I love the smell of freedom in the morning. The smell of the Second Amendment, however, is the smell of dead children:
With only three days remaining in 2022, the Gun Violence Archive has counted 6,054 gun-related injuries and deaths among U.S. children aged 17 and younger this year so far. The count includes gun assault deaths, suicide deaths by firearm, deaths due to accidental firearm discharge, legal intervention leading to firearm death, and firearm deaths from undetermined causes.
As of Wednesday, 307 children under age 12 were killed by guns and 670 were injured nationwide this year. Among children ages 12-17, 1,331 were killed and 3,734 were injured this year.
The 6,054 kids harmed in 2022 represent a 5.7 percent increase over the 2021 total (5,708) and a 14.7 percent increase over the 2020 total (5,160).
In 2020, firearms became the leading cause of death among children ages 19 and below, the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) wrote in an October 2022 report [Daniel Villareal, “Guns Have Injured or Killed over 6,000 US Kids in 2022 (So Far),” Raw Story, 2022.12.29].
Americans are buying and carrying more guns (but note: 3% of Americans own half the guns in the country, and only a minority of Americans actually own a gun). But those guns aren’t strengthening democracy or reducing crime or producing any other benefit other than maybe that tingly feeling the packers get from having pistols in their pants. They’re just killing kids. That’s the price we pay for a small minority’s warped concept of freedom and the feckless Second Amendment.
But prohibition won’t work. Raise the civilian age of possession, operation and ownership of all firearms to 21, levy 100% excise taxes on the sales of semi-automatic weapons then tag the revenue for Medicaid expansion so parents have the resources to address the devastating effects of Fox News and the Republican Party have on American youth.
According to the FBI. Rifles – the category that includes guns sometimes referred to as “assault weapons” – were involved in 3% of firearm murders.
In 2020, handguns were involved in 59% of the 13,620 U.S. gun murders and non-negligent manslaughters.
https://www.pewresearch.org/
About these 3% that own guns because they NEED to own guns: “It’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations,” – President Barack Obama
larry kurtz, Yours reflects the classic medical industry approach of treating the symptom(s) and not the cause.
George Washington was a warlord because enslaved people afforded him cannon, muskets, powder and ball. And, if they were alive today he and President Jefferson would be horrified to learn the US is operating on a manual written in the Eighteenth Century. Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt would be putting American Indigenous in concentration camps arguing it’s for their own protection.
As I proposed in the preceding post:
(Sorry for being redundant but I feel this more accurately belongs under this title)
All Mammal
2022-12-30 16:23
If the targeted victims of a good portion of the gun violence in America had any say at the big boy table, we might respectfully ask men to simply consider and study the audacious and very feasible endowment of gun ownership exclusively to women who are willing and able to assume the heavy responsibility.
The skewed balance of reality as we know it would be drastically leveled out. Women would have the opportunity to fully realize freedom. I project after a short period of time, violence against women and children would be a thing of the past. As would, but not limited to, mass shootings, armed robbery, police violence, gang violence, child suicide, home break-ins, accidental shootings, less killings in general, less threats to life, less fear, less rape, less intimidation, zero bought and paid for politicians by NRA, less say in congress by gun makers, more say in congress by citizens, less division, less police and judicial and penal spending, repopulation of large predator populations and other keystone species, more mutual respect, less organized crime, better brain development in adolescents, heartier educational institutions, more competitive thinkers in the global arena, proliferation of peace and harmony, a more robust and equal democracy, a more just and secure society, the list goes on.
What could it hurt? Train women who want to defend her body and children and home and country. Women are meant to be the keepers of honor. Restoration of the country’s honor can be one drastic leap of faith away. I cannot imagine a policy like this failing. It can’t get much worse than where we’re at, anyways. Think about it as if a man proposed the idea, not some crazy broad.
My mother use to say, if God wanted us to have pistols, she would have put them at the end of our fore fingers.
Popular culture in this country romanticizes gun ownership and all that it symbolizes however I question the statistics of who and how many people own guns. Since registration is voluntary who knows? I’ve witnessed my neighbors trading guns over the fence without any legalities and I’ve watched a nutcase walk down Main Street carrying a long gun. There are more people packing than we know. I have 3 brothers and they all have more than one gun, many more, and they don’t hunt.
It’s become a sickness.
I will never forget Joe Wurzelbacher, a/k/a Joe the Plumber, after the 2014 Isla Vista killings (killed 6, injured 14) “As harsh as this sounds—your dead kids don’t trump my Constitutional rights … We still have the Right to Bear Arms … Any feelings you have toward my rights being taken away from me, lose those.”
