Sensible Gun Safety

[NattyBohChamps04]

Just watched 20/20, a year in Uvalde. Mighty tough stuff. 21 dead but the damage goes way beyond that.
What's changed since that one, and the one before that, and the one before that......?
We want our guns at pretty much any cost and we can find ways to justify it. Need more laws (they haven't
done jack).

It's the trans people's fault nowadays from what I hear on the news.

[JoeMauer89]

Just watched 20/20, a year in Uvalde. Mighty tough stuff. 21 dead but the damage goes way beyond that.
What's changed since that one, and the one before that, and the one before that......?
We want our guns at pretty much any cost and we can find ways to justify it. Need more laws (they haven't
done jack).

It's the trans people's fault nowadays from what I hear on the news.

Poor choice in humor.

Joe

[Farfromgeneva]

School gun violence torments America's youngest generation

Erin Doherty
More than 1,000 incidents involving firearms have shaken America's schools since 2018 — a dramatic increase over any similar period since at least 1970, according to the K-12 School Shooting Database.

Why it matters: The stunning rise in gun violence on school property is reshaping the daily lives of America's youngest generation, putting children at the center of a previously unthinkable number of life-or-death moments.

What's happening: 273 people were killed or wounded on school grounds from 303 gun-related incidents last year alone — both record highs, according to the database.

Guns are the leading cause of death for U.S. children and teens and firearms accounted for nearly 19% of childhood deaths in 2021, according to the CDC.
Gun-related incidents outside of the classroom, such as gun suicides and gun murders, reached record levels in 2021 and "swatting" calls, or fake reports of shootings or bombs that prompt SWAT team responses and lockdowns, are rising.
"The threat of gun violence has become a constant in children's lives in this country and we're seeing the impact of it," Sarah Burd-Sharps, the senior director of research at Everytown, told Axios.
The daily impacts of gun violence on children extend to the measures schools take to prevent future incidents.

Nearly all (98%) K-12 public schools reported drilling students on lockdown procedures as of the 2019-2020 school year, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
96% of schools reported having written procedures for an active shooter incident.
Research suggests safety measures can be effective in preventing gun-related incidents, but they risk disrupting the norms of the school day and have become controversial among some parents and activists.

"At nine o'clock [students] have to hide in the bathroom for long periods of time and be silent and then at 10 o'clock, they need to learn math," Burds-Sharps said.
"It's not a recipe for America's schoolchildren to learn and to achieve in school and to be able to focus and to concentrate."
State of play: Black children and teens disproportionately bear the burden of gun violence and were about five times as likely as white kids to die from gunfire in 2021, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of CDC data.

While guns became the leading cause of death for all American children in 2020, they have been the leading cause of death for Black children for over a decade.
Dr. Katie Donnelly, a pediatric emergency medicine physician at Children's National Hospital in Washington, D.C., said that she interacts "with a lot of kids who really aren't thinking about what they want to be when they grow up because they don't have an expectation that they're going to grow up."

[Seacoaster(1)]

Interesting article in the Post this morning:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... r-society/

I cannot paste some of the things that appear in the article, like the handwritten notes in which folks describe why they want/need to own guns, but here is most of the text:

"At the Nation’s Gun Show in Chantilly, spirits seemed high. People wandered from booth to booth, and the scent of popcorn filled the air. It could have been mistaken for a state fair or weekend flea market were it not for the rows of weapons and accessories — gun parts, AR build kits and body armor — laid out on every surface. It was easy to overlook the one common emotion underlying the event: fear.

Here were weekend shoppers intently inspecting tools of death: moms testing the heft of handguns and fathers stocking up on ammo. When I asked attendees and sellers what gun ownership meant to them, most replied with the same word: “protection.”

The previous week had brought three highly publicized shootings. Ralph Yarl, a Black teenager in Kansas City, Mo., was allegedly shot by an 84-year-old White man after he rang the wrong doorbell to pick up his younger siblings; a 65-year-old man in Upstate New York allegedly shot and killed a 20-year-old woman who accidentally pulled into his driveway; and two cheerleaders in Texas were shot after trying to get into the wrong car after a practice.

For all the talk of protection, gun violence is now the leading cause of death for children and teens in the United States. Yet over and over, people told me they needed their guns to keep themselves safe.

Safe from what? Most couldn’t answer; they simply had a feeling that the world had become a more dangerous place. How would they use their guns in a crisis? Their confidence in their own abilities seemed inflated.

