We’ve had enough!

October 3, 2015October 3, 2015 commongunsense#Enough, 9/11 deaths, access to guns, American gun culture, Brady background checks, Brady Campaign to prevent gun violence, Congress members and guns, corporate gun lobby, guns on college campuses, HR 3411, HR1217, mass shootings, Oregon gun laws, President Obama and guns, terrorism, Umpqua campus shooting, victims of gun violence, Vox1 Comment

I got into a short exchange with someone on a friend’s Facebook page who insisted that I sounded angry about the Umpqua campus shooting that killed 9 people. This guy didn’t think anyone should be talking about a solution to our latest national tragedy. If we wait to talk about these tragedies until a sufficient time has passed, we will never be able to talk about what is needed to stop the next one. The rate and frequency of mass shootings is increasing and the every day shootings continue unabated.

The corporate gun lobby would be very happy if we didn’t talk about the carnage. Because discussing the problem and the solutions keep the issue front and center and remind the public of the victims. But we will not be silent. People are angry right now. Just as we were angry after 9/11. And then we began the discussion about solutions immediately and continue it even until today.

Why not talk about our American tragedy of gun violence right now? It’s past time to have the discussion and the actions we should have had and taken a long time ago.

And speaking of 9/11, President Obama, in his remarks about this latest shooting, asked the media to do some work and find charts comparing the deaths of Americans by terrorism since 9/11 and the deaths of Americans by guns. It didn’t take long for the media to comply. That’s because the comparison is simple. Few have died from terror attacks by comparison to those who have died from gunshot injuries. Vox and others have provided us with instructive charts showing the real devastation in our country and why we need to put all resources we have towards the national public emergency before us. You can see the stunning comparison and decide for yourself whether our priorities are in the wrong order. From the article:

More than 10,000 Americans are killed every year by gun violence. By contrast, so few Americans have been killed by terrorist attacks since 9/11 that when you chart the two together, the terrorism death count approximates zero for every year except 2001. This comparison, if anything, understates the gap: Far more Americans die every year from (easily preventable) gun suicides than gun homicides.

We’ve had enough of this. Collectively Americans have had enough. Our politicians are playing games with the lives of their constituents by not acting yesterday to do something about gun violence.

A number of letter writers in today’s Star Tribune reflect what the majority of Americans believe about guns and gun violence. Common sense is alive and well but ignored by our elected leaders whose decisions not to deal with laws that could save lives are shameful and dangerous to our communities.

The Brady Campaign/Center to Prevent Gun Violence has a new #Enough! campaign. The intent is to put pressure on our elected leaders to reflect the desires of the majority to get something done to save lives. Watch their website and social media for more information to come. One of the most effective measures to keep guns out of the hands of people who could be dangerous to themselves or others is requiring Brady background checks on all gun sales. Congress could do this today if they had the courage and the will.

Two bills are sitting on the desks of our Representatives. One is HR 3411 sponsored by Congresswoman Jackie Spears and the other is HR1217 sponsored by Congressmen Peter King and Mike Thompson. The bills are ready to go. So let’s push for them to be heard and voted on. Lives could be saved with the passage of either bill. Where is the leadership when it comes to saving lives?

Meanwhile, while we are waiting for our leaders to choose to stand with victims and families, people are dying every day. We’ve had enough. The families have had enough. Communities have had enough. And the bodies are piling up. The Umpqua campus shooting has provided 9 more of them. 9 more families are grieving along with friends and the entire community. The ripple effect of gun violence goes wider and wider every day. Every community is affected at one time or another. And now Roseburg, Oregon is the current center of the public’s attention and sympathies.They are mourning now. Soon enough, they will have to move on and live around the hole left in their hearts and their families by the loss of a loved one. Reality will set in. We can hope that some of these families will join us in our efforts to prevent others from going through their loss and their pain.

The names of the 9 victims of the Umpqua shooting have now been released. Look at the photos and read about the lives of the victims who were just going about their every day business at a college campus. In memory:

Lucero Alcaraz

Treven Taylor Anspach

Rebecka Ann Carnes

Quinn Glen Cooper

Kim Saltmarsh Dietz

Lucas Eibel

Jason Dale Johnson

Lawrence Levine

Sarena Dawn Moore

More kid shootings

September 30, 2015October 1, 2015 commongunsenseaccess to guns, Brady Center, Kid Shootings blog, kids and guns, school shootings, The Truth About Kids and Guns5 Comments

I have been a writer for the Kid Shootings blog which has now remained silent for a while. Those of us writing could not keep up with all of the shooting incidents along with everything else we were doing. But today I noticed a number of incidents that I wanted to write about.

The first is the shooting of a South Dakota school principal by a student. Luckily for all, the principal only sustained a minor injury. It could have been much worse for all concerned. As more details come out we will learn where the boy got the gun. A good guess is that he got it at home. The Brady Center’s report, The Truth About Kids and Guns found that 2/3 of school shooters get their guns in their own home or the home of a relative. This is not OK. Every gun in the hands of a child must first pass through the hands of an adult. Kids can’t buy or own guns, thank goodness. They are just not responsible enough to handle guns. Too many adults are irresponsible with their guns- why would we believe kids would be any safer?

The parents of this boy should be having a lot of thoughts right around now. Will they change what they think about gun safety reform? Will common sense happen? Time will tell.

Meanwhile back in Washington state, the father of a 15 year old teen who shot and killed 4 classmates last fall was convicted on gun charges because it was his gun that was used by his son to murder classmates and shoot himself. Why should anyone have been shocked by this verdict? If adults can’t be responsible with deadly weapons, they should be held accountable. Maybe then we will find that parents will either not have guns around when they have young kids and teens or they will make darned sure those guns are completely inaccessible to their kids.

In the Portland, Oregon area a mother shot her own son to death. What is going on? This is beyond tragic. From the article with a quote from the boy’s father:

Jake, he said, was special to his mother. “She loved him more than anything in the world,” Ryan told KOIN 6 News.

The night of the shooting, Ryan said he got some strange texts from Dianne. So he called Jake.

His last words, Ryan said, were, “Dad. Come.”

There was screaming in the background, he said, and he tried to get there – but it was too late.

Too late indeed. It is always too late. The mother was unstable and “broken” according to the father ( they were divorced). This is a case for the passage of a gun violence restraining order law so that family members can make sure people like this mother can’t access guns or can have them taken from her.

We can’t get these lives back. It’s too late. It’s past time to be talking about solutions to our epidemic of gun violence in America. At the least we can make attempts to keep guns away from people who can be dangerous with them and who we know should not have them. There are just some people who should not have guns- period. Until our elected leaders do what they know is right, kids will shoot other kids or teachers or their parents or themselves and parents may even shoot their own kids.

The corporate gun lobby is lying to people when they make claims that guns make them safer. It is simply not true. It’s time to challenge this faulty assertion and call them out for their deceptions in the name of profits for the gun industry. Saving lives comes before making profits.

Our kids are our future. They are future stars- future leaders- future teachers, doctors, lawyers, accountants, Presidents, elected officials, law enforcement officers- and professions we have not even thought about. We will be gone from this world by the time some of these kids are responsible adults. What kind of world do we want for them? What will be our legacy? Will we leave them with safer communities or with the violence that is far too common today? I know what my answer is.

UPDATE:

A 15 year old Indiana high school student was found with a gun in school. Where do we think this gun came from? I think we know.

As I am writing I am hearing about at least 10 dead in a campus shooting in Oregon. I will write more about this next but can hardly think.

Pope Francis on gun violence and Minnesota’s gun carnage

September 26, 2015September 26, 2015 commongunsenseaccess to guns, American gun culture, Brady background checks, conceal carry permit holders, corporate gun lobby, domestic shootings, gun trafficking, gun violence restraining order, guns and mental illness, Minnesota gun deaths, officer involved shootings, Pope Francis, smart gun technology, stolen guns, straw purchasing, trigger locks, waiting periods for gun purchases

The Pope was right when he said in his remarks to Congress that: “We have to ask ourselves why are deadly weapons being sold to those who plan to inflict untold suffering on individuals and society? Sadly, the answer, we all know, is simply for money, money that is drenched in blood, often innocent blood.”

Now some could say these remarks were meant to apply to the trafficking of small arms around the world that result in deadly assaults on masses of people by terrorists and insurrectionists. But we can apply these remarks to what is happening right here in our own country and, as I have written about recently, right in my own state of Minnesota.

When the aim of the gun industry is to sell as many weapons as possible to make a profit, it’s too easy to look the other way when the daily carnage is reported in our media. They must not believe it has anything to do with them or their businesses. And maybe it doesn’t. Selling guns is a business like other businesses. The difference is, what they are selling are deadly weapons designed to kill human beings. One has to wonder what a gun dealer is thinking when someone comes in and buys 2, 3, 4 handguns or an assault rifle at one time. Do they believe this person will be careful and responsible with that gun(s) and not kill themselves or their wife, partner, child or a relative or friend? How can we know?

