Running count of gun deaths goes on tour-FixGunChecks.org-Mayors against illegal guns

[RamboLiberal]

A truck carrying a billboard with a running tally of the number of Americans killed by gun violence since the January 8 massacre in Tucson departed New York City on Wednesday for a two month tour of 25 U.S. states.

The Arizona shootings left Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 12 others wounded, and six dead.

As the billboard left Times Square the tally of those killed in gun violence since the Tucson incident was given as 1,300, with another 24 added by mid-morning.

The truck is the idea of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's Mayors Against Illegal Guns -- a group of more than 500 leaders of U.S. cities who want the U.S. Congress to pass laws requiring stiffer background checks for gun buyers.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/16/us-usa-guns-billboard-idUSTRE71F5QB20110216

Our leaders must make it a national priority to fix gun background checks. This will take two critical steps:

1.Get all of the names of people who should be prohibited from buying guns into the background check system.

2.Require a background check for every gun sale in America.

Step One: Get all of the names of people who should be prohibited from buying guns into the background check system.

•The Virginia Tech shooter was able to pass a background check and purchase a gun despite a long history of mental illness, including a court ruling that he was mentally ill and an "imminent danger." His record was never entered into the background check database.

•Since Virginia Tech, Congress passed a law to improve reporting of mental health records. But today, 10 states have not contributed a single mental health record and 18 states have contributed records on fewer than 100 people.

•The Tucson shooter passed a background check and bought a shotgun within a year of admitting to the U.S. Army that he was a habitual drug abuser – a red flag that should have barred his purchase if his record was in the database. He went on to buy the glock he used to kill 6 people and injure 13 others.

http://www.fixgunchecks.org/background-checks

[sharesunited]

1. But Americans think 34 gun murders a day are worth it! Carry on dying!

[Atypical Liberal]

8. 40 million firearm owners killed no one today.

34 people committed a murder with a firearm today.

At least 39,999,966 did not.

Stop trying to punish 40 million people every day for the actions of 34.

[sharesunited]

9. You may enjoy Russian roulette with the nation's guns. Some of us do not.

And how does a society without guns constitute punishment exactly?

[Atypical Liberal]

13. Punishment.

You may enjoy Russian roulette with the nation's guns. Some of us do not.

The single biggest deterministic factor as to whether or not someone is going to commit homicide with a firearm is if that person has an extensive criminal history.

If you don't hang around criminals, your odds of being a victim of firearm crime are astoundingly low.


And how does a society without guns constitute punishment exactly?

Well for starters, you'd deprive me of three generations worth of family heirlooms worth in the neighborhood of $20,000. Secondly, you are depriving me of an activity that I enjoy that harms no one. Thirdly you are depriving me of the ability to resist attacks on my person, my home, and my family, without resorting to a contest of physical strength. Fourthly, you are depriving me of a Constitutional right, upheld by our Supreme Court.

These are just a few ways I can think of off the top of my head that I would be punished.

[Common Sense Party]

14. Would a society without cars or booze be a punishment?

If I outlawed your beer or your vehicle, would you feel your freedoms in any way restricted?

[onehandle]

20. Responsible ownership is a punishment?

Figures.

[Atypical Liberal]

43. Define "responsible".

I can't respond until you define "responsible".

[Common Sense Party]

12. Americans also think 50 alcohol-related car crash deaths a day are worth it!

And yet, alcohol and cars remain legal.

When do you begin your push to take away booze and vehicles from all Americans?

[RamboLiberal]

15. Yeah we tried restricting alcohol - that worked real well

:sarcasm:

About as well as the war on drugs.

[sharesunited]

32. My focus is on removing the ability of some people to act upon their intention to end other people.

Accidents and drunken recklessness is distinguishable from the willful intention to END others.

Or no? All the same?

Mark that as a MAJOR disagreement between us.

[GreenStormCloud]

17. Most murder victims are themselves criminals.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-08-31-criminal-target_N.htm

From the article:

In Baltimore, about 91% of murder victims this year had criminal records, ...

Philadelphia also has seen the number of victims with criminal pasts inch up — to 75% this year from 71% in 2005.

In Milwaukee, local leaders created the homicide commission after a spike in violence led to a 39% increase in murders in 2005. The group compiled statistics on victims' criminal histories for the first time and found that 77% of homicide victims in the past two years had an average of nearly 12 arrests.

In Newark,... ... roughly 85% of victims killed in the first six months of this year had criminal records.


End the "War on Drugs" and watch the murder rate and other violent crime rate fall.

