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.”
No one with a felony criminal record can legally own, much less carry a firearm to use in case they need to protect themselves/family/property.
Why is that?
Gary, how can you say there is anti gun policy when there are at least 310,000,000 (million) guns in the hands of citizens??? Almost one gun per person – man, woman, and child. It’s gunner paranoia.
The US populace owns more guns per capita than any other country in the world by far. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country
Did you also know that law enforcement controls about 4 million guns in US? So they are outnumbered by 80 to 1 by citizens.
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Homes with pools kill far more children each year than homes with guns.
It is refreshing to see a significant number of turlyites here not succumbing to emotional hysteria.
Among many other reasons, the most obvious is that law abiding citizens will be disarmed, and non-law abiding citizens will not.
That combined with the legal fact that police have no legal obligation to protect or serve, presents a very schizophrenic logic for this anti-gun public policy.
Wayne, have I said anything about stricter gun laws? Did you know that Montana has a higher gun death rate per capita than Illinois? Why is that?
How about this:
#9, Montana
Gun deaths per 100,000: 14.5
Permissive gun laws: 10th out of 50
#43, Illinois
Gun deaths per 100,000: 8
Permissive gun laws: 45th out of 50
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/01/11/20-deadliest-gun-states-from-mississippi-to-arizona.html
Gunners look at Chicago and DC inner city gang wars and think that is the entire state or city and that it proves guns will keep you safer. Those places are outliers, not the general condition.
I don’t care how many guns you have, but I feel safer where there are less guns,not more. The facts are that more guns = more gun deaths.
Be safe from those bears. They don’t take prisoners…..
Jamie,
I live in a forested region in Montana at about the 5,000 foot level. More likely to get chewed up by a Grizzly Bear than shot…..in fact, the odds of me being shot are pretty slim indeed. So you live in NY… that doesn’t mean much, unless you happen to inhabit NYC.
And I didn’t refute the Philadelphia Gun study by quoting one paragraph….the title of the article did that for me: “A Useless Study.” Also, epidemiologists use actual case studies with real people and don’t rely on phone calls with unknown and unreliable witnesses to establish links between smoking and lung cancer. Caller: “Hey, do you smoke?” Do you have lung cancer?” Ok, thanks for participating in our rigorous scientific study. The Philadelphia gun study did just that—they relied on phone calls to reach their conclusion.
The link you provided is just a link to the same Philadelphia study…is there something here that I missed reading the Forbes article?
So, just explain to me how Chicago and DC have such high homicide rates from handguns while owning some of our Nation’s strictest gun control laws. How is that possible? Based on your logic Chicago and DC should have very low homicides by handguns—I mean they have tough gun control laws ipso facto they should have very low gun related murders. All we need to do is have stricter gun control laws and the murder rate in our country will plummet. Right? If I’m not mistaken this question about Chicago and DC has been asked several times here and I don’t remember seeing an answer…
Of course you gun-toting idiots do realize that the rest of this planet mostly have sensible restrictions on guns – Americans are regarded as just a bunch of wannabe cowboys by the rest of the world !! It just seems to be getting worse as the hysteria rages on about “government coming to take our guns away” – you should be VERY glad I am not the government – I would take every last one and allow only hunting rifles to those who can pass a severe test of character !! God help the country – it is falling apart at the seams. Decent civilized people are what hold a country together – that is the non-screaming, caring masses !
Wayne, you were able to try and refute one data point with a Forbes opinion of four paragraphs.
Regarding the study conclusions: From Science Daily: This is the same approach that epidemiologists have historically used to establish links between such things as smoking and lung cancer or drinking and car crashes. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090930121512.htm
At least you didn’t try and refute the data that directly points to the fact that more guns per capita equal more gun deaths. I live in NY state and am 80% LESS likely to get killed by a gun than in guns-for-everyone Wyoming.
Mind-numbing statistics…. I guess should use anecdotes, slogans and misconceptions to prove a point. Hilarious. You can have your fantasies, but that burdens those who want the facts.
Max-1:
Get Congress to calmly study the real issues and pass rational, effective gun policy? You mean like they do on every other issue?
Jamie Dimon:
“For every time a gun is used in self-defense in the home, there are 7 assaults or murders, 11 suicide attempts, and 4 accidents involving guns in or around a home.” These numbers are from a study done by Arthur Kellerman in 1998. What’s interesting is that Kellerman did a similar study, one that was heavily criticized for its methodology, back in 1986. And he came up with very different results. For example, his suicide ratio dropped from 37 to the 11 you cite. Other numbers he came up with changed wildly as well. To put it charitably, Kellerman’s work is in dispute. Mother Jones cites at least one other questionable study and out and out lies about mass shootings being stopped by civilians.