What if we actually had a much more rigorous process of deciding who should be able to walk out of a gun store with a gun or two? What if we had a waiting period after a gun sale so someone who does mean harm to themselves or someone else can cool down for a while? What if we required a background check on all gun sales to make darned sure that everyone who buys a gun is a legal and responsible person? What if we didn’t allow the sale of multiple guns at a time? What if we cracked down on straw purchasing and gun trafficking by strengthening our laws? What if we had stronger laws about who can actually carry loaded weapons in public- and where they can carry them? What if families could report someone they love to law enforcement because they are pretty sure that person is about to do harm to someone? What if we required smart gun technology and/or trigger locks and safe storage so small children, teens and thieves couldn’t pull the trigger accidentally or on purpose on a gun they shouldn’t have?

What if………?

But, alas, we are living in a country where the headlines look like the ones I am going to highlight below.

It’s been another deadly few days in Minnesota. There was an officer involved shooting in St. Paul that ended with the death of a man who was seriously mentally ill and had just been released from a hospital:

Philip Quinn knew he needed help. After recently telling St. Paul hospital staff that he planned to kill himself, Quinn tried to get into a long-term treatment program to address his schizophrenia and other mental health difficulties.

But Thursday night in St. Paul’s West End, Quinn’s long struggle with mental illness ended when police, responding to a call of a suicidal man, shot and killed the 30-year-old, who was armed with a screwdriver and had failed to obey police commands. (…)

Quinn had been released from St. Joseph’s Hospital in St. Paul last week after being treated for a mental health concern, Tareeq said. While there, he told medical staff that he had a plan to hurt himself, she said. After returning home, he started telling Tareeq that “things weren’t making sense” to him, she said. (…)

Philip Quinn’s troubles are well-documented.

He floated in and out of the criminal justice system for years — his record includes convictions for auto theft, drugs and possession of a firearm by an ineligible felon, among other offenses. But a 2013 jailhouse letter indicated that he sought help for his demons and hoped to regain a foothold in the civilian world.

“… I’m trying to get my life back on track before I am released,” he wrote, asking a hearing officer to vacate fines in 10 citations for low-level offenses.

Quinn was released from prison in March, with supervision for a 2012 gun conviction.

In that case, Quinn had been arrested during a police investigation into the sale of guns and methamphetamine. He was initially found mentally incompetent to stand trial, but the decision was later reversed. While in prison, his brother said, Quinn once to tried to cut himself.

This was a troubled man who had been arrested and charged with illegal possession of a gun and drugs. Clearly he should have had more help. Some in the gun rights community believe we should do more with our mental health system. They are right. But we shouldn’t just deal with mental health issues and ignore the gun violence issue. And dealing with our mental health system will require all hands on deck and funding. It’s not easy to do. In this case, the man was armed with a screw driver and not a gun. One has to wonder what kind of damage may have been done had he had a gun instead of a screw driver.

There was another domestic related shooting in Minneapolis hat ended in the death of 2 people. Police have not released information about the details or the names but the “father” living in the home surrendered to police.

And finally one is dead and one injured in a shooting in downtown Minneapolis last night:

One man was dead and another was injured late Friday in Minneapolis in a shooting, police said.

The shooting happened about 10:35 p.m., according to authorities, who were alerted by the city’s ShotSpotter system.

When officers arrived, they found the dead man in front of a residence as well as a number of people in the area, police said in a statement early Saturday.

Among that group, the officers found the wounded man, who had been shot in a foot, the statement said. An ambulance took the hurt man to North Memorial Medical Center.

Another 4 dead and one injured in the course of 2 days in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota. This on top of the 9 dead and one injured in the previous week as I wrote about in the above linked previous post on this blog.

Now what? Will we just watch as the shootings continue? Or will we take action and think about the words of the Pope in his visit to our country? We are the only country in the world that allows such awful and devastating carnage to continue unabated without taking immediate action. The gun lobby has an outsized and ludicrous influence on our political system that makes no common sense. It is way past time to act in the name of our moral values, our duty to provide safety, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” to the citizens of our communities. For the sake of our children and our future as a country, we just have to be better than this. Pope Francis was trying to tell us something and asked an important question.

He has spoken out before on shootings and gun manufacturers after the shooting at Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston:

The Pope openly criticized arms manufacturers, referring to Christians who manufacture or invest in weapons as hypocritical. “It makes me think of … people, managers, businessmen who call themselves Christian and they manufacture weapons. That leads to a bit of distrust, doesn’t it?” Pope Francis said at his speech in Turn, Italy, reports Reuters. (…) According to a report conducted by The Guardian, Italy averages 11.9 firearms per 100 people. The United States, on the other hand, has the world’s highest average at 88 guns per 100 people. The number of gun homicides is also relatively low in Italy, with 0.71 per 100,000 people compared to 2.97 per 100,000 people in the U.S. In the U.S., the pope’s negative comments about gun manufacturers might not have been received so warmly.

And finally, from the linked article above regarding the Pope and gun violence:

As Obama mentioned in his recent appearance on Marc Maron’s “WTF” podcast, gun sales often spike following tragedies like the one that occurred in South Carolina on June 17.

Ironically, the president mentioned, gun manufacturers benefit from high-profile mass murders due to citizens’ fears that gun rights may be revoked.

In the U.S., despite repeated instances of mass gun violence, it’s unlikely gun control laws will significantly change any time soon. Considering the pope’s influence in nations around the world, his outspoken comments about the violent nature of guns may continue. Perhaps at least the 69.4 million Catholics in the U.S. — 22 percent of the overall population — will heed his words.

The Pope can have a powerful influence and let’s hope his visit here will lead our religious leaders to get more involved and take action. Will we listen to the Pope’s words and will we answer his questions?

The world is beautiful and scary

September 23, 2015September 23, 2015 commongunsense"law abiding" gun owners, access to guns, American gun culture, background checks, Charleston church shooting, church shootings, corporate gun lobby, guns for self defense, guns in schools, kids and guns, shooting of Virginia journalists, WhatEverItTakes3 Comments

Last Sunday, my minister said that the world is both beautiful and scary in a sermon relating to one of the readings of the day. She is so right. Most of the time, I find the world to be beautiful. In spite of my family’s having dealt with the domestic shooting of my sister, we have all moved on the best we could living around the hole left by my sister’s death. Life seems beautiful and we are lucky for that.

But then something happens to bring the grief and sadness to the surface again. Recent shootings, especially the very public shooting of 2 reporters in Virginia, brought those scary feelings back instantly. Gun violence is so unexpected and violent. Thoughts of a loved one experiencing that horror, pain, violence and fear are hard to push back down again. People die from auto accidents, household accidents, diseases, and sometimes by homicide. But gun deaths for the most part are so senseless and preventable.

So maybe we should all put our heads in the sand and pretend it’s not happening. We could roll ourselves up in a ball and move on. But many of us have not done that. We have made ourselves advocates for preventing the awful effects of gun violence on other families. So I read. I act. I write. I talk.

The daily news of gun incidents is hard to ignore. But it’s important to keep writing and talking. Most people become numbed to the issue and just want to live their lives without thinking about gun violence. But just as with auto accidents, diseases and other causes of injury and death the majority of parents do what they can to keep their families safe and healthy. Gun safety reform and awareness of the dangers of guns should be a part of the safe and healthy life styles that we all practice . We, as adults, will not be here forever. Our children will be around longer than us and we owe it to them to keep them safe and teach them healthy habits. We should do #WhatEverItTakes. When 8 children a day are dying from gun homicides, suicides or accidents, we can’t take it lightly. And many more are injured and suffer life long disabilities and/or emotional distress.

Given that, how can a parent shoot a one month old child? Now that is downright scary. A man brought a gun to a church in Selma, Alabama on Sunday but was noticed before he could get off a lot of shots. He wounded his wife, his one month old son, and a man who tried to get the gun away from him. This was yet another case of a domestic dispute gone terribly wrong. From the article:

Earl Carswell said Sunday’s incident could have been much worse.

“If (Minter) had been aiming, and wasn’t somebody pulling on him, he could have killed three, four or five folks,” Carswell said. “But thank the Lord he got pulled off. As soon as that gun appeared, they grabbed a hold of it.”

Despite struggling with several churchgoers, Carswell said Minter was able to squeeze off seven rounds.

“Bullets don’t got any sense, they just go whichever way,” he said. “It could have been a hairy thing quick, I mean sure enough.”

(…) “When I think about it (today), I get jittery,” he said.

Jackson said he believes residents “are still in shock that something like this could happen in Selma.

This is probably the first church shooting we have had, but unfortunately this is the world we live in now,” he continued. “Church used to be off limits, even to the worst criminals, as far as committing a crime in the church. Now times have changed.”

Carswell said he has lived in Selma for 61 years and many churchgoers have been known to carry guns into worship service. Carswell said himself carried one into church for 10 years.

“This is the first time anyone has ever pulled it and even showed it,” he said.

“…. but unfortunately this is the world we live in now.”” Yes. It’s unfortunate but not inevitable. It’s hard to believe that this is the first time there has been a problem with guns in worship services in Selma given that people have been carrying guns into churches for years. Why? Why are guns needed during church services? What are people scared of in church? Church services are mostly beautiful and peaceful or joyous. If we are scared of people with guns coming into churches, it’s because we, as a country, have allowed our laws to be weakened to the point of allowing guns in our churches.

