Texas: "UT TYLER RECEIVES ALMOST $150,000 TO RESEARCH EAST TEXAS GUN VIOLENCE"

[cuchulainn]

from the Tyler Morning Telegraph

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=8164835&BRD=1994&PAG=461&dept_id=227937&rfi=6

UT TYLER RECEIVES ALMOST $150,000
TO RESEARCH EAST TEXAS GUN VIOLENCE

By: ANGELA MACIAS, Staff Writer May 29, 2003

The University of Texas at Tyler landed a grant totaling almost $150,000 from the Department of Justice to research gun violence in East Texas, U.S. Attorney Matthew D. Orwig announced.

Federal officials joined members of the university community to present a check for the grant amount on Thursday.

"Research is a major element of what we do at The University of Texas at Tyler," said University President Dr. Rodney Mabry. "We are proud to have a partnership in research with the Eastern District of Texas."

During the next three years, Dr. Peter Phillips and Dr. Barbara Hart, professors in the Criminal Justice Department at UT Tyler, will look at offense patterns and devise strategies for reducing gun crimes. Federal officials will then take the research for implementation.

Reducing gun violence tops the president and attorney general's priorities for domestic safety. It is also a main concern for local officials, Orwig said.

More than 10,000 people are killed with the weapons each year and teenagers are more likely to die because of a gunshot wound than all natural causes combined, he said.

"I think of my three teenage children, Joshua, Rachel and Jacob, and I can tell you that that is a heart-wrenching statistic," Orwig said.

The administration established Project Safe Neighborhoods in 2000, an initiative that encourages partnerships between federal and local officials to fight gun crimes. The university's grant was allocated in conjunction with the program.

Since the project has been implemented, gun prosecutions in the region have soared. From 1999 to present, East Texas has seen a 77 percent increase for the number of cases brought involving possession of a firearm while committing a felony.

"The message has been sent out loud and clear that if you use a gun and you commit a gun crime in the Eastern District of Texas, you will do hard time," Orwig said.

Project Safe Neighborhoods grew out of the Texas Exile program, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Jim Noble. The Department of Justice is providing more than $900 million to fund the project by adding prosecutors, investigators and training to prevent gun violence.

Angela Macias covers federal courts and state politics. She can be reached at 903.596.6291. e-mail: [email protected]

©Tyler Morning Telegraph 2003

 

[rock jock]

"The message has been sent out loud and clear that if you use a gun and you commit a gun crime in the Eastern District of Texas, you will do hard time,"

Sounds good to me. Hang 'em high.

This reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend who owns an environmental testing company that was retained to look for pieces of the space shuttle Columbia around the Tyler area back in March. His employees scoured the woods in areas that are not frequented very often, if at all. We're talking deep east Texas redneck territory, basically along the lines of Deliverance. In the course of their search they found 3 bodies..........none of them belonged to the shuttle crew. Point is, there is probably more violence of all kinds, including gun-related, than is ever reported to the authorities in this area.

 

[Battler]

Honestly, why do they bother with this? What answer do they want?

I can give you the university's conclusions:

People are dying from being shot. There are too many guns in texas. We need more gun control, gun show harassment, more socialist education in schools to teach kids that guns are bad for society.

Thing is, I could write this conclusion for $5, not $150,000.

 

[Triad]

teenagers are more likely to die because of a gunshot wound than all natural causes combined, he said.

I'd really like to see the proof of that. I'd also like to know why he compares an unnatural cause to natural ones. It couldn't be that guns are very far down the list of unnatural causes of death now could it?:banghead:

 

[Don Gwinn]

It's probably technically accurate, but still misleading. Most people probably have the same initial reaction you and I did: "Boy, that sounds like either it's wrong or there are a lot of gun deaths!"

But when I really thought about it, I realized that I was counting things like car accidents, falls, drownings, etc as "natural causes." I bet they aren't. I bet "natural causes" is restricted to disease and old age, and you must expire of it before you turn 20 to be counted. How many teenagers do you know who are worried about dying of old age? How about a heart attack or prostate cancer?

 

[WonderNine]

I always find it amusing how you can strangle, stab, bash, whatever, but if you use a gun oooohhhh you're really really bad. Zero tolerance for that!