This manifested in the constant invocation of the word “tactical” — a gun-industry buzzword used to suggest that buyers of weapons, body armor and shooting courses will be able to engage with enemies like trained soldiers. In other words, a fantasy.

Republican leaders, including Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, have resisted calls for increased gun regulation after shooting deaths, arguing that the root problem is mental illness. But the paranoia that fuels gun-buying has come to seem like a mental health issue in its own right.

“It’s crazy out there,” a woman named Dinah told me, an unloaded rifle slung over one shoulder. “People don’t care anymore, and criminals go for the low-hanging fruit. I don’t ever want to be in a situation where I can’t protect myself.”

A record-high 56 percent of Americans believe that crime has increased in their area, even if reality is more complicated. Republicans in particular have grown sharply more concerned. Many Americans no longer assume that a stranger might be well-meaning, innocent or harmless; rather, the world is seen as an increasingly dangerous place. Incessant media coverage of violent events has encouraged this thinking, the gun-show attendees told me. And poorly understood “stand your ground” and “castle doctrine” laws perpetuate and protect a vigilante mind-set.

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of gun ownership for “protection” is the sharp-edged individualism it implies: an every-man-for-himself mind-set. Institutions can’t be trusted, police will be unresponsive, and the government might one day turn on you. Your only obligations are to yourself and your family.

Individual fear becomes a greater priority than collective safety. Increasing the number of guns in the system will almost certainly spell death for others, but at least your gun will keep you safe.

“You can’t predict who is going to shoot someone,” one ammunition salesman told me. “It’s just the nature of the evil world we live in. So I’ve got to be prepared.”

Today there are about 393 million privately owned firearms in the United States, according to an estimate by the Switzerland-based Small Arms Survey — in other words, 120 guns for every 100 Americans. That’s the highest rate of any country in the world, and more than double that of the next country on the list.

The gun owners I spoke to were open to some violence-prevention measures. They suggested mandatory training courses, raising age limits for gun-buying or cracking down on dealers who sell to people not legally allowed to buy guns.

But no one was willing to give up their own weapons. They would rather “open the floodgates,” as one shooting instructor put it. If everyone has a gun, the theory goes, everyone will be more careful. If the side effect is a private arms race in a country already flooded with guns, so be it.

Over and over again, I heard the NRA-approved phrase: “An armed society is a polite society.” But guns might be leading us to give up on the concept of society altogether."

I kind of think this is the natural outcome of local news identifying and focusing on local crime and news that imparts fear in the listeners and viewers, buttressed by the fire hose of fear-stories that now dominate right of center media. We are heading backwards, to the world where the social contract is a thin disguise or in tatters, to the world that was solitary, nasty brutish and, for some folks at the grocery store, in church, at the movies, at a concert or a club, or in school, short.

[Farfromgeneva]

Interesting article in the Post this morning:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... r-society/

I cannot paste some of the things that appear in the article, like the handwritten notes in which folks describe why they want/need to own guns, but here is most of the text:

"At the Nation’s Gun Show in Chantilly, spirits seemed high. People wandered from booth to booth, and the scent of popcorn filled the air. It could have been mistaken for a state fair or weekend flea market were it not for the rows of weapons and accessories — gun parts, AR build kits and body armor — laid out on every surface. It was easy to overlook the one common emotion underlying the event: fear.

Here were weekend shoppers intently inspecting tools of death: moms testing the heft of handguns and fathers stocking up on ammo. When I asked attendees and sellers what gun ownership meant to them, most replied with the same word: “protection.”

The previous week had brought three highly publicized shootings. Ralph Yarl, a Black teenager in Kansas City, Mo., was allegedly shot by an 84-year-old White man after he rang the wrong doorbell to pick up his younger siblings; a 65-year-old man in Upstate New York allegedly shot and killed a 20-year-old woman who accidentally pulled into his driveway; and two cheerleaders in Texas were shot after trying to get into the wrong car after a practice.

For all the talk of protection, gun violence is now the leading cause of death for children and teens in the United States. Yet over and over, people told me they needed their guns to keep themselves safe.

Safe from what? Most couldn’t answer; they simply had a feeling that the world had become a more dangerous place. How would they use their guns in a crisis? Their confidence in their own abilities seemed inflated.

This manifested in the constant invocation of the word “tactical” — a gun-industry buzzword used to suggest that buyers of weapons, body armor and shooting courses will be able to engage with enemies like trained soldiers. In other words, a fantasy.