And why is that when people “snap” it’s a gun that they turn to to “solve” their problems?

Our gun culture encourages almost everyone to own and carry guns and we don’t make serious attempts to stop people who shouldn’t have guns from getting them. When someone like the man in the Selma church “snaps” a gun changes everything in an instant from normal, beautiful, calm, happy,…. to scary. The shooting at Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston was scary not only because 9 people were shot but because of the shooter’s motives. He was associated with white supremacists and had racist sentiments. The recent fomenting of racism and anti-Muslim statements made by Republican Presidential candidates is making our world scarier. Combined with people who shouldn’t be able to own guns, we have a potential “perfect storm”.

Part of this is the consequence of a culture of guns that is based on fear of others who are not like us and fear of others with guns. It’s a vicious circle.

Bullets don’t have any sense of course as is mentioned in the above linked article. That’s the point. They have trajectories that can be predictable or not. Guns with bullets in them are dangerous and people who carry guns and own them can become dangerous in a split second.

Speaking of becoming dangerous in a split second, we really do need to have a very serious discussion immediately about kids bringing guns to school. Going to school should be a positive experience. We all know that is not the case for all children given their race, religion, home life experiences, intellect, etc. Many factors can make learning difficult for some. But school, at least, is supposed to be a safe place. Not so any more. From this article in The Trace, we learn that:

Since the school year began roughly one month ago, there have been at least 29 incidents in which elementary, middle school, and high school students were caught bringing firearms to school, according to a survey of media reports. Most have involved teenagers.

This bears repeating- “…there have been at least 29 incidents in which elementary, middle school, and high school students were caught bringing firearms to school....” Very frightening. What are we going to do to keep our kids and students safe? Every gun in the hands of a child or teen must first pass through the hands of an adult. What in the world are adult gun owners thinking? The problem appears to be that people have such a cavalier attitude towards guns that they don’t seem to realize how dangerous they are. Guns are mostly not used for self defense. When will we get this into our collective heads? When will we stop listening to the gun lobby who tells people the opposite?

Scary to say the least. And the problem comes from easy access to guns. We now have more guns around than ever before. It is inevitable that they will make it into the wrong hands. There is just no common sense to our gun culture and our gun laws.

Yesterday I took a little time away from the cares of the world and this blog and gun violence prevention. I drove up along the North Shore of Lake Superior on a gorgeous day to enjoy the beauty of the nature around me. I was not scared of anyone or anything. I saw no guns. I saw no one who looked like they were scared about some idiot with a gun in the parking lot or along the trail. What I saw was people enjoying the beautiful day with cameras carried instead of guns. Thanks goodness most people don’t carry guns or feel the need to own them. At least not where I live. And not the people with whom I am friends. And if they do have guns, they use them mostly for hunting in the beautiful woods that are all around my area of northern Minnesota. Not only do people hunt, they love the beauty of the woods in the fall and the sport of hunting.

Until we get to the point of of a serious national discussion about the dangers of guns, even for “law abiding” gun owners, the incidents I read and write about will continue. The corporate gun lobby is aiding and abetting our insane gun culture to boost sales and preserve a narrative that is just not based on the truth. Maybe some of those folks should take a walk in the woods and enjoy the beauty around them instead of thinking of ways to sell guns.

Minneapolis shootings highlights access to guns

September 19, 2015September 19, 2015 commongunsenseaccess to guns, American gun culture, bad apple gun dealers, Brady background checks, Brady Campaign to prevent gun violence, Chicago gun laws, corporate gun lobby, crime guns, Finish The Job, gun laws, gun violence restraining order, guns and politicians, Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, lost and stolen guns, Minneapolis shootings, Minnesota gun laws, Pre-emption laws, state gun laws, straw purchasing

The Minneapolis Star Tribune wrote an editorial that appeared in today’s version of the paper. The editorial focused on the latest round of shootings in downtown Minneapolis that left 9 people injured and one dead last week-end. I wrote about this in a previous post. From the editorial piece:

That’s a different kind of crime-fighting challenge, city officials said during a City Council Public Safety Committee this week. And, as one pointed out, combating it involves a strong focus on gun access — using current laws to prevent violent criminals from getting guns, prosecuting them to the maximum when they possess and use guns, and expanding efforts to take more firearms out of circulation.

Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman and downtown police Inspector Mike Kjos said they are looking at additional traffic-flow and business-hour changes, understanding that those strategies only go so far. Therefore, doubling down on access to firearms can make a difference. It’s far too easy for those who intend to inflict harm to get guns. And once caught and convicted on gun charges, too many of them are back on the streets too soon. As Freeman noted, his office, the various law enforcement agencies and downtown stakeholders must continue to work together to bring brazen offenders to justice.

It doesn’t have to be this way. There is an answer staring us in the face but our leaders are ignoring it. It’s clear that easy access to guns in our communities is causing senseless shootings and deaths and injuries. There really is no argument about it. Preventing easy access to guns has to be a solution. In an interesting article that came to may attention, Chicago criminals serving time were asked where they got their crime guns. From the article:

A survey of inmates in Chicago suggests most criminals don’t steal guns. Instead they get them from family or people they know.

“There are a number of myths about how criminals get their guns, such as most of them are stolen or come from dirty dealers. We didn’t find that to be the case,” says Philip J. Cook, a professor of public policy, economics and sociology at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy.

What the study found is that at least these criminals got their guns from their friends. (Where did their friends get their guns?) They didn’t try to buy them from a gun dealer. Why? They would likely not pass a background check and would be turned away. They didn’t steal them, though many crime guns do come from thefts of guns of law abiding gun owners. Though some of the guns come from straw purchases, many of the guns in the Chicago area came from out of state from someone who was able to get guns and bring them in to sell on the street. More from this article:

“This research demonstrates that current federal and local regulations are having a big effect on the availability of guns to criminals in Chicago,” he adds. “They can’t buy their guns from stores, the way most people do, and are instead largely constrained to making private deals with acquaintances, who may or may not be willing and able to provide what they want.

“Other studies we have done have found that in many cases criminals go without guns because they don’t know how to get one. We conclude that current enforcement is somewhat effective, and devoting more resources to enforcement would further constrain gun access by dangerous people.”

There’s a theme here. When there is easy access to guns for those who shouldn’t have them, shootings will likely happen. Crime will happen. People will die. Our streets will be less safe.

And laws matter. Just as laws matter for speeding, access to tobacco products, drunk driving and other public health and safety matters, gun laws do matter. But we need to expand the laws we have to include requiring background checks on ALL gun sales. Why wouldn’t we? Speeding laws include everyone. No one is immune. Everyone is required to wear a seatbelt. Access to tobacco products includes everyone. No one is excluded. Safety laws for baby cribs don’t exclude certain companies. Everyone has to go through the TSA screening before boarding a plane. No one is excluded. There is not a separate line for some people. All medicine containers now have safety caps that make it hard for kids to open. Even adults have problems opening these bottles. Not one is exempt. All are included. If people or companies don’t follow the laws, there are penalties and responsibilities for breaking them.

And sometimes the end result of not following the laws is senseless deaths and injuries. That is why we, as a country, do as much as we can to prevent that from happening. But gun laws are the exception. It’s simply not true that criminals just don’t follow gun laws as a rationale for not bothering to pass any. That is a flawed and false argument.

It’s way past time to address the problem of easy access to guns. It takes the shooting of 10 people in one night in downtown Minneapolis for the public’s and law enforcement’s attention to focus on the problem of guns. There are other things that contribute to the problem. But the guns must be addressed. It’s the only common sense argument.

We can do much better than this if we focus on the real problem and not let the gun lobby distract us or scare us into thinking that guns are not the problem. They certainly are. At the national level we can Finish the Job started when the Brady law was passed and expand background checks to all sales. We can, if we have the will, require reporting of lost and stolen guns. We can strengthen straw purchasing and gun trafficking laws. We can make sure people who are a danger to themselves or others don’t have guns. Some states have passed laws to do just that. (California’s Gun Violence Restraining Order) We can remove guns from domestic abusers. Some states, including Minnesota, have done just that. We can hold bad apple gun dealers accountable. (The Brady Campaign is working on that) Revoking state pre-emption laws that keep cities from passing strong gun laws would help with easy access to guns in, especially, large urban cities. From the linked article from the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence:

At the urging of the gun lobby, however, most states have explicitly removed authority from local governments to regulate guns and ammunition, thereby creating a dangerous exception to the traditional rule of local authority.

State preemption statutes threaten public safety because they prevent local governments from implementing customized solutions to gun violence in their communities and impede their ability to fill regulatory gaps created by inaction at the state and federal level. Moreover, by mandating a one-size-fits-all approach to firearms regulation, preemption statutes deprive the public of a critical problem-solving resource: local innovation.

The gun lobby has managed to stop local communities from exercising local control- something they like for anything else ( as mostly conservatives). But when it comes to guns, not so much.

We can, as the article about where criminals get their guns, make sure young people in affected communities of color have more to do than wander our streets with guns.

