Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)-Weekend Contributor
On February 7th, 2014, the sad reports were compiled from the deadly day before. On Thursday, February 6th, at least 24 people were shot and 14 of them were killed. Two of the dead were small children. The shootings and killings were from cities and towns all across the country. A 17 month old girl was accidentally shot by her 3 year old brother in North Carolina.
A 13-year-old was accidentally shot and killed while playing with a shotgun in the state of Washington. In Seattle, Washington, a man was shot and killed by a fellow tenant. A man in his 30’s was shot several times and critically wounded in Owasso, Oklahoma. A 18 year man was shot and killed at his uncle’s home in South Carolina. These and others were all wounded or killed by gunfire on February 6th, 2014. Just one sad day out of many.
We have written a few times before about the need to do something, anything that might be useful in reducing gun deaths and the reactions varied from agreement to claims that Americans have a Second Amendment right to carry guns and daring government officials to try to get their guns. There is no argument that we all have the right to own and carry guns. However, don’t citizens have a right to protect themselves from those who carry guns?
Amy Scott is fighting for her life in Alabama because she was shot at her grandparents home. A 24-year-old man was shot and killed in Nashville, Tennessee. A 37-year-old man in San Jacinto, California was shot to death. Some of these many killings were probably crime related. A large number appeared to be accidental and with some, the cause or motive of the shooting is unknown.
This past week, the trial commenced in Jacksonville, Florida, in the alleged murder of an unarmed black teenager by a another man at a gas station. The defendant, Michael Dunn, is attempting to use the Florida Stand Your Ground law to claim that he was in reasonable fear for his life when he fired up to 10 shots into the car next to him at a gas station. Three of the shots hit and killed 17-year-old Jordan Davis while he was sitting in the back of the car.
This shooting allegedly started over a disagreement over the teenagers loud music which the defendant took exception to. I was particularly struck by this story, not just because of the Stand Your Ground defense, but because the defendant pulled his weapon out of his glove box after he claims a shotgun was pointed at him from the other car.
“The jury in the trial of Michael Dunn, which began in Jacksonville, Florida, on Thursday, will hear how a 47-year-old software developer — who is white — grabbed a 9mm pistol from his glove box and fired repeatedly at 17-year-old Jordan Davis, a black student, during a November 2012 altercation that started as an argument over loud music blaring from the car Davis was sitting in at a Florida gas station.
After shooting Davis, Dunn fled the scene with his girlfriend, drove to a hotel for the night, ordered pizza and watched movies. When he was arrested the following day, Dunn told investigators that he had fired in self-defence after seeing someone in the car point a shotgun at him. However, police found no weapon in the vehicle.” Guardian
The defense attorney pulled out all of the stops in attempting to persuade the jury that Mr. Dunn was justified in firing up to 10 shots into the teenager’s car, even as the teens attempted to drive away to evade the gunfire. ‘ “God didn’t make all men equal. Colt did. Colt is a firearm,” Strolla said. “(Dunn) had every right under the law to not be a victim, to be judged by 12 rather than carried by six.” ‘ CNN
That is an amazing statement by the defense attorney. Evidently, those with guns have the right to shoot and worry about it later. At least according to the defense attorney. While all of the courtroom fireworks were proceeding, even more people were being shot and killed due to gunfire. A 25-year-old man was shot and wounded in Omaha, Nebraska on February 6th.
A county employee near Boring, Washington was shot and killed. A 40-year-old man was shot in the leg in front of parents and school children in Brooklyn, New York. All in one day. One violent day, but one out of many violent days due to gun fire.
The shooter in the Jacksonville, Florida killing who is claiming it was a self-defense related shooting, also seems to have some very disgusting and racist ideas. The prosecution in that case produced copies of letters written by Mr. Dunn that were racially incendiary, to say the least. I am not attempting to make this a racial shooting, but the letters may convince some that if it was white teenagers playing their music loudly, there would not have been a shooting tragedy that day.
Adrian Maynard was shot twice while he was departing church with his grandparents in West Virginia. Again, on February 6th, 2014. Why do Americans have this apparent addiction to guns? I believe that reasonable measures can be taken to reduce some of the shootings and deaths, but unless Congress gets an earful from citizens across the country fill up their email in boxes and voice message systems with demands to pass background checks on all weapons sales and transfers or other reasonable ideas, the shootings and the killings will continue unabated.
How can we as Americans look ourselves in the mirror when the gun violence continues? Do we act only when the violence strikes our families or our friends? If the killing of innocents in schools cannot bring meaningful action, what will it take to bring that action? The shootings and deaths that we highlighted are all from February 6th, 2014 and reported on February 7th, 2014. The latest Stand Your Ground case in Florida just happened to be on trial on that same sad February 6th.