Republican leaders, including Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, have resisted calls for increased gun regulation after shooting deaths, arguing that the root problem is mental illness. But the paranoia that fuels gun-buying has come to seem like a mental health issue in its own right.

“It’s crazy out there,” a woman named Dinah told me, an unloaded rifle slung over one shoulder. “People don’t care anymore, and criminals go for the low-hanging fruit. I don’t ever want to be in a situation where I can’t protect myself.”

A record-high 56 percent of Americans believe that crime has increased in their area, even if reality is more complicated. Republicans in particular have grown sharply more concerned. Many Americans no longer assume that a stranger might be well-meaning, innocent or harmless; rather, the world is seen as an increasingly dangerous place. Incessant media coverage of violent events has encouraged this thinking, the gun-show attendees told me. And poorly understood “stand your ground” and “castle doctrine” laws perpetuate and protect a vigilante mind-set.

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of gun ownership for “protection” is the sharp-edged individualism it implies: an every-man-for-himself mind-set. Institutions can’t be trusted, police will be unresponsive, and the government might one day turn on you. Your only obligations are to yourself and your family.

Individual fear becomes a greater priority than collective safety. Increasing the number of guns in the system will almost certainly spell death for others, but at least your gun will keep you safe.

“You can’t predict who is going to shoot someone,” one ammunition salesman told me. “It’s just the nature of the evil world we live in. So I’ve got to be prepared.”

Today there are about 393 million privately owned firearms in the United States, according to an estimate by the Switzerland-based Small Arms Survey — in other words, 120 guns for every 100 Americans. That’s the highest rate of any country in the world, and more than double that of the next country on the list.

The gun owners I spoke to were open to some violence-prevention measures. They suggested mandatory training courses, raising age limits for gun-buying or cracking down on dealers who sell to people not legally allowed to buy guns.

But no one was willing to give up their own weapons. They would rather “open the floodgates,” as one shooting instructor put it. If everyone has a gun, the theory goes, everyone will be more careful. If the side effect is a private arms race in a country already flooded with guns, so be it.

Over and over again, I heard the NRA-approved phrase: “An armed society is a polite society.” But guns might be leading us to give up on the concept of society altogether."

I kind of think this is the natural outcome of local news identifying and focusing on local crime and news that imparts fear in the listeners and viewers, buttressed by the fire hose of fear-stories that now dominate right of center media. We are heading backwards, to the world where the social contract is a thin disguise or in tatters, to the world that was solitary, nasty brutish and, for some folks at the grocery store, in church, at the movies, at a concert or a club, or in school, short.

Neil Gaiman and Crispin Glover nailed it!

https://youtu.be/xoLz7AdB_UI

[NattyBohChamps04]

Just watched 20/20, a year in Uvalde. Mighty tough stuff. 21 dead but the damage goes way beyond that.
What's changed since that one, and the one before that, and the one before that......?
We want our guns at pretty much any cost and we can find ways to justify it. Need more laws (they haven't
done jack).

It's the trans people's fault nowadays from what I hear on the news.

Poor choice in humor.

Joe

Wasn't humor (for the most part). But rather sad reality.

Republicans Are Trying to Link Mass Shootings to Trans People

“We seem to be watching the rise of trans terrorism.”

Eye roll. Eye roll.

[Farfromgeneva]

Just watched 20/20, a year in Uvalde. Mighty tough stuff. 21 dead but the damage goes way beyond that.
What's changed since that one, and the one before that, and the one before that......?
We want our guns at pretty much any cost and we can find ways to justify it. Need more laws (they haven't
done jack).

It's the trans people's fault nowadays from what I hear on the news.

Poor choice in humor.

Joe

Wasn't humor (for the most part). But rather sad reality.

Republicans Are Trying to Link Mass Shootings to Trans People

“We seem to be watching the rise of trans terrorism.”

Eye roll. Eye roll.

The republicans making these allegations or moves in this direction are projecting as half are secret recipients of said trans shootings in bathhouses in Chelsea.

[SCLaxAttack]

Just your regular school day.

- Fake shooter warning called in.
- Local police respond.
- One officer fires weapon accidentally.
- The false alarm turns into an active shooter event. Local and state police, fire departments and ambulances respond.
- School closed for the rest of the day and at least today. Counseling available.

I have two friends each with one child at the school. Both say their kids are safe but upset.

But some people say the solution is to arm teachers. If a cop can accidentally fire his weapon and cause that much escalation do we really want teachers with guns?

https://www.masslive.com/news/2023/05/s ... utType=amp

[Typical Lax Dad]

Just received an internal email…..we have an active shooter….streets outside building have been shut down. Just another Tuesday.