In other words, we can do this. It is beyond unreasonable and ludicrous that we haven’t already tried to stop at least some of the 33,000 gun deaths a year in America.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo made a statement after one of his staffers died from gunshot injuries sustained in a random shooting on the streets of New York:

“This is not any Second Amendment fight, it’s not for the soul of the country,” Cuomo said. “That’s a lot of baloney. Nobody’s trying to take anybody’s gun. I am a gun owner. I have been a gun owner. I’m not anti-gun. I’m anti-gun for mentally ill people. I’m anti-gun for criminals.” (…)

Cuomo called on federal elected officials to summon the “guts and courage” to pass strict laws on the national level because of the guns that have flooded into New York from other states.

“The federal officials in my opinion are afraid of the political downside,” he said.

And he acknowledged he took a hit in popularity for the SAFE Act, passed in the wake of an elementary school shooting in Connecticut. The measure has angered gun-rights supporters and Republicans, especially upstate, and Cuomo’s popularity there has struggled to rebound.

“I paid the price. When I passed the law in New York, the people who were against any gun control got very, very angry at me and the don’t like me and they don’t vote for me,” Cuomo said. “I understand that. But, I was elected to do the right thing. The right thing is this nation needs a federal gun control policy.”

Thank you to Governor Cuomo for doing and saying the right thing. He does have the political courage to do the right thing in the face of strong resistance. That is what it will take in order to save lives. He gets it. Too many of our elected leaders don’t or won’t.

Shame on them all.

Strong laws, community responses to this concerning epidemic, public education and awareness about the risks of guns, enforcing the laws already on the books( which doesn’t preclude passing new ones), holding gun owners responsible for their own behavior, and many other measures, can make a difference. They have already made a difference in the states that have taken action and passes strong gun laws. The evidence is already in front of us.

Do we want to make a difference and make change happen? Or do we want to just have the status quo and let the corporate gun lobby be the deciding group in these important decisions? Do we want our elected leaders to listen to the majority of us who are concerned about our national public health and safety epidemic or will we let them get away with publicly announcing their adherence to the gun lobby’s view of the second amendment?

It’s time to do something and stand with the families of the 33,ooo victims of gunshot injuries. Who are we as a country if we fail our children and our communities in such a tragic way? We need to do #WhatEverItTakes.

America, Presidential debates, the fact free political system and bogus gun arguments

September 16, 2015September 16, 2015 commongunsenseaccess to guns, Brady Campaign to prevent gun violence, candidates and the gun issue, corporate gun lobby, domestic shootings, Donald Trump, gun laws in Switzerland, gun lobby lies, guns and mental illness, Jesse Ventura, Mike the Gun Guy, politics and guns, public health and safety, Republicans and guns, research on gun violence, shooting of journalists, Wayne LaPierre, women and guns

Let’s ask our politicians to answer some serious questions about gun violence prevention. Then we can find out who is on the side of public health and safety and who is spouting the bogus arguments of the corporate gun lobby. Avoiding this serious epidemic should not be allowed by the media or the public. It’s time to stand up and ask the questions and get the answers the families of the many gun violence victims deserve.

It’s past time to look at ourselves in the mirror to see the insanity of our American gun culture. Looking carefully reveals all of the hypocrisy and misleading arguments presented to us by the corporate gun lobby and the gun rights extremists. How did this happen? Good question. We are experiencing an interesting time in our country. Take the Donald Trump phenomenon. The linked article likens Trump to a wrestler while everyone else is boxing. Interesting. As we know, professional wrestling has a lot of drama and fakiness to it compared to boxing. I can only be reminded of former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura and what that conjures up for this Minnesotan who lived through his term in office. In the linked article Ventura actually thinks about running again and maybe with Donald Trump. You just can’t make this stuff up.

It’s the fear and paranoia of government that is fueling the political system right now. The fact that Donald Trump, who has never held public office, has no experience with foreign policy or governing anything is surging in the polls should bring us up short. Do we really want someone running for President whose only platform is that he is the greatest and everyone else is stupid?

And what does this have to do with our gun culture? The extreme view of the second amendment that espouses the need for guns to protect oneself from the government and being ready to fight the government has been fueled by the gun lobby for decades. We now have Americans who are heavily armed and ready to fight against their own government. These people believe that their rights extend to allowing them and just about anyone for that matter, to carry their guns openly displayed and loaded, in public. They believe that they should be able to own as many guns as they want and any kind they want, including military style assault rifles.

And this view of the gun culture presents us with many fallacies and false arguments about the second amendment. I have written a lot about Mr. Wayne LaPierre’s lies about the right to bear arms:

For starters, the motto for this year’s convention was: “If they can ban one, they can ban them all.” So fear was the very slogan. Then, the NRA’s Executive Vice President and CEO Wayne LaPierre upped the fear factor by telling the attendees:“There’s no telling how far President Obama will go to dismantle our freedoms and reshape America into an America that you and I will not even recognize.” Now even assuming Obama wanted to somehow “dismantle our freedoms,” as LaPierre claims, how could Obama do that in the final 18 months of his presidency when the Republicans control the Senate, the House, and the Supreme Court?

He can’t, and the NRA knows that. But facts don’t matter when you are trying to scare people (and get their money). In fact, they often get in the way.

Now scaring people (aka lying) about Obama is nothing new for the NRA. It started even before he took office. While Obama was campaigning for president in 2008 he stated that the Second Amendment bestowed a personal right to own guns and that he “will protect the rights of hunters and other law-abiding Americans to purchase, own, transport, and use guns.”

Pretty clear, right? But the NRA publicly claimed that Obama wanted to “ban use of firearms for home self defense” and “ban the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns.” That was simply and utterly a fabrication by the NRA.

But no matter. Lies seem to be OK with certain Americans.

I came across an article about one of the gun rights extremists’ latest lies that I want to write about. Their claim that the Swiss can carry guns and own a lot of guns and yet, their gun death rate is low is bogus. An article in Salon exposes the false claims about guns in Switzerland.

Let’s take a look at what’s actually likely to be going on in that picture. Switzerland’s high rate of gun ownership is tied to the fact that it does not have a standing army so virtually every male citizen is conscripted into the militia where they receive comprehensive weapons training. Since they are a militia, they keep their government issued weapons (without ammunition) at home. Therefore, many of the guns in Swiss homes were issued to them by the government and most Swiss gun owners are highly trained in gun safety. This is in contrast to many untrained American yahoos who hang around Starbucks with loaded AR-15s leaning dangerously against the table top while they sip their mocha frappucino.

When Swiss militia members complete their service they are allowed to keep their weapon once they’ve been approved for an acquisition permit and can prove they have justification for having it. Private ownership of guns, along with ammunition, is also allowed under an acquisition permit with certain restrictions, including against those with criminal records and history of addiction and psychiatric problems. And with a law worthy of Orwell’s worst nightmare, every gun in Switzerland is registered by the government.

The rate of gun deaths in the US doesn’t come anywhere close by comparison to that of Switzerland where the gun death rate is .77 per 100,000 compared to the U.S. at 2.97 even though there is a large gun ownership percentage.

And what’s more, the Swiss are having some interesting debates about “gun control” and new restrictions after some shootings there. They are not immune to the American gun culture apparently and since there is high gun ownership, they do have some conundrums presented by that fact.

One of the many other bogus arguments concerns women and guns. Again, Mike the Gun Guy gets this analogy right:

If you’re a die-hard, red-meat internet trawler of course you’ve heard of Dana Loesch. She’s been a helpmate of Glenn Beck, hosts her own radio show and tweets away to a responsive and raucous crew. Of course she has all the right credentials to promote guns: makes sure you see that little Christian icon that she wears around her neck (stole the idea I suspect from Laura Ingraham), never lets you forget that she’s a good ol’ Southern gal and, in case you thought there was any chance she would let the slightest, liberal influence into her home life, she home-schooled her kids. It’s a masterful image, made expressly for red-meat consumption, and it figures that sooner or later she’d wind up pimping for the NRA. (…) As for Dana’s comments that she needs a gun to protect her family and her home, a bit of research reveals some facts that negate everything she says. A survey of 14,000 crime victims reveals that in less than 1% of the criminal attacks did the victim protect themselves with a gun. And when they did defend themselves, the number of victims who were injured was the same whether or not they had a gun. Want to know the real reason the ‘media’ doesn’t report all those home invasions where a woman defends her life and sacred honor with a gun? Because they account for less than 2% of all home invasions, that’s why.

In fact, American women are much more likely to be killed by a gun in homes where a gun is present. I happen to know that one from personal experience after my sister was shot and killed in a domestic dispute. Women in other countries are safer from gun violence ( at least in countries not at war) than women in the U.S. What a sad and tragic reality. And it is reality.

I am pretty tired of fact free arguments and the sad fact that so many people are gullible enough to believe them. Either that, or they are paranoid and fearful enough to believe bogus arguments. We are being dumbed down. The fact that Donald Trump is so far ahead of his opponents is frightening and of great concern.