[Euromutt]

33. Not that you'd know from most news reports

As Gavin de Becker has explained in several of his books, the news media's job is to keep you watching/reading/listening so they can sell advertising (or with a state-operated broadcaster, justify their budget). To keep you watching (etc.), they latch onto your instinctive desire to gain information about things that threaten you. People who aren't involved in the illicit drugs trade or other forms of (semi-)organized crime don't feel threatened by gangsters offing each other (unless it's a wild shootout in a public place where they come sometimes, like a shopping mall parking lot), so those incidents don't get anywhere near as much attention (i.e. aren't as "newsworthy" if you'll pardon my cynicism) as mass shootings in malls and educational institutions, or domestic murder-suicides.

The upshot is that it's very easy to get the impression that homicide in America consists primarily of mass shootings and murder-suicides, and when your average news consumer is confronted with a statistic like "34 gun murders a day," (s)he is inclined to draw the incorrect conclusion that those are mostly victims of "previously law-abiding citizens who snapped."

[sharesunited]

34. Blame the media is Ultra Beck. Do you want to be known by how Ultra Beck you are?

[GreenStormCloud]

39. True. From the same article, this paragraph:

The slaying of truly innocent victims is so unusual in Baltimore that the chief prosecutor says the city has become dangerously numb to the carnage. "If we don't put human faces on the victims, we will become desensitized," State Attorney Patricia Jessamy says.

"Human faces" is code-speak for hiding their criminal involvement. It has always been very difficult to get the public concerned about criminal on criminal crime.

[ileus]

2. be interesting in what types of deaths are lumped in this...

I'd bet they count drug crimes, suicides, police involved shootings...

[sharesunited]

3. Presumably, it does not include permanently maimed and crippled.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

11. How many unresisted rapes, gay-bashings and violent stalkers are acceptable?

[sharesunited]

18. None. Why add gun crimes among those offenses?

[Nuclear Unicorn]

19. Why would you criminalize people defending themselves from

rape, robbery, abusive ex's or gay bashing?

[sharesunited]

23. Only because the menace of guns and ammo in the hands of the public snuffs out innocents.

You are certainly entitled to argue that defensive use of guns is worth the death of innocents.

I hold the opposite viewpoint.

Post on!

[Nuclear Unicorn]

24. Do you consider criminals to be "the public" deserving of an equal place

in society and the same rights?

[sharesunited]

25. I am very vigilent about lawful gun owners suddenly going rogue and having their fellows

renounce them.

It happens here on a daily basis.

I am doing my best to define my job as making you OWN every misuse of a firearm in the United States.

And put the burden on you to identify the point at which the gun worshiper went bad and had nothing to do with what you stand for.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

26. So what is the breakdown on people who buy guns for legit reasons

suddenly "went bad"?

Do women buy guns to protect themselves from rape or violent ex's then one day suddenly shoot innocent people out of malice?

Because it seems that is your contention about why they should not be allowed to own a gun in the first place.

If someone, however, chooses to live outside society's rules then their ownership of a gun was never legit to begin with.

It seems your job is not about defining anything but sustaining yourself on vagaries.

[sharesunited]

28. You are not thinking with the breadth of probability with which the real world presents society.

A woman may be least likely to misuse her gun, but that certainly happens (see Aileen Wuornos).

Her access to a gun is access by anyone else to a gun.

Her children or children in her care. An angry, estranged spouse or boyfriend.

Your characterization of a woman's access to a gun ignores everything except your fantasy of a gun toting heroine resisting sexual assault.

That is a very self-serving serving of personal gun worship.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

29. I asked a simple question

What is the probability of a woman owning a gun for legitmate purposes suddenly becoming malicious.

You stated --

I am very vigilent about lawful gun owners suddenly going rogue...And put the burden on you to identify the point at which the gun worshiper went bad...

Suddenly you change the terms to a legitmate gun falling into legitmate hands.

[sharesunited]

30. I conceded that this is perhaps least likely to occur among female gun owners.

But conflict resolution and damnable pride among male gun owners puts impulsive misuse very much under scrutiny.

Believe me, I scrutinize it every day. And apologists abound until there is no cover left.

Whereupon the apologists scurry away like roaches.

No, he wasn't one of US. He was a criminal!

How convenient.

[Starboard Tack]

48. You say "If someone, however, chooses to live outside society's rules

then their ownership of a gun was never legit to begin with."
In "civilized" society, no gun ownership is legit to begin with. In fact it is a serious felony. There are many ways to defend yourself without using a gun.

[rrneck]

49. There are many ways to defend yourself without using a gun.

What would those be?

