Luckily no. But it certainly could have been bad.Two injured, one dead (the shooter). Sad, but is it a mass shooting?
Luckily no. But it certainly could have been bad.Two injured, one dead (the shooter). Sad, but is it a mass shooting?
Maybe this thread is really about "public shootings". That seems to be a broader category.Two injured, one dead (the shooter). Sad, but is it a mass shooting?
The difference between the Boston Bomber/Terroism and the school shootings/suicide should be very apparent. I see the point you're going after, you just used a poor comparison.The fact people can look at an incident where a kid shoots some other kids in school, than commits suicide, and say "lucky, it could've been worse" and return to the regular scheduled programming shows just how much of an issue this really is.
How many people died to the Boston Bomber? 3. Terrorism! A whole city closed off! Manhunt! Filthy foreigners!
How many people died this year in public mass shootings? 173. No-one bats an eye.
I don't know. Comparing it to, say, traffic accidents is wrong to me. It'sn ot "ah well, some people'll die from it, it's a given, we should just minimize it" - which is true for car accidents, and in America seems to become the view held towards (school) shootings.The difference between the Boston Bomber/Terroism and the school shootings/suicide should be very apparent. I see the point you're going after, you just used a poor comparison.
Handing out guns to people who can't use them properly (and I'm talking about children, minors, the mentally handicapped, psychiatric patients, previously convicted murderers - all of these groups can and have been guilty of shootings in the past!) and letting them wander around comes pretty close to neglicence.
Yes. Keep watching!How many school shooting have happened that haven't been mentioned on the front page of news websites and in the evening news?
But let's say that we have relegated such things to the back page and now essentially ignore them, except locally. Why is that a problem? We could spend our entire day reading about the tragic death of children throughout the world, and it would take all day to read about each one, skipping those that are merely "unfortunate." The USA is large enough that reading about each child's tragic death would still take up a good chunk of each day for each person. Is it callous to limit your news intake to those only in your community, those who suffered particularly horrific or uncommon situations, and those to whom you feel a personal connection?
To note, according to wikipedia (which claims to have pulled from the CDC), the number of traffic-related deaths in the USA in 2009 was 33,808, so that's be just above 10th on the list there. It's probably part of the accidents stat there, but IMO deserves special mention.Number of deaths for leading causes of death
2010 Data , per here: CDC.gov
According to the FBI's Homicide Data for the same year (2010), the number of homicides was 12,996.
- Heart disease: 597,689
- Cancer: 574,743
- Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 138,080
- Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 129,476
- Accidents (unintentional injuries): 120,859
- Alzheimer's disease: 83,494
- Diabetes: 69,071
- Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 50,476
- Influenza and Pneumonia: 50,097
- Intentional self-harm (suicide): 38,364
Cancer killed people in 2010 at a rate of 44 to every one killed in a homicide.
As an example of how 'reliable' statistics can theoretically be, if we were to start a policy of shooting anyone who was diagnosed with cancer, "deaths by cancer" would plummet, while "firearm deaths" would rise dramatically.We currently live under the delusion that human behavior can be controlled, and cancer cannot.
Would like to note that there are several reasons for why Gun violence should get people angry despite there being "only" 12,996 homicides.Number of deaths for leading causes of death
2010 Data , per here: CDC.gov
According to the FBI's Homicide Data for the same year (2010), the number of homicides was 12,996.
- Heart disease: 597,689
- Cancer: 574,743
- Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 138,080
- Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 129,476
- Accidents (unintentional injuries): 120,859
- Alzheimer's disease: 83,494
- Diabetes: 69,071
- Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 50,476
- Influenza and Pneumonia: 50,097
- Intentional self-harm (suicide): 38,364
Cancer killed people in 2010 at a rate of 44 to every one killed in a homicide.
Yeah yeah yeah we have thousands of deaths and the government provides exactly zero dollars to studying the problem.
Must not be a priority, then.the government provides exactly zero dollars to studying the problem.