Donald Trump happens to believe in the bogus corporate gun lobby arguments. Trump waa asked about our gun culture after the horrific shooting of 2 Virginia journalists on live TV. He deflected the question by answering that we have to deal with our mental health system. He’s right about that one. But he offered no solutions nor do those who make this claim want to pony up the funding to actually do something about our broken mental health system. But in the end, that is the bogus argument to get people like Trump and other gun rights extremists off the hook when it comes to actually talking about the gun problem in the U.S. And Trump is singing the same tune as all of the Presidential candidates.

Bogus and shameful.

Trump makes up other stuff or just ignores the facts and spends his time attacking and complaining about an America we once had and can get back again. How will we “get America back” if we are ignoring one of our most serious public health and safety epidemics? Health care professionals are offering us the facts and the research but the bogus arguments from the right are drowning out the facts.

Bogus and shameful.

At least the Democratic candidates are not afraid to talk about the issue. Hillary Clinton is strong on the gun issue as is Martin O’Malley. Bernie Sanders’ position is more complicated and more nuanced for which he has taken some heat.

All I know is that common sense is seriously lacking in today’s world of politics in America. The facts are that 88 Americans a day are dying from gunshot injuries and we’re talking about sending Mexicans back to Mexico and keeping America great. What’s so great about a country that is allowing 32,000 plus Americans die from gun injuries?

I want an America where we talk openly and honestly about our problems and then try to solve them in a reasonable manner with research to back up the problems and the solutions. We don’t have that now, thanks to the far right and gun lobby resistance to dealing with the facts. In fact, attempts to do serious research on important issues of our time like the environment, health care, gun violence and others, is going backwards thanks to the far right according to this article. That really does have to change. I hope you will join with me and join one of the many organizations working on gun violence prevention and gun safety reform and make the changes we all deserve to be safe in our homes and our communities.

There is a Republican presidential primary debate tonight. Any bets on whether the issue of guns and what to do about all of the shootings comes up? If it does, take notes.

A deadly week-end in Minnesota

September 14, 2015September 14, 2015 commongunsenseaccess to guns, corporate gun lobby, domestic shootings, gun deaths and injuries, homicide/suicides, Mike the Gun Guy, Minnesota gun laws, Minnesota mass shooting, public health and safety, shots fired9 Comments

Warning- guns are hazardous to your health and safety. What about this have we failed to recognize or understand? It’s a conundrum but I do believe the public at least is beginning to pay attention. And if I and others keep alerting the public and our politicians about the dangers of guns and lax gun laws, something just has to change, doesn’t it? One thing I know is that we can work to change the politicians if they don’t change their resistance to gun safety reform measures. In just Minnesota alone in the past few days, we have had carnage and mayhem in our homes and streets.

In my last post, I wrote about the murder/suicide of a 5 member family in a suburb of the Twin Cities of Minnesota. This incident is much talked about, as you can imagine. Not only is it a domestic shooting, it is a murder/suicide and it is a mass shooting. 5 are dead. The Gun Violence Archive site is keeping track of these incidents. Thank goodness somebody is doing this because the corporate gun lobby doesn’t want the public or politicians to have a real understanding of the scope of the gun violence in our country.

According to someone at that site who posted on a page of which I am a member, there have been 400 murder/suicides in 2015. That’s more than one per day. If this isn’t enough to make your hair stand on end, I don’t know what is.

And then, over the week-end 10 people were involved in shootings in 2 separate places in Minneapolis. One is dead, the others injured. If that wasn’t enough there was another murder/suicide in western Minnesota involving two men.

And we’re not done yet. A man in his 90s shot and killed his own son in a Twin Cities suburb. More details are coming but the man is being held in jail at this time.

Shots were fired in Rochester, MN over the week-end and after a brawl in downtown Duluth..The police didn’t buy the shooter’s claim of self defense. Guns and alcohol don’t mix.

By my count, that’s 9 dead, 9 injured and 2 incidents of gun fire where no one got hurt. And that’s all in a few days’ time. Stunning and total lunacy.

So, what’s the solution to this public health and safety epidemic? We should begin with common sense. And we need to fight the mistaken and misleading assertions by the corporate gun lobby. It’s time to be strong and fight back with the facts, tell real stories about gun violence and expose the nonsensical arguments of the NRA and others in the gun lobby. A blog post from Mike the Gun Guy encourages those involved in gun violence prevention to take off the gloves. When lives are at stake and shootings are taking the lives of so many people, being polite about it doesn’t change anything. We need to be noisy and insist that our voices are heard. Time to get to work. Are you with me?

Gun suicides must be taken seriously

September 9, 2015September 10, 2015 commongunsenseaccess to guns, Armslist.com, Azana spa shooting, Brady background checks, Brady Campaign to prevent gun violence, Brady Center, domestic shootings, guns and suicide, homicide/suicide, kids and guns, mass shootings, public health and safety, Suicide-Proof Your Home

For far too long, we have ignored one of our country’s most serious public health problems- gun suicides. This week is Suicide Prevention Awareness week. Are we paying attention? The Brady Center has a new report out about the reality of suicide by gun which takes more lives than gun homicides. Let’s take a look at some of the points made in the report:

A gun in the home makes a suicide three times more likely according, to a 28-page report released today by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. The Truth About Suicide and Guns finds that while gun ownership alone presents the greatest risk, when combined with the impulsive nature of suicide and the effectiveness of a gun, the combination is deadly. In fact, 71% of people who attempt suicide do so within an hour after making the decision. Further, death results 91% of the time when a gun is used because injuries are instantaneous and leave little time for medical intervention or for the victim to reconsider their decision.

“A gun in the home makes it too easy for someone to find a permanent and tragic solution to a temporary feeling. This report is not about the right to bear arms; it’s about arming people with facts,” said Brady Center President Dan Gross. “The facts are clear — there is one, surefire way to drastically reduce the number of Americans who die from suicide each year and, simultaneously, make American homes safer: Keep guns out of the home or store them safely.”

Suicide by gun has increased since 2007 which is affirmed by many reports. When I spoke to my own Police Chief, he confirmed that he had been seeing more local gun suicides. The report from Brady has some numbers:

A closer examination of the causes of these deaths reveals some important trends. Over the past decade, the rate of firearm homicide has continued a steady decline. At the same time, the firearm suicide rate has begun rising, increasing more than 13 percent between 2007 and 2013. The combination of these two trends is keeping the overall gun death rate essentially stagnant.

Access to firearms clearly increases the risk of suicide as the report highlights:

Intervention during this time of acute risk is key to saving lives. Most people who attempt suicide don’t really want to die, they are just so overwhelmed by their emotions they feel unable to cope. Indeed, the vast majority of people who make it through a suicidal crisis do not go on to die by suicide. A systematic review of 70 studies following patients after a non-fatal attempt found that, on average, only 7 percent (range: 5 to 11 percent) eventually died by suicide, whereas 70 percent did not attempt again.

A common misconception is that people who want to die will find a way to kill themselves, with or without a gun. However, studies suggest that the risk of method substitution is low. If a person’s preferred suicide method is unavailable, it is unlikely they will switch to a different one. Even if another method is used it is likely to be less lethal, thus increasing the odds of survival. (…)

Research has shown that reducing firearm availability can lead to reductions in firearm suicide rates. In one study, researchers measured the impact of changes in household firearm ownership on suicide rates in the United States between 1981 and 2002. They found that each 10 percent reduction in firearm prevalence was associated with significant declines in rates of firearm suicide (4.2 percent) and overall suicide (2.5 percent). The effect was even greater among children ages 0 to 19. A more recent study of suicide on college and university campuses between 2004 and 2009 revealed substantially lower suicide rates for students compared to all 20- to 24-yearolds. These differences were attributed to the ninefold decrease in firearm availability on campuses versus homes.

The availability of guns clearly makes a difference. Guns are more lethal than other methods of suicide and, as the report reveals, 90% of those who attempt suicide but fail don’t try again. So we can’t listen to those who say we shouldn’t deal with the risk of firearms since people will just use other means to kill themselves. It is simply not true based on the research.

As part of the release of this new report, a father speaks in a video about his 13 year old son who shot himself on impulse with a gun the father had forgotten he had in the house. Below is the story told by Farid Naib :

Cayman Naib had a bad day. He found a gun and used it on impulse to shoot and kill himself. Now his father is telling his story. If only there had not been a gun handy. Guns make it much easier and are more lethal than other potential methods of suicide. From this linked article about guns and suicide:

The harrowing fact of suicide demands a story: “Why?” But from a public health perspective, an equally illuminating question is “How?” Intent matters, but so does method, because the method by which one attempts suicide has a great deal to do with whether one lives or dies. What makes guns the most common mode of suicide in this country? The answer: They are both lethal and accessible. About one in three American households contains a gun. The price of this easy access is high. Gun owners and their families are much more likely to kill themselves than are non-gun-owners. A 2008 study by Miller and David Hemenway, HICRC director and author of the book Private Guns, Public Health, found that rates of firearm suicides in states with the highest rates of gun ownership are 3.7 times higher for men and 7.9 times higher for women, compared with states with the lowest gun ownership—though the rates of non-firearm suicides are about the same. A gun in the home raises the suicide risk for everyone: gun owner, spouse and children alike.

Guns are lethal weapons designed to kill. There is a risk to having them that must be discussed.

