Here We Go Again
Posted: January 15, 2014 Filed under: Uncategorized 4 CommentsYesterday there was another school shooting. This one was in a middle school in New Mexico. This is the thirty-third shooting of one kind or another at a school since the 14 December 2012 massacre of twenty children and six adults at Newtown, Connecticut.
Even the Russians cannot believe what is happening with gun violence in the United States.
It is impossible for me to accept that nobody cares enough to do something about it. Turning our schools into armed fortresses is not the answer.
There is an epidemic of gun violence that needs to be addressed.
Tom
Into The Fray 
Tom- I’d like to know if the “gun murders per 100,000 people” in the U.S. has changed appreciably over the years. I think that number’s trend is very important; if it’s getting larger, then by definition we have a worsening problem. Is it possible that we’re hearing more about the “two’s and three’s” because we are more attuned to them as a society? Because the media is quicker to report on gun murders? I suspect the answer for both is ‘yes, ‘ but I’d like to know for sure. Not that that would assuage the pain of the murdered or their families one iota, but it does seem like relevant information.
I think when we hear of an inner-city shooting involving young people we say ” there are gangs or drug dealers….that’s the hood”. We can some how explain it because of socio-economic factors. Then it happens in a school out in the suburbs and it can’t be explained so easily. Why do these young people feel that shooting is the only solution for conflict?
Tom– Just did some online research. The Pew Institute reports that gun murders in the U.S. are down no less than 50% from the all-time high in 1993 (from about 7 per year per 100,000 to just over 3 per year per 100,000 now), and still trending down. Wasn’t expecting to learn that. What conclusions do you draw from that???
It’s hard to know because research into the causes of gun violence effectively has been silenced since 1996 as outlined in my 13 December posting. Perhaps it is because gun laws do work? Regardless, the level of violence in the US is way out of synch with the numbers in similar societies (UK, Canada, Australia, etc.).