I'm trying to figure out where you are coming from with this. I can't really figure out what you're trying to say with this.
It's not a comment on any one person or department/organization in particular, rather it's just me rolling my eyes and bellyaching at the lack of coherent* message/common cause across our leadership in general. I've pretty much come to believe that The Government doesn't actually care about The People any more, as if We have become Government's senile old grandfather and Government is increasingly neglecting us in order to go out and have fun with its friends.I'm trying to figure out where you are coming from with this. I can't really figure out what you're trying to say with this.
True but the problem goes deeper than just that the government is providing no money towards studying gun violence it's also that the ATF has to jump through all sorts of hoops to gather any sort of information about the guns used in violent crime and then there are laws that distinctly say that they can't provide that information to anybody else. I want to say for any reason but I know they can't release the stats for research.The American public spends 15-20 times more on gun rights lobbying than gun control lobbying. When gun control advocates can collect 20x more lobbying funds than the NRA does to protect gun rights, then legislators might believe that the American public wants more gun control.
Besides, lack of government funding doesn't prevent anyone else from conducting their own studies. It's a pretty poor excuse to say, "Well, no one is giving us free money to study the problem" and then make the leap that the problem is being actively hidden by the entities that aren't providing free money.
Except the laws that say that the CDC can't research gun crime and that ATF can't provide the statistics have been in place for years before Obama.[DOUBLEPOST=1387305553,1387305489][/DOUBLEPOST]
Probably that our current leadership is all talk and no action...
Very true but I can see how Obama would rather have the fight over Gun control rather than over funding into gun violence that will take 5 years before they provide usable data 10 before a consesnsus is really reached and even then the specifics could be endlessly argued over.It's not a comment on any one person or department/organization in particular, rather it's just me rolling my eyes and bellyaching at the lack of coherent* message/common cause across our leadership in general. I've pretty much come to believe that The Government doesn't actually care about The People any more, as if We have become Government's senile old grandfather and Government is increasingly neglecting us in order to go out and have fun with its friends.
--Patrick
*as in "coherent light"
And I don't like the fact that the one entity most responsible for making a better life for me and my countrymen has been fractured, perverted, and diverted from doing its single most important duty, a condition which I unfortunately realize is something best healed slowly and correctly (thus likely not within my lifetime), because the quick-fix version would ... set the bones wrong, if you get what I'm saying.I just don't like the fact that there are no really good stats on gun violence and crimes.
... That are out there period. Hell if it turns out that 0% of guns bought in private transactions are used in criminal acts then I would change my stance on them and say they weren't a problem. But we don't know how many of the guns used in gun crime were bought privately or how many started their life of crime by being stolen during a robbery....that agree with your personal beliefs?
Say it explicitly: what's the primary and/or most important role of government? If your response is "to make my life as good as it can be" then we fundamentally disagree as to the most important role of government, as I don't think that should be a role of it at all and thus that's quite different than most important.And I don't like the fact that the one entity most responsible for making a better life for me and my countrymen has been fractured, perverted, and diverted from doing its single most important duty
Not my life, specifically. That's why I used "We" and "The People."Say it explicitly: what's the primary and/or most important role of government? If your response is "to make my life as good as it can be"
The Entity that is the federal government was not created to guarantee any sort of benefit to me or mine, rather it was created to facilitate the success of the collective. It is that government's job to ensure that those necessary things that no individual wants to do still get done (which is why it needs the power to force people to do things For Their Own Good). As a result, my situation ultimately improves...not because it is targeted at me, rather because I am part of the collective.We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
That was the main driving force that created the Texas CHL lawsThat poor town, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luby's_massacre
Pic removed. We had a few complaints. Sorry to bust your meme.If I had my druthers, it'd just be universal open carry.
uhhhhhhhhhhsnip racial slur
Offended on behalf of others again, are we Chuck?uhhhhhhhhhh