Stories are important if we are to change the conversation, change the culture of guns and change laws to save lives. As I wrote in my last post, this is what the gun lobby doesn’t like. Victims’ families are supposed to be quiet and not tell their stories. They are inconvenient and painful. It’s difficult to watch and listen to Naib’s story but if we are to make change, stories like his and the many others who have lost someone to a gun suicide must be told.

A friend who I met through my work at Protect Minnesota, has worked to call attention to gun suicides since her daughter used a gun to take her own life. I asked her for a statement and this is what she said:

Angela’s life did not have to end, along with so many others that have died from self inflicted gunshot wounds. If the legislatures listened to someone other than the NRA and the gun manufactures, if they had then Angela would be alive because at least one of the four hospital stays the last year of her life would have come out on a background check and she would not have been able to purchase a gun and use it to end her life.

The medications she was on where more regulated than the gun and bullet she used to end her life. In 2011 Angela was 1 of 19,900 people that committed suicide by gun, that number has grown every year. Every year 64% of gun violence deaths nationwide are suicide.

Please reach out to someone you know is struggling, if you are struggling please reach out to a friend or family member or call the Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1 (800) 273-8255.

Yes, background checks can work to keep suicidal people from getting guns. In fact, in states with expanded background checks, gun suicides were reduced:

Background checks are the most effective way to restrict access to firearms. An estimated 40 percent of gun sales in the United States are completed without background checks. “One of the conclusions of the study is consistent with a key observation Everytown made a year ago: that background check laws are associated with reduced rates of firearm injury and death including suicides,” said Ted Alcorn, Research Director, Everytown for Gun Safety. “Everytown’s research shows that in states with background check requirements, people are safer: controlling for population, there are 48 percent fewer gun suicides in states that require background checks for private handgun sales than in states that do not.”

In 2013 alone, 21,2175 people killed themselves with a firearm. That makes up 51 percent of all suicides from that year. (…)

Suicides involving firearms are fatal 85 percent of the time, compared with less than 3 percent for pills, according to the Harvard Injury Control Research Center. “If someone in the home is contemplating suicide doesn’t have access to a firearm, it’s likely that they will be attempting with less lethal means,” said Everitt. “Ninety percent of people who survive an initial suicide attempt will not go on to complete another attempt. Being able to intervene after a potential first attempt is very important,” Everitt said.

There’s really no doubt about it. We can prevent some of our nation’s suicide deaths by passing stronger gun laws and making people aware of the risk of easily accessed loaded guns in homes.

It’s also important to note that some of our mass shootings and many domestic related shootings result in suicide. From the first linked article:

Mass murder is a form of suicide in that the perpetrator of such atrocities is often an enraged and fatalistic individual who intends to die at the scene of the massacre. From this perspective, the increase in mass shootings over the last ten years is very consistent with the increase in suicide.

An example of a mass shooting that ended in multiple homicides and the suicide of the shooter was the Milwaukee area mass spa shooting which was also a domestic related shooting. The firearm was obtained without a background check through Armslist.com by the shooter. The result was 3 dead and 4 injured, including the wife of the shooter. The shooter couldn’t buy a gun through a licensed dealer because he was a domestic abuser. Easy access to guns makes these kind of shootings easier to accomplish.

There are many other mass shootings like this one. And domestic murder/suicides are just part of our daily media coverage all over the country. In fact, there was just a recent domestic incident in California involving a firefighter who shot his wife, a sheriff’s deputy, and then himself. Guns and suicidal individuals are a really dangerous combination.

So what can we do about this? From the Brady Center’s report:

Limiting access to firearms has been shown to reduce suicide rates in many countries outside the U.S., including Australia, Canada, Israel, and New Zealand. A study of the Israeli Defense Forces found that a change in policy, requiring firearms to be stored on base while soldiers took their weekend leave, resulted in a 40 percent decrease in suicide. Much of this decrease could be attributed to the policy change since the weekday suicide rate did not change significantly. Following a 1996 firearm massacre in which 35 people were killed, additional regulations were passed that made gun laws stronger and more uniform across Australia. The reforms included a ban on semi-automatic and pump-action rifles and shotguns, a national gun buyback program, registration of all guns, and background checks on all gun sales. Researchers found that the new gun laws accelerated the rate of decline for suicide by firearm, doubling it from 3 percent to 7.4 percent per year. (…)

A broad consensus exists among leading public health experts that means reduction is an essential component of any comprehensive suicide prevention strategy. According to the World Health Organization’s global report on suicide prevention, “Restriction of access to means plays an important role in suicide prevention, particularly in the case of suicides that are impulsive.” In the 2012 National Strategy for Suicide Prevention, a joint report issued by the U.S. Surgeon General and the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention, one of the 11 goals outlined was to “promote efforts to reduce access to lethal means of suicide among individuals with identified suicide risk.”

We don’t have to shrug our shoulders and believe that there is nothing to be done or no solutions. There are. Take a look at these suggestions from the Brady report:

Considerable evidence links the presence of a firearm in the home with increased risk of adolescent suicide. A review of data from case-control studies reveals that adolescents who died by suicide were four to five times more likely to have a gun in the home, even after adjusting for potentially confounding variables, such as previous mental health problems. Although suicide and mental illness can be closely related, 40 percent of suicide completers under the age of 16 were found to have no known psychiatric disorder. For young people without mental illness, a loaded gun in the home was found to increase suicide risk 32 times.These data show that for many young people the availability of a gun in the home is the most significant predictor of suicide.

Educating parents about lethal means reduction should be an important part of any effort to prevent adolescent suicide. Many parents are unaware of the risks of having a gun in the home, particularly for older adolescents. Therefore, parents should be encouraged to store household firearms safely (locked and unloaded, with ammunition stored separately) or to remove them altogether. In one study, keeping guns locked and unloaded was found to have a protective effect, reducing odds of death by 73 percent and 70 percent, respectively. However, removing firearms from the home is the most reliable and most effective way to prevent youth suicide.

Brady’s Suicide-Proof Your Home campaign provides simple, practical steps that all parents can take to reduce a child’s risk of suicide at home, such as removing or locking up firearms and medications. It builds on the familiar concept of childproofing, with the goal of showing parents that much as locking a cabinet can keep curious toddlers safe from harmful chemicals, locking a gun and securing ammunition separately can keep a troubled teen from making a deadly mistake.

If we don’t take the public health problem of suicide seriously, we will be neglecting our youth and others whose lives could be saved by some simple common sense solutions. We have far too many deadly mistakes in America. Senseless deaths like those I have written about here leave families devastated and often wracked with guilt. It doesn’t have to be this way. I hope you will join the Brady Campaign/Center and other organizations working to prevent gun violence to educated the public about solutions that can make a difference.

Gunned down Americans- Rest in Peace

August 29, 2015September 23, 2015 commongunsense"law abiding" gun owners, access to guns, Adam Lankford, Alison Parker, American gun culture, Andy Parker, Brady background checks, Charleston church shooting, Chattanooga shooting, corporate gun lobby, gang shootings, gun suicides, guns and anger, guns and mental illness, mass shootings, shooting of journalists, shooting of police officers, shootings by police officers, Stand Your Ground laws, Texas officer gunned down, victims of gun violence

In what country are we living again? Historically we have understood that there are countries where awful violence affects the citizens and the rest of the world watches in horror. I would suggest that in the last week in America, the rest of the world has watched in horror as a disgruntled employee gunned down 2 journalists because….? Actually other nation’s citizens have been watching our gun violence in horror for years now but last week was particularly horrific.

We know more about the shooter of the journalists now and understand that he was an angry man and potentially violent. He had to be physically removed from the TV station after throwing things and making threats against other employees.

As a result of that shooting, there has been a focus on the issue of gun violence prevention because Alison Parker’s father has chosen to use his grief to call attention to our nation’s lax gun laws and has proclaimed that he will work hard to make change happen. I wish him all the luck with that and we are all expecting to work with him. Many other family members of shooting victims have come forward over the years to work on the issue. This beautiful piece, written by the mother of a Sandy Hook school shooting victim, encourages Parker to get involved and offers hope:

Please use your emotions, your love for your daughter and the pain caused by the gaping hole in your life, and focus them into this issue. Once you’ve been touched by violence, saving the lives of others is the only way forward. Whether you choose to fight for policy and political change, or whether you decide to get ahead of the violence and prevent it before it happens (as I chose), always know you are never alone.

We are on a long, difficult road together, but with my son, your daughter and hundreds of thousands of others across the states, we will get there. I promise.

When will our leaders make this promise in the name of the victims and survivors? Unfortunately for them and for the country, not much happens as a result because of our entrenched gun culture and refusal of the corporate gun lobby to actually work to stop the shootings. Our leaders put their fingers to the wind and believe ( erroneously) that if they challenge the gun lobby, they can’t get re-elected.

I would also offer that if we had stronger gun laws and screening of potential gun purchasers and gun carriers more carefully as is done in a lot of other countries, the shooter of the 2 young journalists would likely not have been considered as someone who could legally buy a gun. And in a system where all sales require background checks or personal information as in other countries, there would be few avenues for him to purchase a gun. So angry people do kill people by other means but not anywhere close to the killings by firearms ( in America).