[Starboard Tack]

51. If you are really interested you might start here

http://weaponbusters.com/

[rrneck]

52. LOL!

Martial arts training? Really? When I trained in the martial arts I could do 150 roundhouse kicks in 60 seconds and I got cracked ribs free sparring. It takes tremendous training, strength and speed the beat an opponent bare handed. Those can only be gained after years of training. Even with all that training if your opponent has a club or a knife you are going to get hurt bad. More than 1 attacker in your dead unless your'e jackie chan. And if your're anything other than a 25 year old athlete you're dead anyway. You don't know what you're talking about. There are no secret techniques or magic moves for self defense in hand to hand combat. Try again.

[Starboard Tack]

53. Thanks for making my point

[rrneck]

54. What point was that?

Look. If you don't have a solution don't Google "unarmed self defense" and try to act as if that were a serious answer.

Do you have a self defense solution that would actually work for real people in the real world who aren't able to train like Jason Bourne? If you don't try not to feel too bad about it. That's why people buy guns. It's the only practical solution for the disparity of force against a larger, stronger and more aggressive attacker.

If You don't want a gun don't buy one. But you can't make that decision for everyone unless you're willing to compensate them when it doesn't work out.

[Starboard Tack]

55. Look, I really don't want to get into a pissing contest with you

but it sounds like you've had more than adequate training to deal with threatening situations. Unfortunately, guns beget guns. One gun in a confrontation is already one too many, two guns raises, exponentially, the possibility of someone getting hurt. I can think of many a situation during my 6+ decades on this planet when I wished I had a gun, but I didn't and was always grateful afterwards that I didn't have that option. I certainly don't have the kind of martial arts training that you seem to have, but enough to feel reasonably self confident in most situations. I always found using my head was the most effective way to diffuse a situation.
Sounds like you are a fan of action movies. Me too. When I was a kid I loved watching westerns and Wyatt Earp was one of my heroes. He wasn't a very good shot, but he could draw that Buntline Special and hit a man on the head before he could draw. The lesson there was, learn to think fast. You can do it with all that martial arts training. Carrying a gun just ups the ante.
Do you honestly believe that a world without guns would be more dangerous?

[friendly_iconoclast]

56. The world without guns *was* more dangerous. Look at Late Medieval murder rates...

in Western Europe- they made the South Bronx of the 1970s look like Sunnybrook Farm. The only guns they had were a few cannon.


And your assertion that "Carrying a gun just ups the ante" is unsupported by evidence. Florida and Texas track crimes

committed by handgun permit holders, and they tend to be far more law abiding than the public at large.

[Starboard Tack]

57. How about Western Europe today?

You need a darn good reason to carry a weapon legally anywhere in Europe or anywhere else in the world, except maybe Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and the US, which seems to be stuck in the 19th century.
Do you carry a gun based on the murder rates of the late middle ages? I never heard that argument before.

[rrneck]

59. If I could live in any city in the world

it would be Venice. You know, families leave the kids toys out on the street in the Campos at night? It's a magical place. Probably because it's full of affluent Italians and people affluent enough to vacation there.

Getting rid of the guns won't solve the income disparity and social injustice in this country. Adding more won't help either.

[rrneck]

58. Actually...

I did martial arts training between undergrad and grad school. The highest "belt" I got was green. In Pa Sa Ru that means I was a bare beginner in martial arts. It took a lot of work to get that far and it wasn't anything close enough to make me confident I would prevail against someone who has spent the bulk of their life brutalizing people. You would be amazed at how many black belts would get their asses handed to them by some redneck that doesn't mind a little pain. And that's bare handed. The first thing they told us in defense against knives is "you're gonna get cut. It's just a question of how bad". The best thing about martial arts is it keeps you in shape so you can run.

I do indeed like action movies. A friend of mine teases me all the time. She says, "You only like movies when people's heads get chopped off." She's not far from wrong. I tease her back though. I tell her, "You won't watch a movie unless it has a river and a wedding in it."

The refreshing change in the Bourne movies is not the action. I find the Paul Greengrass "shaky cam" cinematography tiresome. It's that Bourne only responds with enough force to extract himself from whatever situation he's in. His first choice is not to fight, but to run. That's a big improvement over the James Bond orange fireball womanizing license to kill crap.

Guns do not beget guns. Violence begets violence. The vast majority of people are predisposed to cooperate with each other whether they have guns or not. We are herd animals and we form relationships spontaneously, frequently whether we want to or not. (Check out American History X, it's a pretty good example.) That's how we got art, literature, architecture, air conditioning and ice in our scotch. Unfortunaterly, there are just a few people who, for any number of reasons, cannot work and play well with others whether they have a gun or not. You are not likely to meet one of them, but if you do you will be at on the low end of a disparity of force. He will be larger, stronger, and more desperate than you. Even then probably nothing will happen because he will make a risk assessment. He will calculate his chances of getting caught as well as his chances of getting injured and if his chances aren't good, he will walk on by and you'll probably never notice him. If his risk assessment indicates otherwise, congratulations, you just won the assault lottery.

