Editorial: Raise voices against gun violence

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rainbowbob

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This mess was on my local rag's editorial page this morning. I want to write a rebuttal with the intent on getting it published. Even though many of my letters to the editor DO get published - they never seem to print the ones refuting gun control. But I'd like to give it another try.

I could use some quick input from THR folks to refute specific points with citations, if available. I can (and have) done plenty of research, but I need to get some facts together quickly before the ink dries on this pack of lies.

A little help, please?

Ten years after the mass murder at Columbine High School in Colorado, more progress can be made to reduce gun violence, writes Ralph Fascitelli, president of Washington CeaseFire.
By Ralph Fascitelli

Special to The Times

IN 1988 and again in 1997, Britain introduced strict gun-control laws in response to a mass shooting. Last year, there were 42 gun deaths in Britain, a country of 61 million people. There were more than 30,000 gun deaths in the United States, which has a population of 300 million people, during the same period. The United States had more than 140 times as many gun deaths per capita. Looked at another way, Britain has almost 10 times the population of Washington state, yet it had almost three times the number of gun deaths.

[Anyone have a citation regarding the increase in overall homicides per capita in the UK and Australia after strict gun control measures were initiated?]

Ten years ago April 20, two disturbed students took a total of 15 lives at Columbine High and injured 23 others in the deadliest high-school shooting in our nation's history. In the 10 years since Columbine, more people have died from gun violence than soldiers killed in World War II. Yet our gun laws — through the expiration of the assault-weapons ban and the erosion of tracing capacity under the Tiahrt Amendments — have become weaker, not stronger. When Attorney General Eric Holder called recently for a renewed ban he immediately met the resistance of 56 house Democrats.

The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees a right to own a gun but, as the U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled, it does not bar the government from enacting sensible gun policies to protect our communities.

Data shows the states with the most comprehensive gun-safety laws have just one-fourth the level of gun violence as those states with the least comprehensive laws.

[Isn't the OPPOSITE true, in fact?]

Background-check reform and a renewal of the assault-weapons ban would go a long way toward keeping our communities safer by helping curb access to firearms by our youth, individuals at risk of suicide and criminals.

[Citation for research that shows the AWB had NO impact on violent crime while in effect?]

Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, we have dramatically altered our ability to travel freely and spent billions to protect us from international threats. Every month, we lose almost as many lives to gun violence in this country than those who died in 9/11.

Yet our nation has done virtually nothing to directly fund research and programs directed specifically at reducing gun violence within our own borders.

Research has shown that a gun in the home increases the risk of a completed suicide by five times. And an individual who owns a gun for personal protection is 22 times more likely to kill a family member or friend than stop an intruder — a statistic we saw come to life recently at Fort Lewis when a wife accidentally shot her husband. Our government can also do more by funding further research on gun-violence prevention and on programs designed to educate people about the risks and responsibilities of gun ownership.

[Hasn't this research been refuted by the very researcher that put it out in the first place? Anyone with a link to studies refuting this "fact"?]

Did the students at Columbine and at the hundreds of school shootings since then, including the Virginia Tech tragedy two years ago, die in vain? Sadly, the answer up to now appears to be a resounding yes.

[Apparently for this moron, murder victim's deaths are in vain unless they can be used to enact more gun control legislation.]

Despite strong citizen support (80 percent as measured by two independent surveys conducted by Washington CeaseFire) for common-sense gun laws, such as requiring background checks on all gun sales or banning military assault weapons, we have yet to see significant progress.

[How can they characterize surveys conducted by a political group with an agenda as "independent"?]

It took some 20 years for this country to develop tough new laws on drunken driving, which has now resulted in alcohol-related auto deaths being cut in half.

[He implies that tougher sentencing for drunken driving (a crime) is comparable to further restrictions on gun ownership (not a crime). Note that he does not suggest we further restrict car ownership, or further restrictions on access to alcohol. A far more accurate analogy would be to suggest we need to have tougher sentencing for violent CRIMES committed with firearms.

The same results are very possible with gun violence. We need to raise our voices to match the other side. We need to let our legislators know the true will of the people. We need to ensure the students at Columbine did not die in vain.

Ralph Fascitelli is president of Washington CeaseFire.
Click to expand...


:banghead: :banghead: :banghead:


I will try to incorporate your suggestions and links into a rapid response. Although I'm sure we all agree this guy is a moron and/or liar - I need facts to refute this drivel. Thanks for any suggestions and help you can provide.
 