And we thought this shooting of 2 young journalist on live TV and recorded by the shooter was horrific. It was. And then yesterday, another execution occurred. A Texas state trooper was gunned down execution style while he stopped for gas at a convenience store. The details of this are almost too awful to contemplate. From the article:

A man shot a uniformed sheriff’s deputy “execution-style” while he fueled his patrol car in the Houston area, killing him instantly, authorities said.

Deputy Darren H. Goforth, 47, was returning to his car after pumping gas Friday night.

The gunman walked up from behind him and opened fire for no apparent reason, Harris County Sheriff Ron Hickman said.

When Goforth fell to the ground, the gunman stood over him and shot him some more, authorities said. He died at the scene.

“He was literally gunned down in what appears to be an unprovoked, execution-style killing,” Hickman said. “I have been in law enforcement for 45 years, I have never seen anything this cold-blooded.”

Well, dear readers. This is the America we now have in no small part because of our twisted and paranoid gun culture. The corporate gun lobby is promoting guns for everyone everywhere and that is what we have.

(I am editing this post to include details about the shooter of the Texas law enforcement officer. He has been caught.):

Sheriff Ron Hickman released few details about the suspect Saturday in a press conference. Miles has a list of prior convictions including resisting arrest, trespassing and disorderly conduct with a fire arm, he said.

He was able to get a gun, of course. And now an innocent law enforcement was gunned down and his family will grieve for him forever. Senseless.

So now what? Is this how it’s going to be? Domestic shootings happen between people who know each other and one ( usually a male) decides to take out his anger by killing a spouse/partner and whoever else happens to be in the way. Suicides happen quietly but sometimes are also the motivation of mass shooters who were likely suicidal in the first place but had to shoot others first for some inexplicable reason. It happens quite often that way. The shooter kills himself after shooting all the others. Too hard to face what he/they did or knowing how awful it was to shoot other human beings, why live with those images in your head? And we do have a problem with young people in our large cities who may or may not be members of local gangs but who shoot each other over slights or arguments about territory or whatever. Easy access to guns adds to this urban violence problem. Also often enough, innocent people get caught in the cross fire and are killed by stray bullets. It happens often enough to alarm us. We are gunning each other down in America.

Are we alarmed? Do we care that we now have execution style shootings going on in our communities? Hyped up fears and mistrust of law enforcement officers (and government) have caused other attacks in public places, here ,and here. There are others where these come from. And then the opposite happens. Officers themselves shoot and kill ( often) people of color over things that should not result in a shooting death. We have the recent shootings of Michael Brown, Walter Scott and Tamir Rice to name just a few. We are gunning each other down in America.

Anti government sentiment, whipped up by extremists and the gun lobby, also result in horrific shootings. Take the shooting in Las Vegas in 2014 for just one example but there are many others. The Southern Poverty Law Center keeps track of potentially dangerous extremists groups who represent racist, white supremacist, anti government sentiments. These folks are armed and can do a lot of damage.And shootings also have killed some of our military members serving on US soil, also this summer, in the Chattanooga shooting. Expect to see more of these shootings like the one in the Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston this summer. The hate and racism exhibited by the shooter there seems to have been some sort of catalyst for the shooter of the Virginia journalist or so he claimed.

It just may be true that one mass shooting contributes to another, and to another and the cycle continues until we decide we’ve had enough like Australia did after a horrific 1996 mass shooting there. For now, though, we are gunning each other down.

Officers fear for their lives every day because there are so many citizens with guns that they, themselves, get caught in situations where they believe they are defending themselves. When carrying a gun, officer or citizen) it’s there to use and sometimes judgment is impaired or race plays a role or fear. Some citizens apparently fear for their lives every day as well and sometimes kill others over something that shouldn’t result in a death. And with new Stand Your Ground Laws, people like George Zimmerman can do this and not be accountable for the death of an unarmed young black man.

The result is that the violence is increasing. The Gun Violence Archive is keeping track. There have been over 33,569 shooting incidents so far in 2015. It’s only August. So far this year there have been 247 mass shooting (4 or more shot and injured or killed) incidents in America. We have 4 months left in the year. What will happen next? We keep thinking we have seen the worst. When 20 first graders are gunned down by a young man who never should have had access to guns and we do nothing, we can expect to see more. When people are gunned down in movie theaters, churches, malls, schools and everywhere we go for no apparent reason, we are officially a country that has lost it’s moral compass in efforts to appease a group of armed Americans so fearful of losing something they value that they will allow just about any kind of carnage to keep their way of life. But there appears to be disregard for the valuable lives lost because of our love affair with guns.That love affair with guns has resulted in what we are now seeing in our media and on the streets of our communities.

There are ways to change what we are doing to keep guns away from volatile, angry people who don’t necessarily find themselves on the prohibited purchaser list for gun purchases at a licensed dealer. And, of course, we can require that every gun sale go through a Brady background check no matter where a gun is purchased.

But we aren’t doing these things.

A new report/study by Criminologist Adam Lankford points to our American gun culture as exceptional compared to other countries and provides some interesting ideas about why these kinds of shootings happen mostly in America. He was interviewed for this article:

“For decades, people have wondered if the dark side of American exceptionalism is a cultural propensity for violence,” he wrote, “and in recent years, perhaps no form of violence is seen as more uniquely American than public mass shootings.”

Lankford, author of “The Myth of Martyrdom: What Really Drives Suicide Bombers, Rampage Shooters, and Other Self-Destructive Killers,” looked at the situation globally, and considered a wide range of relative factors — the state of mental health coverage, the availability of guns, the valorization of fame, and other cultural differences. (…)

What the data clearly show is a strong relationship between firearm ownership rates – what is the percentage of firearms owned by civilians in a country – and the number of public mass shooters. That’s what I found in my study of 171 countries – that relationship was very strong. And it was even strong when you removed the United States from the analysis – it explains the variations in other countries as well. So that seems to be one of the critical factors, and the United States has five times the number of mass shootings than any other country – five times the second-ranked country – from 1966 to 2012 – and we have the world’s leading firearm ownership rate among civilians. (…)

There is nearly one handgun for every person in America – far higher than the ratio in ever other country in the world. How consequential is that?

Very consequential. It effects both who can get a gun to carry out an attack, and how many guns someone who’s decided to carry out an attack can get, which directly, in turn, effects the number of people they kill. One of the findings of my study is that attackers who use multiple guns kill significantly more victims. That was a global finding. (…)

It would be a great day for America if people struggling with mental health problems and had some motive to carry out an attack decided to take a different path because they couldn’t find the firearms they wanted.

That would be a great day, indeed. Let’s get to work to make that happen because we just have to be better than this. We can’t let the world look at us as people who gun down other Americans in public places because they hold a grudge in the workplace, are angry over a separation, are angry in general, or have mental illness that could lead to thoughts of homicide.

Yes. We are gunned down America.

In spite of all of this, gun violence prevention advocates are not going away. We will continue to discuss gun violence and solutions to the problem in the midst of yet another shooting even though the gun lobby doesn’t want us to “dance in the blood of the victims.” If we waited until we had no shooting tragedies, we would wait a very long time and that is exactly what the gun rights advocates want. Mass shootings, execution style shootings, keeping track of shooting incidents, writing about the carnage, witnessing a shooting live on TV, hearing about a neighbor killed by a souse or partner- they won’t go away no matter what the gun lobby thinks. Ignoring it would be a total abrogation of our responsibilities to make sure our families and children are safe. And it would be a moral lapse of huge proportions.

No, we will not back down in the face of the fierce resistance of an armed minority of Americans. The public is with us. We will continue. Andy Parker’s voice will be heard and added to the many others like him working for reform. The voices of other high profile shooting victims ‘ families will be heard. Those of us who have lost someone in a domestic shooting will continue to force the conversation to happen. We will be heard. But in the meantime, we are killing each other every day.

Where is common sense?

Rest in Peace America.

The balance between gun rights and responsibilities

August 25, 2015August 25, 2015 commongunsense"accidental shootings", "law abiding" gun owners, access to guns, American gun culture, American gun laws, Americans tackle gunman on French train, Charleston church shooting, church shootings, conceal carry permit holders, Congress members and guns, corporate gun lobby, gun range instructor killed by child shooting automatic gun, gun range practices, kids and guns, mass shootings, Mike the Gun Guy, school shootings, The Trace, Wayne LaPierre

Should people who attend church services ( or services at a synagogue or mosque or any place of worship) need guns? I mean, what is the fear about sitting in a church without a gun? Yes, there have been a few shootings at churches (here and here). (More on this later) The most recent being the shooting at the Charleston Mother Emanuel church where 9 innocent people were shot and killed by an unhinged young man who shouldn’t have a gun. Most of the church shootings have been racially or politically motivated or arguments between people.

But then, there have been shootings just about everywhere in the US. 88 American citizens die every day from gun injuries in “everyday” shootings. We tend to pay attention to the high profile mass shootings because they happen often enough to capture our attention.

