Moms, mayors offer misguided message on guns: Column

[hack89]

A new report on school shootings was released Wednesday on Capitol Hill by two like-minded advocacy groups striving to move Congress toward action on gun control. Whatever the impact on lawmakers, the statistical study of gun-related deaths and injuries in schools is quite disturbing, but not just in the way intended by its promoters.

According to Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America and Mayors Against Illegal Guns, there have been as many as 44 shootings, including 28 deaths, in schools and colleges nationwide since the devastating massacre at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., that had millions of Americans demanding change in gun regulations. To place the recent tally in particularly mind-numbing terms, the moms and mayors report highlighted the rate of more than three incidents per month -- and that would include the summertime when schools are essentially gun-free and student-free.

As it happens, the numbers assembled by the moms and mayors are not out-of-line with historical patterns, and, in fact, are lower than two decades ago when gang violence was especially problematic at school settings. And, as added perspective, consider that there are more than 50 million school children in America, making the risk of fatality well below one in two million. By comparison, many times more youngsters are killed annually in bicycle accidents. I would trust the moms, if not the mayors, would support a national helmet law as quickly as a gun restriction.

Without a doubt, each gun-related student or teacher fatality is tragic in and of itself, but children are far more at risk outside of school than at school. For most kids, school is a place of great (if not the greatest) safety, offering a level of structure and supervision that many children do not enjoy elsewhere, possibly not even at home

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/02/16/james-alan-fox-moms-mayors-guns/5486429/

[bowens43]

1. bottom line, no guns no shootings

is it that fucking hard to grasp?

[hack89]

2. Is that your solution to everything that kills kids?

or just guns?

[Lurks Often]

3. How nice of you to remove the ability of the old, infirm and weak

to protect themselves from younger and stronger criminals

[ileus]

9. Those non productive members matter more as Stats than humans.

How better to drive an agenda than with better numbers.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

4. Very easy to grasp!

Irrelevant, but easy.

[clffrdjk]

5. And hey if we sterilize everyone then eventually no one will ever die

[Jenoch]

6. What is your plan to achieve your 'no guns' vision?

[sarisataka]

7. bottom line...

We can end drug use by imprisoning all drug users?

I won't hold my breath waiting for an answer

[ileus]

8. The Moms and Mayors mostly want more victims...more victims = more power.

They both loose agenda support without ever increasing gun victims.