Isn't there a Sticky in Activism

with lots of gun data? A few years ago some one posted Brady grades and gun death data by state. There was a weak, non-significant trend that violence goes up as guns are more regulated.
Gun violence is caused by socio-economic factors, not guns. Want proof? Gun violence in cities is more prevalent among blacks than whites. Both exposed to guns, but violence is much more common in teh black population. Race here is probably a proxy for socio-economic stratum.
Good luck.
 
Gun deaths.............makes me sad to hear of the passing of so many fine firearms.


All joking aside let articles like this remind us all of the importance of not reiterating marketing terms invented to cause negative reactions toward firearms. ie GUN DEATHS, GUN VIOLENCE, ASSAULT WEAPONS, GUN CONTROL.

Remember the accurate, non emotional substitutes: Deaths, Violence, firearms, Gun Rights.

This is a marketing article make no mistake.
 
That 30,000 statistic includes police shootings of violent perps, suicides and so on. I wager dollars to donuts the data set from England and the US are so differently calculated as to be boggling when compared.
 
At risk of making the Mod Mad-mad I do this again.

Posted in a new thread and reposted here for support of your attempt to write good editorial.

More Guns, Less Violent Crime as the Bad Guys Run or Die
More guns, less crime: Thanks to the Founding Fathers, we're as safe as in our mothers' arms
By Ted Nugent
Posted April 20, 2009

Water, water, everywhere water. Know it, embrace it, manage it, or drown. Same goes for cars, trucks, chainsaws, knives, crowbars, blowtorches, and guns. Based on the inept, clumsy, irresponsible failure of brain-dead, uncoordinated numbnuts, I will not be denied the pragmatic, functional utility of anything.

I will not drown, nor will I drink and drive, chainsaw-massacre anyone, stumble, slice, burn, or shoot myself, nor will I ever hold up a bank. So the best advice would be to think, improvise, adapt, and overcome, man up, but by all means, leave me the hell alone. You don't ban electric guitars just because someone may have a lapse in logic, goodwill, and decency and spontaneously break out into country and western music. The vast majority of sensible people will use electric guitars as God intended and whip out good, sexy rock-n-roll licks.

I need my water, cars, trucks, chainsaws, knives, crowbars, blowtorches, and guns. I have mastered them all; they are all wonderful ingredients for my American Dream of rugged individualism, declared independence, and self-sufficiency. They all serve me well, and I am not giving any of them up. Ever.

The masses must never be controlled for the sake of the lunatic fringe. Remember "Don't Tread on Me"? Don't.

America has spoken. With guns and ammo sales and concealed weapons permits surging at unprecedented rates, never in the history of mankind have more people possessed more firepower and most significantly, carried more concealed weapons on their persons than today across America. And as FBI crime reports and law enforcement and academic studies conclude, the self-evident truth is that more guns clearly equals less crime. Where there are more guns per capita, violent crime goes down, particularly crimes of assault, like rape, burglary, and robbery. This is good.

It is indeed Ted Kennedy's gun ban dream of GunFreeZones that have proven to be the guaranteed slaughter zones where the most innocent lives are lost. Think Columbine, VA Tech, Lane Bryant, NW IL University, Luby's Cafeteria, NJ, Salt Lake City, and Omaha malls, Calgary University, Toronto, Chicago, Boston, Flight 93, the mayor's office in San Francisco, ad nauseam. Peace and love will get you killed, and unarmed helplessness is bad. Unless of course your anthem goes baaa..... baaa...... baaa.

So why in God's good name would any human being wish to force unarmed helplessness on another? That level of cruel indecency and forced victimization is incomprehensible to me and about 100,000,000 Americans who own guns. Self-defense is the most powerful, driving instinct of good people everywhere. To deny this is evil personified. Write this down—GunFreeZones are a felon's playgrounds. Ban GunFreeZones now.

Good people don't want the rapist to succeed. We want him dead. We don't want our homes invaded. We want invaders dead. We don't like carjackers. We like them dead. We don't like armed robbers. We like them dead.

We have examined all the evidence we need to know that calling 911 is a joke, unless of course they bring a dustpan and a mop to clean up the dead monster we just shot while protecting our family.

The choice is clear: Gun control as forced by the Chuck Schumers of the world is complicit in every violent crime committed. Conversely, gun control a la Ted Nugent is putting the second shot through the same hole as the first shot, where innocent lives are saved and recidivistic maggots come to a screeching halt, felled by the lovely ballet of good over evil we call the Double Tap Center Mass Boogie. Learn it, know it, love it, shoot it. Good guys should live, bad guys not so much.

It is reassuring, and ultimately convenient, that fresh from escaping the scourges of tyranny, slavery, kings, and emperors, our brilliant, sensible Founding Fathers knew it was important to write down the self-evident truth that the right to self-defense is surely a God-given individual right to keep and bear arms. Write this down, too—"keep" means it is mine, you can't have it. "Bear" means I've got them right here on me. "Shall not be infringed" echoes that beautiful "Don't Tread On Me" chorus.

I like the U.S. Constitution and our sacred Bill of Rights but, quite frankly, I don't really need them in order to know in my heart and soul the list of self-evident truths therein. Those came from thinking, common-sense men who refused to be helpless, dependent slaves to anyone or anything. These truths are all burned forever on my soul. I live them, no matter what.

Meanwhile, in order to stop the drowning and murders, I will work on banning water; Obama can try to ban guns. Good luck.


http://www.usnews.com/articles/opin...violent-crime-as-the-bad-guys-run-or-die.html
 
Data doesn't trigger emotions the way sound bites do. Fight back with that. All the stat's don't make a compelling argument.
Show the positive difference while admit to our problems.

"The UK is older, and smaller in size, resources, diversity, population, immigration and economy. It is roughly the size of California, but if California had Zero guns you can't seriously say that the Gangs would all become magically peaceful. We have an equivalent number of gang members in Ca. as are insurgents in Iraq. Some politicians in the UK are pushing for a 'population cap', and 'immigrant cap' and severe limits on all immigration. The BBC states the UK had 1.8 Million new immigrants since 1997, the US does that annually. Not counting new naturalized citizens, not counting hundreds of thousands seeking refuge, not counting double that number in illegal crossings on an open border and an open society. Comparing a more closed society of less than a tenth the land mass and ecological diversity with no walkable border to the US is like comparing running a town of 700 people in Alaska to being mayor of Los Angeles. Does the UK have massive illegal drug trade, huge organized violent gangs, broad areas of semi-populated wild-land with little or no police coverage, illegal pot growers living in it's parks, meth labs and trade taking over it's heartland, or one of the highest per capita prison populations in the world?
No. It's comparing Apples to Screwdrivers.
America also has millions of miles of open land where deer, elk, moose, caribou, bison, wild boar can be hunted legally, by the common man many of still depend on this to supplement their diet. We have millions of acres of ranch land with open grazing, and protecting a herd from predators is still done with dog and gun. Millions of acres of farmland with turkey, chucker. quail and pheasant that can be hunted and eaten, instead of killed uselessly as pests. Many Americans enjoy some of the best hunting on earth, and would rather eat wild meat than factory raised or penned.

The UK does have ex-migration, a stagnating society, little growth, fewer opportunities, net import of most products and foods, a closing door to newcomers and a Police Camera network so extensive that only Orwell could have imagined it. It's also a wonderful, beautiful country in its own right.

It's just different."

Play up the positive, beautiful differences that make America great, adding in hunting, opportunities for new immigrants including joining our military or police, becoming a citizen, owning a home and business. Admit to our difficulty with gang violence, organized crime, and the often too late response that is a hazard of a large, spread out population.
People think that we can be just like Canada or Europe. Truth is we could. Either throw another 10% of the population in jail, give up most if not all of our freedoms, become a police state and shut our borders and sure... we could. Never would want to and sure rip us apart if we tried...

Anyway, just some ideas...
 
This is a marketing article make no mistake.
Click to expand...

I'm sure Washington Ceasfire and the others are desperate for financial supporters in this era of increasing gun ownership. Unfortunately, around here (Seattle) they still have pretty good base - and the media slavishly supports their agenda.
 
That 30,000 statistic includes police shootings of violent perps, suicides and so on. I wager dollars to donuts the data set from England and the US are so differently calculated as to be boggling when compared.
Click to expand...

I suspected as much. Later tonight I'll review my notes on the last time somebody wrote an article like this. I suspect we will see more and more of this sort of thing. If I were an 'anti' I would be applying a lot of pressure to the administration. This is the most ban friendly assembly of pols they've had in a while. Start now and look toward 2010.
 
It's funny, "we" are probably more against "gun violence" than any of "them". It ruins innocent lives AND it gives these people another opportunity to complain about our rights instead of doing something that would make logical sense, like complaining about criminals who don't follow the rules.

If I had it my way, we'd somehow completely eliminate gun violence, car violence, shovel violence, and knife violence, and I could leave all of my guns at home lest I'm heading to the range.

Oh wait, reality. "Gun violence" exists because gun control doesn't work and criminals can, and will always have guns. Consequently, I carry a gun around if I want to give myself a chance of defending myself or family from these criminals.

So get rid of "gun violence"? Yes please. Give me a call once you get rid of all violence altogether, and I'll start leaving my gun at home, and I'll tell my AK-47 that I don't have much use for it anymore, admire it's mechanical wonder for a minute, and put it back in the safe.
 
During this time of year when the anniversary of Columbine High School shootings are in the news. The libs start their rant how the bad guns killed people. If we ban the guns this will never happen again.

They are so misguided, to think that the guns did the killing instead of two kids with problems useing the guns in the wrong way to kill innocent people.

My heart goes out to all who lost love ones on that tragic day. Control of guns would not have changed anything because if they wanted to get guns (illegally) there is always a way. :cool:
 
I asked my mom the other day, who doesn't really care for or care to understand guns, that even if all guns in the world (hypothetically) were collected and destroyed what would keep someone with the knowledge to make new ones and sell them underground. I explained that guns have been made for centuries and they were not always manfactured in modern plants. As long as there are people, metal, and ignition sources there will be firearms.
 
Guns are widely available in Israel. Every hotel lobby guard is armed, every museum guard at the entrance to the museum is armed, larger businesses have guards who are armed with selective fire weapons - yet they don't have this problem. It's the society and culture. The editor should read David Grossman's book, On Killing.
 
There were 170 murders in the state of Washington in 2007, per the FBI:

http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2007/data/table_20.html

All rifles COMBINED, including so-called "assault weapons," accounted for 5 of them. Knives accounted for 27 murders, and shoes and bare hands accounted for 15.

Tell me again how small- and intermediate-caliber rifles with modern styling are such a crime problem in Washington?

This clown is just daubing in the blood of innocents to score cheap political points. Washington violence, including gun violence, has almost nothing to do with rifles protruding rifle handgrips or adjustable rifle stocks.
 
UK has not had a mass rise in killings since the handgun ban:banghead:
the handgun ban was caused by a massacre that increased the number of murders by 10% for that year.

rate of shootings is an average of 69 up by 18% but out of a population of 60 million possibly statistically useless
between 1991 1997 average murder rate was 637
has gone up to 737

but we are not the US theres no wilderness where you can hunt for free there hasn't been a mass ownership of guns since 1922.

with a relativity low level of violent crime there just isn't the demand by people to own guns for self defense
 
Location: Seattle, WA
Click to expand...

What more can I say?

The sheep go marching on.
...

The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees a right to own a gun but, as the U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled, it does not bar the government from enacting sensible gun policies to protect our communities.
Click to expand...

True... but my definition of "sensible" may differ from theirs. "Sensible" gun policies IMO are that every decent/responsible citizen is required to be armed. What would violent crooks do then? How about tyrants?
 
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Use ( Gunfacts.info ) alot of well organized facts.

I am currently taking an Eng 101 class and the instructor used the NRA as an example (negatively) the next essay assignment I used the information from this sight; she when home and reveiwed the web site on her own time, I may have converted an "anti" with this info. Not positive and don't want to push it i'm just glad she was receptive to the facts.
 
Was that the Seattle Times? Are there still enough readers to support it? The PI went under and the Times is probably not far behind.

Facts don't work with this argument. The anti's are just about emotion and facts mean nothing.
 
It should be pointed out to her that almost 70% of firearms used in crimes are acquired either by black-market dealing (~38%) or from friends or relatives (~30%) according to the excellent resources gunfacts.info
 
Where did they get 30k?




National Center for Injury Prevention and Control



NCIPC Home | WISQARS Home | Help | Contact Us


2005, United States
Homicide Firearm Deaths and Rates per 100,000
All Races, Both Sexes, All Ages
ICD-10 Codes: X93-X95, *U01.4





Number of
Deaths Population Crude
Rate Age-Adjusted, All Ages
Rate**
12,352

295,895,897 4.17 4.15




Download Results in a Spreadsheet (CSV) File Help with Download


Reports for All Ages include those of unknown age.

* Rates based on 20 or fewer deaths may be unstable. Use with caution.

** Standard Population is 2000, all races, both sexes.



Produced by: Office of Statistics and Programming, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, CDC
Data Source: NCHS Vital Statistics System for numbers of deaths. Bureau of Census for population estimates.

NCIPC Home | WISQARS Home | Help | Contact Us

CDC Home | Search | Health Topics A-Z

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
National Center for Injury Prevention and Control
 
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