shooter (Adam Lanza), age 20, heavily armed, went to Sandy Hook Elementary School (SHES) in Newtown, where he shot his way into the locked school building with a Bushmaster Model XM15-E2S rifle. He then shot and killed the principal and school psychologist as they were in the north hallway of the school responding to the noise of the shooter coming into the school. The shooter also shot and injured two other staff members who were also in the hallway.

"The shooter then went into the main office, apparently did not see the staff who were hiding there, and returned to the hallway. After leaving the main office, the shooter then went down the same hallway in which he had just killed two people and entered first grade classrooms 8 and 10, the order in which is unknown. While in those rooms he killed the two adults in each room, fifteen children in classroom 8 and five in classroom 10. All of the killings were done with the Bushmaster rifle.

"He then took his own life with a single shot from a Glock 20, 10 mm pistol in classroom 10.

"Prior to going to the school, the shooter used a .22 caliber Savage Mark II rifle to shoot and kill his mother in her bed at the home where they lived at 36 Yogananda Street in Newtown. ..."

"It was fewer than five minutes from the first 911 call, and one minute after the arrival of the first officer, that the shooter killed himself. It was fewer than six minutes from the time the first police officer arrived on SHES property to the time the first police officer entered the school building. In fewer than 11 minutes twenty first-grade pupils and six adults had lost their lives. ..."

"All of the firearms were legally purchased by the shooter’s mother. Additionally, ammunition of the types found had been purchased by the mother in the past, and there is no evidence that the ammunition was purchased by anyone else, including the shooter.

"At the date of this writing, there is no evidence to suggest that anyone other than the shooter was aware of or involved in the planning and execution of the crimes that were committed on December 14, 2012, at Sandy Hook Elementary School and 36 Yogananda Street. ..."

"The evidence clearly shows that the shooter planned his actions, including the taking of his own life, but there is no clear indication why he did so, or why he targeted Sandy Hook Elementary School.

"It is known that the shooter had significant mental health issues that affected his ability to live a normal life and to interact with others, even those to whom he should have been close. As an adult he did not recognize or help himself deal with those issues. What contribution this made to the shootings, if any, is unknown as those mental health professionals who saw him did not see anything that would have predicted his future behavior. He had a familiarity with and access to firearms and ammunition and an obsession with mass murders, in particular the April 1999 shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado. Investigators however, have not discovered any evidence that the shooter voiced or gave any indication to others that he intended to commit such a crime himself."

PBS telling truths about gun violence in America

On Dec. 14, 2012, Adam Lanza, a troubled 20-year-old armed with an assault rifle, shot and killed 27 people including 20 first-graders. This horrific massacre has sparked a heated debate about gun violence in America. /Image via AP


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.

NRA's opening salvo on gun control blasts Obama

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

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

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

Two days after Christmas, snow blankets stuffed animals tagged with shooting victims' photos in Newtown, Conn. /Image via www.ap.org


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'

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'

William Spengler apparently set fire to his Webster, N.Y., home early Christmas Eve day then shot four firefighters and an off-duty police officer before fatally shooting himself. In the chaos after the shootings, seven homes went up in flames. /Monroe County Sheriff's Office image


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

Volunteer firefighters Mike Chiapperini and Tomasz Kaczowka were shot to death Christmas Eve in Webster, N.Y. /Images via buffalo.ynn.com

 

 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

 

 

A convicted killer is the suspected gunman in the Christmas Eve firefighter shootings in Webster. /Image via thestir.cafemom.com

Webster firefighter shooting suspect William Spengler. /Webster Police image
 

A fire set as an apparent trap for first-responders burns Dec. 24 in Webster, N.Y. Four firefighters and an off-duty police officer were shot, with two firefighters dying at the scene. /Image via cnn.com


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

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: Lanza's dark madness coming to light

Adam Lanza of Newtown, Conn., killed his mother as she slept, then went to the elementary school in the Sandy Hook section of town and gunned down 20 first-graders and six adults, according to investigators. /Image via AP

Adam Lanza, the 20-year-old Sandy Hook Elementary School shooter, appears to be an example of those suffering from severe mental illness who should not have access to firearms.

Check out three media reports on Lanza that provide some of the first insights about one of the worst mass killers in U.S. history:

Associated Press
CBS
New York Daily News

Adam Lanza reportedly learned how to shoot guns with his mother. /Image via AP

Newtown: NRA gun-violence plan panned

A woman and child visit a memorial this week in Newtown, Conn. /Image via npr.org


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: First massacre milestone marked

Bagpipers play as Nicole Hockley, center, and her son Jake watch the end of a funeral service Dec. 21 for Dylan Hockley in Bethel, Conn. Hockley, 6, was killed when Adam Lanza walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., a week earlier and opened fire, killing 26 people, including 20 children. /AP image

A week after a gunman killed 20 first-graders and six educators at one of the town's elementary schools, a curbside memorial honors the dead in the Sandy Hook section of Newtown, Conn. /Ap image

Firefighters salute Dec. 21 as the funeral procession for Sandy Hook Elementary teacher Rachel D'Avino passes in Bethlehem, Conn. /AP image

Newtown: NRA proposes armed schools

If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.
- Abraham Maslow

Newtown: Assault-weapon ban debate

Lutheran Church Charities Comfort Dogs from Chicago are working their magic this week in Newtown, Conn. /AP image


Every time there's a national or global tragedy, there's always some darkly lucky individual with a relevant book that just came out or is about to be published.

Check out Terry Gross' NPR interview of Tom Diaz of the Violence Policy Center in Washington, D.C. His book, The Last Gun, is set for publication in early 2013.

Newtown: Loving dogs comfort the grieving

Want to well up watching a story about the Newtown mass shooting because its about the power of compassion to break the grip of despair?

Golden retrievers, a breed of dog remarkable for loving humans, and pretty much all other living things, are bringing solace to a community suffering one of humanity's worst nightmares.