As America marks the six-month anniversary of the massacre of 20 children and six adults in the hamlet of Sandy Hook in Newtown, Connecticut, gun control advocates have noted that another milestone has been reached - more Americans have died by the gun since then than the total number of US troops killed in Iraq.
At the time of writing, at least 5109 had died by shooting in the US in the past six months, in comparison with 4409 soldiers lost in Iraq.
The figure is not exact because, at the behest of the National Rifle Association, Congress stripped funding from the Centres for Disease Control after that public body conducted research in 1993 showing that having a gun in the house increased, rather than decreased, the likelihood of a member of that household being shot.
While annual figures on gun deaths do eventually become available, no federal agency now keeps detailed track of shooting deaths across the US.
The CDC has finally begun research again, through the National Violent Death Reporting System, but it only covers 18 of the 50 states.
However, after Sandy Hook, one Twitter account holder started a crowd-sourcing project to keep track of the deaths, @gundeaths. The online magazine Slate has since taken over the tweeter's feed and maintains the associated database.
As Slate notes, its tally is necessarily incomplete. It is nonetheless confronting to scroll your cursor across the silhouettes of men, women and children to bring up details of their deaths.
At the time of writing, the most recent entries were four people shot dead in St Louis on Thursday in an apparent murder-suicide. As more information becomes available on them, it will be added to the database.
The most recent children included are Jennifer Andrus, 16, shot in Darien, Illinois on Wednesday, and Cameron Phillips, also 16, shot in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, also on Wednesday.
Another blogger kept track of news stories of accidental shootings by children, normally of children. The blogger, known as teeshu, linked to 137 stories before giving up on May 3 with the story of a three-year-old boy who accidentally shot himself in the face with his grandmother's gun while she was in the next room. The 35-year-old woman has been charged in relation to the death.
But stories of accidental shootings keep coming, and they keep getting reported in national media. Just last week, a four-year-old found a loaded gun while visiting a friend with his father.
He accidentally shot his father dead, but no one has been charged because the gun's owner could not have known a child would have access to his weapon.
The prominence these stories receive is a mark of how the gun debate has changed since Sandy Hook. While the NRA again flexed its muscles on Capitol Hill and prevented a move to reinstate the ban on military-style semi-automatic weapons from coming to a vote - and then killed off proposed universal background checks in a vote - gun control activists have not given up.
Bolstered by billionaire New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, the group Mayors Against Illegal Guns is spreading and spending more on advertising.
New groups have joined the battle, including former congresswoman Gabby Giffords' Americans for Responsible Solutions, which last month revealed it had raised $US11 million since the Sandy Hook shootings.
Perhaps the most significant of the new groups is that formed by parents of children slain in Sandy Hook, the Newtown Action Alliance.
Not all the parents are involved - indeed, not all support gun control - but those that are can secure face-to-face meetings with any politician they approach and they have focused media attention that might otherwise have wandered by now.
On Friday they began a 100-day tour of 25 states in order to visit politicians to convince the Senate to reconsider background checks.
When the background checks bill failed in April, some of those who voted against it received a polling slump, including Arizona Republican Jeff Flake, who later said he was probably about as popular as ''pond scum''.
But there remain many states where a sturdy pro-gun stance is not just safe but crucial.
One of those is Texas, where Republican congressman Steve Stockman is enjoying media attention for raffling a Bushmaster AR-15 - the same make and model of gun that Adam Lanza used to kill the children in Sandy Hook.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/grim-milest ... z2WEOy8F4T
It's war out there....
It's war out there....
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
Re: It's war out there....
This is misleading in several ways, some already pointed out. First, we have substantial gun control laws, but they are not effectively enforced. Second, the number of deaths includes pure suicides (about 2/3 of the total gun deaths), and guns are just one way to accomplish that sad task. Third, there is a world of difference in developing policies that would reduce the likelihood of a massacre like Sandy Hook, and developing policies to combat the gun deaths referred to below, namely accidental shooting deaths, gang-related violence and other "normal" criminal use of guns.
Re: It's war out there....
Any time anyone is throwing suicides into the mix of numbers on gun deaths, the source must be immediately suspect...Second, the number of deaths includes pure suicides (about 2/3 of the total gun deaths), and guns are just one way to accomplish that sad task.
As I demonstrated fairly conclusively with stats I brought here in an earlier discussion, there is no correlation whatsoever between the availability of firearms and suicide rates. Therefore, the inclusion of suicides committed with firearms can only be done for the purpose of inflating the numbers.



Re: It's war out there....
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
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oldr_n_wsr
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Re: It's war out there....
How many accidental shootings were done with an assault type rifle they are talking about banning?
How many people who left their guns around for children to find them would have been denied a gun in a background check?
I do believe that anyone buying/owning a gun should take a gun safety course. I had to take one to get a hunting permit, but not to buy a gun. go figure.
How many people who left their guns around for children to find them would have been denied a gun in a background check?
I do believe that anyone buying/owning a gun should take a gun safety course. I had to take one to get a hunting permit, but not to buy a gun. go figure.