Can you answer for me why with gun sales through the roof, a shitty economy, and gun laws mostly becoming looser, gun crime and crime in general has fallen for 20 years (and currently stabilized)? In that time we’ve gone from less than half the country allowing normal people to carry concealed weapons and probably less than a million doing so to today where 41 states allow it and the number with licenses to carry is somewhere around 10 million. The dreaded AR-15 is and has been for years the most popular centerfire rifle platform. And gun crime continues to either drop or hold.
John
Rapes, you want to talk about the 1000′s upon 1000′s of rapes in Chicago or just the rapes with murder.
=================
A heart defect should be treated anywhere and everywhere, no matter how many there are.
Just remember to treat every heart defect as a heart defect, not a race problem.
Otherwise it adds malpractice defects to the equation, rather than removing defects.
Bankster,
It’s a shame you never read this Philadelphia study you so proudly displayed in your continuing effort to confuse people with mind numbing statistics.
Forbes Magazine examined this study and called it: “A useless Study.” Useless….as in flawed, not accurate, misleading, etc. Here is a cut and paste from the first paragraph and please, in the future do your homework before providing people with useless information:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/modeledbehavior/2012/12/20/a-useless-study-on-gun-possession/
“Luckily it doesn’t take detailed knowledge of statistics to see how deeply flawed and useless the study is. One simply has to look at the study design. Here is what the study does: they matched shooting victims in Philadelphia to a “control group” by randomly calling Philadelphia residences shortly after the shooting occurs and trying to find someone with the same race, gender, and age as the victim. The police department told them if the victim had a gun, and they asked whether the control group respondent had a gun. Then they used regression analysis to see if being in a possession of a gun made you more likely to be shot when compared to a control group of random Philadelphia residents.”
The above link provides more information that you really need to read.
It looks as if you are the one ignoring reality and are living in what you call “Bizarrowirld” (sic?)
John
The death toll by murder in Chicago over the past decade is greater than the number of American forces who have died in Afghanistan since the beginning of Operation Enduring Freedom. ( silence)
The yearly death toll in Washington DC (silence)
Data shows this could this be a race problem?
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The military kills more of its own by suicide than the enemy does.
And it rapes more of its own than all the enemies do.
It is not a race problem.
It is a heart defect.
Rapes, you want to talk about the 1000’s upon 1000’s of rapes in Chicago or just the rapes with murder.
Nick, you are an excellent example of ignoring reality and buying a slogan.
I’m not a fan of criminals and I feel they should serve hard time for any crime using a gun. You are certainly justified for shooting the criminal who breaks into your house. But the reality of living and dying in a gun culture is that more guns equal more death.
People with more guns tend to kill more people—with guns. The states with the highest gun ownership rates have a gun murder rate 114% higher than those with the lowest gun ownership rates.
A Philadelphia study found that the odds of an assault victim being shot were 4.5 times greater if he carried a gun. His odds of being killed were 4.2 times greater.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/01/pro-gun-myths-fact-check
But, if you ignore reality guns will make you safer….in Bizarrowirld….
Jamie doesn’t understand the very basic fact that criminals don’t obey gun laws and they are the folks killing people.
I’m not surprised, but I am bewildered why gunners won’t see, admit, or even acknowledge facts. For the majority of states, the higher the gun ownership, the higher the death rate by guns…. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/01/pro-gun-myths-fact-check
For every time a gun is used in self-defense in the home, there are 7 assaults or murders, 11 suicide attempts, and 4 accidents involving guns in or around a home.
Why is that so difficult to digest, so hard to understand? Why ignore reality? You can ignore the facts and the reality, but you do so at your own risk……
bankster,
“What’s the most fascinating thing about this gun rights debate is that these 2nd Amendment purists think there is only one amendment worth fighting for; the 2nd Amendment. Yet these same purists have no problem with police tactics that attack the 1st Amendment rights of Occupy Wall Street or any other type of anti-establishment protest. ”
My wife and I own firearms, we enjoy target shooting and reloading our own ammunition. What makes you think that we, or other SA advocates (purists), are only concerned about one amendment? We do have a serious problem with police tactics, we have serious issues with the NSA’s illegal activities. What makes you think we ever supported Bush? We disliked the Patriot Act since its inception—why make such wide generalizations and call us ‘gun nuts.’
