IT'S ABOUT FUCKING TIME!

[AndyS]

Columbia Journalism Review launches gun violence coverage commitment.

Last month, the outlet and the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma convened a summit on the media and mass shootings with experts and gun violence journalists, including The Trace’s Alain Stephens. You can watch a video of the event or read the Bulletin’s recap. Now, CJR has distilled the following six lessons and best practices from the events in a CJR Gun Violence Coverage Commitment:

We pledge to cover gun violence like the unfolding health crisis it is.
We pledge to allocate the time and resources needed to cover this crisis.
We pledge to acknowledge and address racist coverage.
We pledge to cover mass shootings as part of the larger gun violence problem.
We pledge to focus our resources on grassroots efforts.
We pledge to learn the lessons of the pandemic.

They are asking news organizations to sign. You can read more about the efforts and the six points here.

excerpted from The Trace Newsletter ( https://www.thetrace.org/ )

Finally an effort to give attention to an epidemic that has plagued our country for a century. Yes, Covid 19 killed half a million people in a year but the intense effort we put into it will soon control it. The death and destruction from guns has gone on year after year without abatement and without any attempt to seriously address it. Thirty to forty thousand people a year are killed and three times that injured by guns every year. It's a health crisis that has gone untreated and unrecognized.

A few facts to digest:

Violent crime has decreased constantly since the '70s. However since 2013 homicides have increased every year.

There are more mass shooting every year than there are days. The numbers are increasing but it's only a small piece of the violence and destruction from guns every year.

Federal, state, and local governments are spending a combined average of $34.8 million each day to deal with the aftermath of gun violence across the country. The total annual bill for taxpayers, survivors, families, employers, and communities is $280 billion a year.

More Americans have died from gunshots in the last 50 years than in all of the wars in American history. And it is getting worse.

About 80% of these deaths and injuries are from Law Abiding Citizens, not criminals.

Gun laws are loosened every year. 23 states now have stand your ground laws, 19 have open carry without training although 70-80% of voters oppose these laws.

When are we the people going to wake the fuck up and do something? Why does a tiny sliver of idiots get to run the show?

[rurallib]

1. Where did you get your "few facts to digest" stats?

I would really like to dig into this further but did not see anything like that at your link.

Thanks in advance!

[AndyS]

2. They come from a wide variety of places and news articles.

http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/

Is a good place to start. Google is your friend also. Just try simple searches like 'cost of gun violence' or 'guns used in mass shootings. 'How many guns in US', 'guns deaths world wide', 'gun deaths by country+graph'. It's all out there for those who feel like knowing.

[rurallib]

3. Thanks - I was hoping there was an article

that had all those stats laid out like (pun not intended) bullet points