In last month, mass shootings claim 53 lives

[babylonsister]

http://www.salon.com/wires/ap/us/2009/04/05/D97CF2L80_month_of_shootings_glance/index.html


In last month, mass shootings claim 53 lives
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Associated Press Writer


Apr 5th, 2009 | A string of shootings in the U.S. in the last month alone has claimed the lives of 53 people:

--MARCH 10, SAMSON, Ala. -- A gunman kills 10 people and commits suicide in a rampage that spanned two dozen miles across the southern Alabama countryside. Police say Michael McLendon had struggled to keep a job and left behind lists of employers and co-workers he believed had wronged him.

--MARCH 22, OAKLAND, Calif. -- A man pulled over in a routine traffic stop fatally shoots two officers and then kills two more in a gunfight in which the suspect was also killed. Relatives say Lovelle Mixon, 26, had been frustrated about not finding work and feared returning to jail.

--MARCH 29, SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- A man shoots and kills his two children and three other relatives, then kills himself at a family housewarming party in an upscale neighborhood. Investigators don't yet know the motive of Devan Kalathat, a 42-year-old engineer at Yahoo.

--MARCH 29, CARTHAGE, N.C. -- A man opens fire in a nursing home and kills seven elderly residents and a nurse who cared for them. Investigators say Robert Stewart, 45, apparently had targeted an estranged wife, a nurse's assistant who escaped by hiding in a bathroom.

--APRIL 3, BINGHAMTON, N.Y. -- A gunman bursts into an immigrant center and kills 13 people before killing himself. Police say Jiverly Wong, a 41-year-old Vietnamese immigrant, was apparently upset about losing his job and about people picking on him for his limited English.

--APRIL 4, PITTSBURGH -- A gunman wearing a bulletproof vest opens fire on officers responding to a domestic disturbance call, killing three of them. Police say Richard Poplawski, 23, had been upset about losing his job and feared the Obama administration was poised to ban guns.

--APRIL 4, GRAHAM, Wash. -- A man fatally shoots his five children in their mobile home and then takes his own life in his car miles away. Relatives identified the father as James Harrison. A motive was not yet known.

[NightWatcher]

1. US soldiers in Iraq death count: 4265

http://icasualties.org/Iraq/index.aspx

Which is bigger?

[babylonsister]

3. Gimme a break.

Start your own thread with that number and info, because that is also important, but that's not what this is about, and you know it. And the comparisons don't apply.

This is in one month in a country that supposedly isn't a war zone. Someone forgot to tell that to the people doing the shooting. You don't see that there's something wrong with this picture? I suppose I could add all the handgun deaths from around the country in the past month to that figure, and you might be more 'impressed'.

Either way, if this doesn't bother you, why bother responding?

[NightWatcher]

4. It does bother me, but I think we need to prioritize

[rfranklin]

5. I had the same thought about the people of Iraq...

Only 53 would be a good month in Iraq.

[JVS]

7. Well if we keep it up at this rate for 6 years it will get close.

[Crunchy Frog]

9. How many in the last four weeks?

[NutmegYankee]

2. Middle America looks at the Coasts and says WTF! News at 11.

Just noticed that trend...

[dmallind]

6. Most of them in states with already very strong gun laws

No mass shootings in VT lately for example, where no permits are even needed for carry.

[Demobrat]

8. Gun company profits are soaring. So what's the problem?

What's 53 lives compared to the rights of gun manufacturers and their stockholders to make money?



http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=1&f=5&t=837420

[The Straight Story]

10. 53 people out of 300 hundred million?

How many died from lack of health care and poverty?

Let's fix the big issues and I am guessing these other issues will start fixing themselves.

But I guess the root cause is too hard to fix so we take the easy road of making laws to punish people, instead of laws to help them.

[FudaFuda]

11. In last month, DUI claims about 1400 lives

This past month has been a particularly bad one for 'gone postal' spree killers for some reason. There's no easy explanation as to why, but it has happened. Next month, I'm certainly hoping for peace. But that kind of tragedy will happen, from time to time, in our country and in others, for as long as humans exist as a species. Any student of history can confirm this, and it doesn't take a gun to kill a bunch of people (and Japan is proof that in the absence of guns, the crazies find other ways to do it).

Anyway, let's put the problem into perspective a bit. We're a nation of what, about 300 million people? Accordign to the salon article you posted, the last month's shooting sprees have cost us 53 lives. And this is, no one can deny, about the worst month for this we've all ever seen.

In the same month, drunk driving has killed about 1400 people. And that's the average number of alcohol related highway deaths every month of every year - almost 17,000 a year. And besides prosecuting the few we catch, what do we do about it? Nada. We could easily make every damn car sold with a built-in breathalyzer. Why don't we? There's no constitutional right to driving drunk. And no matter what argument you make about the necessity of automobiles, again there's no necessity whatsoever for drunks behind the wheel. And yet we won't take those 1400 deaths or so every month seriously. But in one extremely bad month of spree shooters, 53 are killed and people are acting like the world's gone mad and fuckin scared it's gonna happen in their town tomorrow.

The cable news networks don't get you to stop what you're doing and remained glued to your TV for hours when they talk about drunk driving statistics. But one guy with a gun will keep our attention peeled for a whole day. Never mind if the intense coverage and attention (fame) given the gunman inspires other nutcases to aspire to their own glory by killing more. It's ratings that matter. Meanwhile, the odds of you or your family being killed by a drunk are exponentially greater, every day.


Now, I'm not saying gun control advocates are insane for being concerned. But if making society safer and reducing needless death is really your primary goal, then refocus on DUI. Or is your real priority just guns?

[provis99]

12. there are plenty of people who can drive drunk without killing someone

I'll bet on a Friday night up to 1/3 of the cars on the road are driven by drunk drivers. Your comparison is shoddy and misleading.

[FudaFuda]

16. no, I believe it is your logic that is flawed.

Who cares whether some drunk drivers get away with it? Drunk driving kills about 17,000 people in this country each year, period. Every year, every month, every day. If you drive drunk today and don't hurt anyone, so what? Maybe next time.

Drunk driving is a realistically preventable crime (install a breathalyzer in all cars - a little R&D cost, and it's a reality) and badda-bim-badda-boom you just saved many thousands of lives a year. But nobody wants to do that.

According to your logic, it wouldn't be right to impose a law that absolutely prevents drunk driving because some drunks are lucky, even though they are willingly put the lives of others at risk every time they drive drunk.

On the other hand, there are millions of gun owners in the USA who are not negligent, not criminal, and you want to limit or deprive them of their rights because of the behavior of an extreme criminal(ly insane) minority.

[Pavulon]

13. I bet kids and drunks have killed an order of magnitude more.

please stop the drama. Most murders involve people fighting over drug money and in confrontation around drug law. The vast majority are not random.

Those dont make the news.

[slackmaster]

14. And non-mass shootings probably claimed about 1,790 based on the rate for 2005

Including suicides.

http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/

[FudaFuda]

17. and suicides are more than half.

I hate when they include suicide in gun death statistics. So misleading.

[ThomWV]

15. Seems to me if its evidence of anything it is that hard times bring out the worst

But I'd also have to assume that whatever the imbalance is that allows a person to go out and kill many of their fellows for no apparent reason predates the event itself. In other words crazy people are out there all the time, now there are just more triggers (no pun intended) to let them fly off the handel.

[Spider Jerusalem]

18. And in the past month 53 people have been stabbed to death in Britain.

I'm not planning to start campaigning to outlaw knives, however.