In fact, the US has had more mass shootings than any other country over the last 5 decades according to this article:

Nearly one-third of the world’s mass shootings have occurred in the United States, a new study finds. Adam Lankford, an associate professor of criminal justice at the University of Alabama, has released the first quantitative analysis of public mass shootings around the world between 1966 through 2012. Unsurprisingly, the United States came out on top—essentially in a league of its own.

Over those five decades, the United States had 90 public mass shootings, defined as shootings that killed four or more victims. Of the 170 other countries examined in the study, only four even made it to double-digits: The Philippines had 18 public mass shootings, followed by Russia with 15, Yemen with 11, and France with 10.t’s no coincidence that the US has the laxest gun laws and the most guns of any other democratized countries not at war. Connect the dots. This article only addresses mass shootings which, in fact, have taken fewer lives than the “everyday” shootings which result in the loss of 88 Americans a day. No other country can “brag” about something like this.

We are out of balance with the rest of the world and with public safety. It’s no coincidence that the US has more guns, laxer gun laws and more gun deaths and injuries than other democratized countries not at war. Our gun laws are not balanced in favor of public health and safety. There is a fear and paranoia factor fostered by an American out of balance gun culture that has moved us in the direction of rights over responsibilities. There are a certain number of people who believe that there are armed “good guys” with guns who will just take care of any situation presented to them. We should all remember Wayne LaPierre’s now infamous speech after the Sandy Hook school shooting.

In fact, Mike the Gun Guy has written this piece about the American heroes without guns who most likely saved a terrible mass shooting on a train headed to Paris last week. Mike looked into whether armed citizens have stopped mass shootings and here is what he found:

Last year the FBI released a detailed analysis of 160 shootings between 2000 and 2013 in which the gunman killed or wounded multiple victims. The definition of these events, known as ‘active shootings,’ was that the shooter “actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a confined and populated area.” The FBI found that exactly one of these active shootings ended when an armed civilian opened fire with a gun. But 21 of these shootings came to an end because unarmed civilians intervened.

Want to show me any place that is more confined and populated than a high-speed train? If that gunman had been able to shoot up the train we’d be hearing nothing but endless “I told you so’s” from the NRA. But not a word out of them when three young Americans, two of them active military, got the job done without using a gun. Frankly, the silence is refreshing.

Silence when it comes to allowing young kids to use automatic weapons resulting in the death of a gun instructor. Silence when it comes to the heroism of unarmed citizens in stopping potential shootings or shootings in progress such as the armed Arizona permit holder who realized if he used his gun at the site of the Tucson mass shooting it would have had a bad result. An article in The Trace debunks the idea that an armed citizen can change results during a mass shooting or prevent one from happening:

When a “good guy with a gun” does intervene in an active shooting, things can go terribly awry. On June 8, 2014, an armed couple burst into a CiCi’s Pizza in Las Vegas screaming, “This is the start of a revolution!” They quickly gunned down two police officers eating lunch, and then moved to a nearby Wal-Mart. One customer, a concealed-carry license holder, drew his gun rather than flee, but was immediately shot. As it would turn out, all three of the couple’s victims that day were armed.

Another example: On Jan. 8, 2011, a gunman opened fire on an outdoor meeting between Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and her constituents in Tucson, Ariz., killing six and wounding 13. When the killer was forced to reload, he was tackled by a bystander. Having heard the gunshots, an armed man ran to the scene. He saw two men wrestling and assumed the wrong man was the shooter. Had it not been for other bystanders quickly correcting him, he could have ended up shooting the wrong person. Afterwards he stated: “I was very lucky.”

Lucky. Yes. There are a lot of unlucky people in America.

People who own and/or carry their guns everywhere have the responsibility to take care with their guns so others don’t get access to them, or they, themselves don’t “accidentally” discharge them or shoot the wrong person in a crisis.

Sadly, a man who was handling his .22 rifle in his home near Duluth, Minnesota dropped his gun and it discharged, killing him. These kinds of gun deaths are avoidable and senseless. It is amazing to me that this happens so often in our country. Where there are guns, there will be gun injuries and deaths. But why is it that so many otherwise safe and responsible gun owners have problems with accidental discharges? Is it a problem with the design of guns or is it a problem of too little training or is it just the cavalier attitude too many gun owners have towards guns, believing that nothing bad will ever happen to them?

More news of irresponsible gun owners brings us this one- On Sunday, a 4 year old found a gun in the bathroom of a church. Why allow guns in the church in the first place? Kids should not be finding loaded guns in bathrooms but this is not the first time guns have been left in bathrooms as I have written about before here and here. In the last linked article, an officer’s gun was stolen from a bathroom and used in a shooting within hours. And this one is classic. One of Speaker Boehner’s security guards left a gun in a bathroom where a small child found it. There are more where these came from. Leaving a gun in a bathroom or anywhere else, for that matter, is just not the same as leaving a purse or keys or a wallet behind.

How about a young Texas man shooting off a gun from the roof top of an elementary school? The gun was stolen. Make any common sense to you? Everyone was lucky that no one got hurt. Only in America.

On this one year anniversary of the shooting death of a Nevada gun range instructor by a 9 year old girl who was allowed to shoot an automatic weapon, the victim’s family is calling for change to the law:

She further told CNN’s “New Day” on Tuesday that their father often schooled them on gun safety when they were younger, telling them “how to be safe with guns, but he never let us fire them because we were too young.”

It’s unreasonable, she said, that children smaller than her little brother are able to handle automatic weapons “that military personnel are trained for weeks to handle.”

“It’s time for a change. We have a voice, and so do you,” the children said on the petition’s website.

“The adults haven’t been able to keep people safe, so it’s time for us to speak up,” 15-year-old Tylor said.

On August 25, 2014, Vacca was teaching the 9-year-old girl how to shoot an Uzi at the Bullets and Burgers shooting range in Arizona. The gun range, which caters to Las Vegas tourists about an hour away, has said on its website that children between the ages of 8 and 17 can shoot if accompanied by a parent or guardian.

Guns are dangerous, obviously. 9 year old children should not be allowed at gun ranges, period. This is not the first time something like this has happened with a young child shooting a machine gun. A Massachusetts 8 year old shot one and killed himself with his father standing by. This is serious stuff and totally senseless and avoidable. Where is the balance between rights and responsibilities? Why anyone would think it’s perfectly fine for a young child to shoot off a gun meant for the military is so beyond the scope of common sense that there are hardly words for this wrong-headed practice. The gun lobby should heed the advice of the victim of the Nevada shooting range incident when he taught his children about being safe around guns but didn’t let them shoot them. This cynical promotion of pushing children shooting guns that are clearly not meant for them is all about profits over saving lives. If children are exposed early, they are future customers, as are their parents. Kids and guns just don’t mix. How many times do I write about small children “accidentally” shooting someone when they access a gun?

As always, just as soon as I publish a post, another ridiculous incident gets called to my attention. The school year has barely begun and we have a shooting in a Georgia elementary school. A young student with a gun (where did he get the gun?) allegedly was “playing” with a gun in school and it “accidentally” discharged hitting a female student. I suggest that our priorities are out of balance. This is the definition of insanity. In most shootings like this the gun comes from the child’s home. Where are the “responsible” adults? Were they thinking their rights to have a gun trumped their responsibilities to keep the gun away from a young child?

So what’s the take-away? There are over 300 million guns in circulation in our country. Some are owned by responsible citizens who will never do anything wrong with their guns. They may be used one or two times a year for hunting for example. Or maybe they are used at a shooting range for recreation and used responsibly. But because we have this idea that gun rights trump any responsibilities to make sure the public and our families and communities are safe, this is the situation. The corporate gun lobby is unyielding in its’ stance that no stronger gun laws can pass in Congress and in many states. Gun violence prevention groups only want safer communities and gun safety reform. It’s too important for us not to put our heads together to do the right thing in trying to prevent some of the senseless shootings occurring every day.

Responsible gun owners need to come forward and speak up for common sense gun reform. In all polling data taken for decades we know that the majority of them want stronger gun laws. We should err on the side of saving lives as we move forward towards a balance between rights and responsibilities.

UPDATE:

Sadly I am updating this post to include the shooting death of a 21 month old baby in the St. Louis area:

It is unknown how the child came to be shot. No one is in custody at this time. Police do not yet know if this was an accident or a homicide.

Last week in the same area a 9 year old girl was shot and killed while sitting inside of her home doing her homework. ( you can read about that one in the linked article). Could things be more out of balance? Where do they get the guns? As I said before, our priorities concerning the role of guns and gun violence are very out of whack. Time to get to work and do something about it. We just have to be better than this.

UPDATE #2:

Wow- I didn’t think I would be adding to this post. But when a 14 year old West Virginia student holds a classroom hostage with a pistol, it must be talked about. Why? Where did he get the gun? Who is responsible for this boy’s behavior? What is it about kids bringing guns to school? What are we doing wrong? Why are we so out of balance with the rest of the world and with public health and safety? What do the gun rights extremists have to say about this? More silence?

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commongunsense

Blogging for gun safety reform and changing the conversation about the role of guns and gun violence in our communities. Common sense gun laws and gun safety reform and gun rights are not mutually exclusive.

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The balance between gun rights and responsibilities

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