It seems as if you are arguing that since so many of our Rights have been obliterated that we should just willingly give up another?
Who are you kidding when you suggest that I can’t protect my family when the power gets turned off and the banks close? I was well trained by my government in living off the land and I’ll do very well thank you very much. Yeah, we’ll miss many conveniences that we take for granted but we’ll have food, water and shelter.
Why do you think we want guns to take on the Federal Government? You must be spending too much time listening to tea party whackaloons who hate having a black man in the White House. My wife and I have no illusions about taking on the Feds—goodness gracious, that is a ridiculous idea and I don’t know one single gun owner who feels that way. Yeah, some do and those are the ones who advocate violence against our duly elected President. My wife and I have firearms for our personal enjoyment and for personal protection and that’s it. We actively support liberal policies, voted for Obama twice, and think our country is ill served by the intransigence exhibited by the current crop of Republicans.
Jason,
I think the bigger picture needs to be kept in perspective, correct.
I just wish you could get those lemmings in Congress to see this.
I mean, just look at what 9/11 did to the psyche of Congress and the Nation. Thank goodness AQ did bring down those buildings with AK 47’s. THEN we’d have an issue with the NRA, right?
Sharon:
I prefer the term “negligent,” however they are not inevitable. There are many ways to keep a loaded gun in a house with children safely, and the low number of deaths by this cause proves it. They make the news because they are rare, not because they are common. It feels otherwise because we have the ability to hear about every incident across a huge country with a huge population.
For the last year available, 2010, the death toll from unintentional firearm discharges for the age group 0-18 was 114. That’s in a country with over 78 million people in that age group, 300 million guns, and up to 40 million households with guns. More kids die from falls, asphyxiation, drowning, accidental poisoning, and on and on. 103 died on their bicycles that year.
The death toll by murder in Chicago over the past decade is greater than the number of American forces who have died in Afghanistan since the beginning of Operation Enduring Freedom. ( silence)
The yearly death toll in Washington DC (silence)
Data shows this could this be a race problem?
Wow, the gun nuts came out early on this post. The same tired and stale arguments that ignore the same tragic killings and deaths. So what if 300,000 Americans die each decade from guns; there were abortions, there were driving deaths, there were swimming deaths. I guess that means we can simply ignore gun related deaths. Supposed gun rights are more important than life! Funny. That crowd is willing to see 300,000 people die each decade because it makes me feel safer! Amazing. Pretty soon you will be ale to print your own gun and ammo on your HP inkjet and then everyone can have their own arsenal and feel that much safer. That’ll work.
Sadly, and pathetically, the gunners only have this illusion of safety to keep them feeling safe and secure. After all, they have willfully, even cowardly, given up every other right. But don’t touch my illusion, I mean my gun. They fear govt and claim that gun owners are the only defense against a tyrannical govt. What’s the most fascinating thing about this gun rights debate is that these 2nd Amendment purists think there is only one amendment worth fighting for; the 2nd Amendment. Yet these same purists have no problem with police tactics that attack the 1st Amendment rights of Occupy Wall Street or any other type of anti-establishment protest. The Dixie Chicks were accused of treason for calling George Bush a moron for going to war unjustly with Iraq even though they were simply expressing a prescient view of that invasion.
Studies show where the higher the gun ownership the higher the murder rate: Louisiana has the 2nd highest gun murder rate in the country and the 13th highest gun ownership. South Carolina has the 5th highest gun murder rate in the country and the 18th highest gun ownership. Mississippi has the 8th highest gun murder rate and the 6th highest gun ownership. I don’t hear gun types mentioning those disturbing stats.
The ridiculous drug war – which is designed for corporate prison profits and bloated government security budgets – is a main driver of gun violence and will kill thousands more until drugs are made legal.
Many 2nd Amendment purists supported Homeland Security and privacy destruction laws for the Bush “war on terror”. 2nd amendment purists gave up every Constitutional protection under Bush (and now Obama) and now they only have their guns. Guns will not protect them against concussion grenades, tear gas and other chemical weapons. Guns won’t protect them against drone and robot vehicle attacks. Guns won’t protect their family against shutting off your electricity, utilities, communications, and water, and closing your online bank accounts and 401k. It’s all an illusion. It’s delusional to think that the 21st Century man can fight the monster they created. The military spends $700 billion a year on weapons. Local police forces spend billions on weapons and training. Homeland Security has a $56 billion budget. 2nd Amendment purists gave up everything but their gun and now that illusion of protection is all they have left, sadly.