You know that the rotting sickness is deep in our culture where every fetus is supposed to be sacred, but every breathing child must be placed at risk for mass slaughter because “That’s the price we pay for freedom.”
Listen gunners are delusional. They will pray for those killed by guns while they are preyed upon by the NRA. Right wingers just set up a marriage place near me where they also teach six year olds how to shoot. I learned at five from my dad so I’ve got them beat. Michael Flynn gives his Flynn facts there all the time, you can watch it on PBS. The important thing is deaths by suicide and killing family members or killing of say the person who checks your electrical use or who is on YOUR property for any reason. They are mostly blowing each other away so that’s all to the good. I shouldn’t say that, I do feel sorry for them, won’t pray for them though. Cowards really is all they are. Sad, delusional, stupid cowards. I must admit I buy a lotto ticket every week, so I’m also delusional, but you’ve got to fund education somehow.
Mark, i heard Neil DeGrass Tyson speak convincingly tonight about the human inability to understand statistics, and the Las Vegas Scientific Convention where no betting occurred because they understand. The lottery is just a voluntary tax that funds education. As soon as we understand that, Education funding will change.
But to your point: “Cowards really is all they are. Sad, delusional, stupid cowards.” Thanks Cory for this horrifying perspective.
Dems are right about so much, but the Right is not rational.
I also wonder about the 3% which includes assault weapons and high capacity magazines. What percent of mass shootings were carried out with such weapons of war? I can guess.
Dead American Kids
1600 total deaths. Lets break that number down, 1040 or 65% are from assault. 496 or 31% are suicide. 64 or 4% unintentional or undetermined. https://www.kff.org/global-health-policy/issue-brief/child-and-teen-firearm-mortality-in-the-u-s-and-peer-countries/
Teen Drivers
2,276
PEOPLE KILLED IN CRASHES INVOLVING A TEEN DRIVER (15-18 YEARS OLD) IN 2020.
https://www.nhtsa.gov/road-safety/teen-driving
Safety Facts
11,654
DEATHS FROM DRUNK-DRIVING CRASHES IN 2020.
https://www.nhtsa.gov/risky-driving/drunk-driving
All deaths are a tragedy. Unfortunately its a part of living.
No need to guess.
16%
16 percent of mass shootings involved an assault weapon.
81%
81 percent of mass shootings involved a handgun.
55%
55 percent of mass shootings involved a high-capacity magazine.
https://everytownresearch.org/maps/mass-shootings-in-america/
Just facts.
Run with fire, those gun deaths don’t have to be a part of life. Fatalism is the wrong response to fatal shootings, just like Noem’s shrug at coronavirus. We can save lives if we want to. We can save lives if we prioritize them over an obsolete, ineffective, and now perverted Second Amendment.
Media Bias/Fact Check says… Overall, we rate Everytown for Gun Safety Questionable based on a methodology that is often misleading, as well as the promotion of propaganda through exaggerated statistics. We also rate them Mixed for factual reporting due to numerous failed fact checks by IFCN fact checkers.
“Fatalism is the wrong response to fatal shootings”. Cory, I agree, it was not my intention to diminish or in any way trivialize those who have perished. I Apologize for my error.
“Obsolete, ineffective, and now perverted Second Amendment”.
What Would It Take To Repeal The 2nd Amendment?
First, you need to get supermajorities in Congress, two-thirds in both the House and the Senate.
Then ratified by three-fourths of the states. That’s at least 38 states.
Not much chance of repealing The 2nd Amendment.
The Second Amendment reads as follows. 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.
“A well-regulated militia” are the key words towards an achievable goal.
*Solution: Raise young people nationwide, especially in states like California, New York, Illinois, Florida, and Texas the proper meaning of militia.
It’ll take a generation not blinded by firearm bias.
1/2/2022
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/02/us/atlanta-gun-laws.html
A Heavily Armed Man Caused Panic at a Supermarket. But Did He Break the Law?
In states with permissive gun laws, police and prosecutors have limited tools at their disposal when a heavily armed individual sows fear or panic in public.
This U.S. dystopian–actually real–world is brought to today’s children by the gun-toting/promoting
likes of the NRA, Senate and House Republicans, and Governor’s like Noem–now encouraged by the Supreme Court’s rulings.
For 20 years, since Columbine, school children have known active shooter drills. “Run, hide, fight!” they learn–as the U.S. gun carnage continues.
South Dakota and U.S. adult voters cannot seem to muster the will to say “Enough.” to unsafe gun laws.
https://giffords.org/lawcenter/gun-laws/states/south-dakota/