This is an interesting sub thread. You and I aren't all that different. I don't carry a gun and I've never been in a fight. I'm a 165 pound out of shape four eyed artist. I've had to face down more than a few bad asses on more than a few loading docks. I've worked crews filled with ex cons, thugs, and drug addicts. I've never had to worry overmuch for my safety because I care about people and they know it. I try to get along with everyone and I've been lucky enough to avoid those few who just have to brutalize others or a situation where that might happen. I hope we both stay lucky, but should the worst happen I won't be there to help you and you won't be there to help me. Thus, neither one of us has the right to tell the other how to deal with the situation.

Would the world be more dangerous without guns? Hell, I dunno. It was pretty dangerous before they were invented. It was the most dangerous for the poorest and weakest of us. We each have a right to defend ourselves and since humans are tool using mammals with opposable thumbs, a gun is the best tool for that job if things get that bad. But the best defense is a society that allows us to cooperate with other before it gets that bad.

[Starboard Tack]

60. Very well said

Isn't it refreshing to have a civil conversation in this forum? You are absolutely correct in saying that neither of us has the right to dictate how the other might deal with a situation. That's about individual responsibility. What irks me about some people is that they think guns are a preferred tool for conflict resolution, rather than a last resort. I have owned guns in the past and enjoyed using them for recreational purposes, like skeet and target practice and some hunting. And I can well understand the desire to protect one's home and family by having a shotgun handy. I just can't relate to the mindset that it is okay to walk around in public places packing a pistol. I'm a fairly gregarious person and love to engage people in debate on all kinds of topics, but I must admit that I feel uncomfortable if the other person is armed. I never argue with a man who's carrying a gun. I think most people feel that way. Intimidated. So doesn't that infringe on my 1st Amendment rights?
I think the world is still more dangerous for the poor and weakest. I guess the unarmed would classify as the weakest and therein lies the dilemma. Should we all be armed and level the playing field somewhat? Or should we all take a deep breath and do some serious reality testing?
BTW I watched the movie Town last night. Excellent!

[rrneck]

61. It is refreshing

and a little bit rare.

Public carry is a thorny problem for a lot of people. The issue itself is not that big a deal for me. As far as I'm concerned people should be able to carry since people get assaulted outside their homes too. I guess you could say that just as the constitution should follow the flag outside the country, so should the constitution follow the individual within it. The current controversy is just an effort to decide where guns go and what it means when we see them. That meaning is what interests me.

Guns do indeed have tremendous symbolic significance. Hang one on a guy's hip and it can change one's whole opinion of him for better or worse. For my part I wouldn't expect to be intimidated in the least having a conversation with someone wearing a gun depending on who it is and his or her behavior. We glean a tremendous amount of information from the people we meet in just the first moments of meeting them and a gun just figures into that evaluation. If they're that close to you and they want to do you harm they won't need a gun to do it. And if it looks like they're getting too torqued up I figure I can beat a hasty retreat before he can do much. He better shoot me in the ass because that's the last part of me he's going to see. Of course if he kicks my door down and leaves me nowhere to go I'd turn him into a bullet trap and plan for about a decade of therapy to deal with it.

That's why I think the spread of concealed carry laws are a good thing. Guns aren't going away and if somebody has reason to believe s/he might have to stop an assault they will carry one legally or no. That's just prioritized self preservation. But by codifying who can carry, how, and where we build our understanding of firearms and their relationship to the public into our culture. I imagine in another generation or so we will have all those details hashed out and seeing somebody on the street with a gun won't be a big deal because we will understand that they had to do certain predictable things to carry it and we will be able to tell what kind of person would have done those things. Even then I doubt many people will opt to carry a firearm. Let's face it, the damn things are a lot of trouble to wag around. Barring the significant erosion of our society I'm betting the whole issue will wind up just a tempest in a teapot. I just hope Democrats don't keep losing elections over it, or we'll all need to be packing before it's over.

Just added Town to the Netflix queue. Thanks!

[GreenStormCloud]

40. That very rarely happens. Usually a murderer has a violent past.

Normally it is already illegal for a criminal to own a gun due to his court record. Tucson was a rare exception.

[GreenStormCloud]

41. Are you willing to own every victim that couldn't defend themselves...

...because of gun control restrictions? Remember that there are millions of violence crimes in the U.S. every year.