EDIT: False alarm. Street re-opened.

[Farfromgeneva]

Just received an internal email…..we have an active shooter….streets outside building have been shut down. Just another Tuesday.

EDIT: False alarm. Street re-opened.

Well…I could comment about your location but then Id have some indignant Ivy people on my a** as well as a stupid rude comment from Gobigred who thinks he’s untouchable because he’s anonymous on these boards.

[Seacoaster(1)]

Consequences:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canad ... ium=social

"I don't have good days.”

[DMac]

Posted this a few days ago, Sc, just devastating stuff.

Just watched 20/20, a year in Uvalde. Mighty tough stuff. 21 dead but the damage goes way beyond that.
What's changed since that one, and the one before that, and the one before that......?
We want our guns at pretty much any cost and we can find ways to justify it. Need more laws (they haven't
done jack).

[Seacoaster(1)]

Posted this a few days ago, Sc, just devastating stuff.

Just watched 20/20, a year in Uvalde. Mighty tough stuff. 21 dead but the damage goes way beyond that.
What's changed since that one, and the one before that, and the one before that......?
We want our guns at pretty much any cost and we can find ways to justify it. Need more laws (they haven't
done jack).

Saw that when you posted it DMac; thanks. Hard, hard, hard to watch that kind of in your bones and soul sadness. The radiating effect of gun violence.

[jhu72]

2 year old in Utah day care, shot in the head.

[Seacoaster(1)]

https://www.propublica.org/article/ryan ... n-violence

[Typical Lax Dad]

https://www.propublica.org/article/ryan ... n-violence

Thanks for posting.

[Farfromgeneva]

This part is perhaps the most poignant


You know, I tell the story that 15, 20 years ago, the industry named guns like the Smith & Wesson 629 or the Remington 870 because you had [industry] attorneys that knew that even the names of guns could be important. They could encourage people to do irresponsible things. And so you’d never wanted to even name things that might encourage bad things to happen. Now we have a gun called the Wilson Urban Super Sniper. I mean, what are you supposed to do with that? We now have a gun called the Ultimate Arms Warmonger. What are you supposed to do with that? We now have an AR-15 company called Rooftop Arms, as in when you don’t get what you want, you vote from the rooftops. And what happened in Highland Park? A kid got up and killed people from a rooftop. You see the old self-imposed responsibility; those old norms of behavior have been just completely trashed.

[youthathletics]

Another, today, near VCU: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/7- ... -rcna88045

[cradleandshoot]

There was a news blurb on our local news a minutes ago that was very interesting. The final report was redacted for some reason but the results were right in line with what everybody knows... the vast majority of illegal weapons coming into NYS are originating in other states. The rest of the illegal weapons were stolen from people who owned them legally. There are around 75 thousand licensed firearms dealers in the country. There are about 7500 inspections a year at these stores. One proposed new federal regulations would make it mandatory that each dealer be inspected and their records verified once a year. Since nobody is really looking at these dealers very closely some of them know they can make big money selling weapons that eventually wind up on the black market. What I don't understand is why this tracking data is being redacted and not fully made available to the public. It is no surprise that straw man purchases need to be dealt with more harshly. If you buy a handgun for $500 dollars today and sell it the next day for $1000 that is easy money. When this weapon is used in a crime and is traced back to the original buyer that buyer needs to be held accountable.

[Farfromgeneva]

There was a news blurb on our local news a minutes ago that was very interesting. The final report was redacted for some reason but the results were right in line with what everybody knows... the vast majority of illegal weapons coming into NYS are originating in other states. The rest of the illegal weapons were stolen from people who owned them legally. There are around 75 thousand licensed firearms dealers in the country. There are about 7500 inspections a year at these stores. One proposed new federal regulations would make it mandatory that each dealer be inspected and their records verified once a year. Since nobody is really looking at these dealers very closely some of them know they can make big money selling weapons that eventually wind up on the black market. What I don't understand is why this tracking data is being redacted and not fully made available to the public. It is no surprise that straw man purchases need to be dealt with more harshly. If you buy a handgun for $500 dollars today and sell it the next day for $1000 that is easy money. When this weapon is used in a crime and is traced back to the original buyer that buyer needs to be held accountable.

Making it public is free advertising for folks wanting to do bad things with guns as to where to go. Same reason they don’t make pill mill doctors and walk in clinics public.