One sad day out of 365 sad days. When will it end?
Lawrence E. Rafferty–Weekend Contributor
“The views expressed in this posting are the author’s alone and not those of the blog, the host, or other weekend bloggers. As an open forum, weekend bloggers post independently without pre-approval or review. Content and any displays or art are solely their decision and responsibility.”
Sharon,
A “responsible” gun owner doesn’t leave a loaded gun out for kids to discover… Play with… and kill each other with. Just my view…
Thank you for drawing attention to this, but can we please stop calling them “accidental” shootings when children shoot other children? It’s not an “accident.” It’s the inevitable and entirely foreseeable consequence when adults keep loaded guns in a home with children in it. Each and every one of those adults was a “responsible gun owner.” Right up until the minute that child picked up that gun.
Cars and creeks are different than guns, but they are all used to commit violent acts, as are many other devices. Why not concentrate on the violence in our society instead of just one means to inflict that violence–guns. Do you honestly think that by eliminating guns that violence and killings will magically decline or disappear? I don’t know how you will be safer when all firearms are confiscated—and make no mistake, that is the ultimate goal of people like Michael Bloomberg. Why do you think Police Officers carry weapons…it’s not to protect you it is to protect them. I hope you are never the victim of home invasion, but just think for a moment what you would do if that happens. If you are not armed then you and your family will more than likely be assaulted or killed.
Gun grabbers want all firearms confiscated but they are doing it one small step at a time, with each step appearing to be benign or reasonable. And then comes registration and at that point any corrupt politician can get any one or all weapons confiscated.
I am beginning to get the idea that the desire to control guns, or their ultimate confiscation, is coming from the super wealthy who own our law makers. These super wealthy are not at all happy knowing the masses they want to control and subjugate are well armed.
rafflaw: “Give us some ideas how you would reduce the gun violence. We know bringing more guns into the situation hasn’t worked.”
I’m not sure if I’ve done it in this forum, but I’m pretty sure at some point I and others gave a long list of things we could do that might have real impact.
During the post-Sandy Hook period, Joe Biden said, “We simply don’t have the time or manpower to prosecute everybody who lies on a form, that checks a wrong box, that answers a question inaccurately.” In other words, straw purchases are a known method for criminals to acquire guns, but there’s no interest at the federal level to do anything about it. Imagine if we used the force of the federal government to break illegal gun rings and conduct massive sting operations on straw purchasers? We can only engage in so many gun programs before we have to address the underlying social issues. Take your pick, racism, income inequality, mental health policy and stigma, a godawful healthcare system, a failing public education system hamstrung by an idiotic and inherently unfair funding methodology, the aforementioned drug war, cultural attitudes toward crime and violence, and on and on. But you can’t put that stuff on a bumper sticker, nor does it match the drama of holding up a scary looking gun at a press conference.
Maybe we should study the cause of the astonishing drop in gun murders that has taken place in the last couple of decades.
Guns are different than cars and creeks…..
raff, Your city had “good faith” laws to restrict gun ownership and they were deemed unconstitutional. But, even w/ those draconian laws, Chicago has a despicable death rate via guns. Why can’t people see that criminals ignore the laws and good people obey them. Chrissake it’s so damn obvious!!
Horrible events, which healthy societies deal with and move on, are held on to like a junk-yard-dog with a bone here in America. Instead of surviving life’s issues and moving on we wallow in the drama and use it to strenghten and justify our behavior and fears.
This country is probably safer than it has always/ever been, yet the population cowers in fear (goaded on by the media and politics) and prepares itself for the next (almost welcomed) catastrophy.
“We” are very sick, our kids are killing each other, but look at these comments which most often sidestep that core issue. Canadians have more guns per capita, yet they don’t often kill each other with them
Until we can grow up and acknowledge what we’ve become, then face this together as rational citizens, this killing will increase and sadly continue. God help us.
I am moderate to conservative on fiscal issues. I am very liberal on most social issues. On “gun control” I stand with the NRA.
Removal and severely restricting use of guns is the only practical way to prevent their illegal and unfortunate use. I agree that the US has many tragedies that would be avoided without guns. I hope the current laws are worth these tragedies. When I see the concentration of political and economic power I fear that threat of individual gun protection stands as a deterrent to further loss of rights that many people throughout the world do not have.
Just over 1 million babies were aborted in the U.S. in 2011 (Guttmacher Institute). That means that an American child is at far greater risk from its own mother than from any gun carrying lunatic.
Rafflaw: if you really want to reduce violence, let’s focus on reducing abortions.
rafflaw,
The problem with your argument is that there are already many gun control laws at the Federal and State Level. The SA has numerous restrictions and the one Federal law that isn’t on the books is gun registration. And when or if, guns are ever registered then you can kiss the SA good-by—our corrupt politicians will then be able to confiscate each and every one of them.
You talk about gun violence and how you want to reduce gun violence. How about addressing violence in general? We manage to kill people in many different ways and removing guns from the equation will not remove the violence. You are sadly mistaken if you believe guns are the reason for the violence—it’s us, humans, that are responsible for the violence. How do we stop the violence? I have absolutely no idea.
Once again, I am not suggesting taking away guns from people, but good faith measures to make sure people who shouldn’t have them can’t get them. How do we reduce the gun violence? If not by reasonable gun control measures, how? Give us some ideas how you would reduce the gun violence. We know bringing more guns into the situation hasn’t worked. What will tomorrow’s totals bring?
If you want to limit gun ownership, then also limit car ownership, visits to hospitals and doctors, meds, alcohol, et cetera, et cetera. How that will work out for you, will put things into better perspective.
Of course Birth is the leading cause of death.
I have to question your selecting firearms as a cause at all as they do nothing until a human being decides to, and what to, use them for.
Banning Births would solve the firearms problem too.
While you’re at it listing statistics, smoking, dui’s and religion roll up some pretty impressive numbers to detail.
Keep busy………….Darrel
Well this shooting won’t end by taking guns away from law abiding citizens. And I believe the calculated end result of new gun laws is complete confiscation of firearms—again from those who obey they law. Corrupt lawmakers will make sure that the wealthy, of course, will always be able to have firearms or armed guards. Lives of the wealthy are far more important than us little worker bees.
From MADD in 2012: (http://www.madd.org/drunk-driving)
10,322 people killed by drunk drivers—28 deaths a day.
345,000 Injures caused by drunk drivers– 945 a day.
Total annual cost associated with drunk drivers—$132,000,000,000
That’s 132 billion or 132×10^9….a lot of zeros.
Show me a gun law that will keep guns away from criminals and I’ll support it. Show me a gun law that further restricts our 2nd Amendment rights and I’ll fight against it.
For those who are unfamiliar with legally purchasing a firearm they should acquaint themselves with ATF Form 4473. This form must be completed whenever a firearm is purchased from a licensed firearm dealer—even dealers at gun shows. After the form is completed a phone call is then placed to verify that the potential purchaser is not on a prohibited list. One cannot buy firearms on the internet without going through this background check—it just doesn’t happen. If a firearm is purchased from an on-line store the weapon is transferred to another brick and mortar gun shop chosen by the buyer. At this point the buyer goes to the gun shop and then has to undergo the background check described above. Guns are not purchased on-line and delivered to a private residence.
Taking firearms away from law abiding citizens will just create more targets for the thugs—it will not end the killing and violence in our society.
Outlaw cigarettes and only outlaws will have them.
While we’re at it, why don’t we mention the 30,000 highway deaths annually, the million-plus killed by hospitals and doctors and pharmaceutical companies annually, the tens of thousands that die from food poisoning annually, from cigarettes, from alcohol — from everything for chrissakes? I don’t know what is more sickening, the anti-gun drone or the hypocrisy!
I can look in the mirror very easily. Gun deaths are a tragedy. However, any of your “if only we could…” solutions would be a lot worse, of course.
Wait a bit and I will compile statistics for …
= people who drown in artificial containers
= people beaten to death
= people stabbed to death
= innocents killed by US military
= innocents killed by US police
And I bet most of the shooters were “responsible gun owners” before they decided to shoot some one or the guns were owned by “responsible gun owners” before they decided to leave them out for a child to use it! Responsible gun owners should welcome restrictions on gun ownership and should support severe punishment for gun owners who don’t act responsibly. Why is the alleged Second Amendment right the only Cinstutional right that is unlimited even to the point of insanity? Is the Constitution really a homicide pact?
Raff,
Without restricting the guns and possession to circumstances that are deemed acceptable…… How do you suppose your goal be accomplished…. I own several …. I do not travel with them… Nor do I keep live Ammo in the clip…… These sound like stupid people that you cite examples of….I recall as a youth living in a very rural area….. That we would swim in the creek and jump in from the railroad trestle….. Today that same action would get you arrested for trespassing…… We just used to get shooed off….. Not everyone that has done this has survived….. One kid about a mile down got sucked in by an eddy…..should swimming be banned….