[RSillsbee]

31. Until or unless they have been convicted before a jury of their peers

yes I do

[sharesunited]

37. You're out of step then, Roscoe. Because EVERYONE knows a nut who shouldn't be armed.

And NO ONE wants to take the lead on committing them for a psych time out.

Why?

Because you just might end up with a cap in your ass from the paranoid, armed non-patient.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

44. Why is taking the lead in disarming innocent people easier for you?

Is it because innocent, law-abiding people aren't as threatening?

Avoiding something just because it is difficult seems kind of cowardly and why should cowards dictate policy?

[Glassunion]

45. Because it's easier to accomplish the easy and ineffective than the difficult and effective.

Basically it works out to a bullet point on a resume.

[Katya Mullethov]

46. And people always ask .................."How do you do it ? "

And the answer .....is simple .
Volume .

[beevul]

38. Snuffs...Snuffy? Is that you?

We're going to find you and snuff you out… you know you're going to hide like a rat. You're going to hide but like a rat we're going to catch you and pull you out." Pfleger later claimed his use of the phrase "snuff you out" was misinterpreted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Pfleger


Odd how the anti-gun supporters seem to like to have it both ways.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

50. But it most likely includes those killed in legitimate self defense

[Starboard Tack]

4. GUN deaths!

Does it really matter who pulled the trigger?

[rrneck]

5. Not to the gun. nt

[S_B_Jackson]

6. Actually, yes it does.

Especially in the case of suicides. Canada's experience following the passage of their handgun ban that - despite expectations - suicide rates remained unchanged.

All that changed was methodology....Women reverted back to pill overdoses, slashing of wrists, and hanging/asphyxiation; while men went back to leaping from buildings/bridges, or one-vehicle crashes into trees, bridge or railroad abuttments....but otherwise total suicides continued along established trendlines.

[DonP]

7. Probably includes self defense and police shootings as well

That way they can pump up the numbers a little. Not that Bloomie would stoop to doing anything misleading (straw purchases).

[russ1943]

21. No it doesn't

The 34 AMERICANS ARE MURDERED WITH GUNS EVERY DAY do not, repeat DO NOT include suicides, legal interventions, unintentional or undetermined intent. WISQARS most recent injury Mortality Reports are through 2007. http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate10_sy.html
12,352 in 2005 avg divided by 365 days in year = 33.9 per day
12,791 in 2006 “ = 35.1 “
12,632 in 2007 “ = 34.7 “



If the sign on the truck didn't clearly identify the number as MURDERED WITH GUNS EVERY DAY and read something like KILLED WITH GUNS EVERY DAY the number would be 85 per day.


Even though it isn't really relevant; How about a link/source for your claim re suicides.

[GreenStormCloud]

42. Yes, very much.

Intent is a large part of any criminal trial. If I shoot someone who is credibly threatening my life then it would be justified homicide. But to you it would be another gun death to cry about. You seem to be ready to accept my death by violent crime if it reduces the gun death by saving the life of a violent criminal.

[spin]

10. Fixing gun background checks makes more sense than banning magazines ...

A ban on magazines that hold more than ten rounds is merely a useless "feel good" law. Improving the NICS background check system by inputting all the names of prohibited people and allowing citizens to use it to verify that the buyer of the firearms they are selling in private transactions is not on the list is an intelligent approach.

We need to enforce existing laws including treating those with a violent felony record who are caught illegally carrying firearms as having committed a serious crime. All too often armed criminals merely get a slap on the wrist or are able to plea bargain the charge away.

Anyone who acts as a straw purchaser should also face severe punishment and IMO should be charged as an accessory to any crime that was committed while using the weapon they purchased.

Probably we will waste time and effort playing the role of Don Quixote on some stupid windmill chasing quest that involves banning magazines and or firearms. If we do, we will only increase the number of these items in civilian hands just as we did during the last Assault Weapons Ban. We will also doom the chances of many Democrats in close elections in 2012.

[RamboLiberal]

16. +1000 - agree on all you said

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

22. Oh the irony! Jesus is facepalming... right now.

Distractive Vehicles are driving around advertising anti-gun group messages.
The delicious part is that vehicles are responsible fore FAR more injury/death than guns. :rofl:

[Starboard Tack]

27. The delicious part?

Now that is disturbing

[beevul]

35. Didn't they used to do this under the name of...

Didn't they used to do this under the name of "the bloodmobile"?


Oh...Nevermind. :evilgrin:

[Remmah2]

47. Bloomberg on tour.

aka: Weeninmobile

[lawodevolution]

36. criminal mayors against your rights to own guns. criminals support gun control so it makes sense.

Here are some MAIG members: