February 21, 2018, 02:27 PM
saigonsmugglerMy apologies if this had been posted before:
quote:
Sorry, Despite Gun-Control Advocates' Claims, U.S. Isn't The Worst Country For Mass Shootings
6:35 PM ET
Gun Deaths: It's become commonplace to hear after a U.S. shooting tragedy that, when it comes to guns, America is just more violent than other countries, especially those in Europe, where many countries have stiff gun-control laws. It's a progressive shibboleth, but even some conservatives agree. The only problem is, it's not true.
Yes, America does have a lot of gun violence. But more than other countries, especially in Europe?
To listen to America's politicians, you'd think that was the case.
President Obama talked about it a lot, including in June of 2015, after a gunman shot nine people in a Charleston, North Carolina church: "Let's be clear: At some point, we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries," Obama said.
Days later, Sen. Harry Reid echoed his comments. "The United States is the only advanced country where this kind of mass violence occurs," he said.
More recently, the tragic, preventable slaying of 17 students by accused gunman Nikolas Cruz elicited similar sentiments from Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, speaking in the Senate just last Thursday: "This happens nowhere else other than the United States of America."
Powerful remarks, and no doubt heartfelt. But a study of global mass-shooting incidents from 2009 to 2015 by the Crime Prevention Research Center, headed by economist John Lott, shows the U.S. doesn't lead the world in mass shootings. In fact, it doesn't even make the top 10, when measured by death rate per million population from mass public shootings.
So who's tops? Surprisingly, Norway is, with an outlier mass shooting death rate of 1.888 per million (high no doubt because of the rifle assault by political extremist Anders Brevik that claimed 77 lives in 2011). No. 2 is Serbia, at just 0.381, followed by France at 0.347, Macedonia at 0.337, and Albania at 0.206. Slovakia, Finland, Belgium, and Czech Republic all follow. Then comes the U.S., at No. 11, with a death rate of 0.089.
That's not all. There were also 27% more casualties from 2009 to 2015 per mass shooting incident in the European Union than in the U.S.
"There were 16 cases where at least 15 people were killed," the study said. "Out of those cases, four were in the United States, two in Germany, France, and the United Kingdom."
"But the U.S. has a population four times greater than Germany's and five times the U.K.'s, so on a per-capita basis the U.S. ranks low in comparison — actually, those two countries would have had a frequency of attacks 1.96 (Germany) and 2.46 (UK) times higher."
Yes, the U.S. rate is still high, and nothing to be proud of. But it's not the highest in the developed world. Not by a long shot.
Yet, some today propose banning rifles, in particular AR-15s, because they've been used in a number of mass killings. It's important to note however that, according to FBI crime data cited this week by the Daily Caller, deaths by knives in the U.S. outnumber deaths by rifles by five to 1: In 2016, 1,604 people were killed by knives and other cutting instruments, while 374 were killed by rifles.
So is it not fair to ask: If we're banning rifles, why not knives, too?
The point is, guns aren't the problem; deranged killers that grow up in broken families often without positive male role models in their lives are the problem. So are political and religious extremists, in particular Islamists. If these people didn't have guns, they would find some other means to do the job.
Bombs are illegal in both the U.S. and Europe. Yet Europe loses far more people to bombings than the U.S. Doesn't that make them more violent?
In the most recent mass killing here in the U.S., what's upsetting is that Nikolas Cruz, as is usually the case, showed all the signs of a potential killer. He had been expelled from school. He made repeated violent threats. Deputies had made no fewer than 39 visits to his home. He left comments on a web video saying "I'm going to be a professional school shooter." After being notified about the disturbing message, the FBI looked into it, but did nothing.
In this, Cruz is typical. As columnist SE Cupp notes, "the stunning commonality in all these mass shootings ... is that the men who perpetrate them are sick — Las Vegas, Pulse nightclub, Newtown, Columbine, Charleston, Virginia Tech, Tucson, Aurora — on and on, these killers were mentally ill and in almost every case, someone knew it."
Sweeping gun control laws may sound good, but they won't keep handguns and rifles out of the hands of criminals. They will make it even harder for honest Americans to exercise their Second Amendment rights, however.
Rather than politicizing the deaths of 17 people, Democrats and others should instead be pushing for better school security, and for our law enforcement agencies to respond more aggressively to clear threats. Those who are severely mentally ill or psychotic or potentially violent need help. And those that kill for political or religious reasons often show clear signs of being violent. No amount of gun control can stop that.
Investors.com"The data below looks at the period of time from the beginning of the Obama administration in January 2009 until the end of 2015. Mass public shootings – defined as four or more people killed in a public place, and not in the course of committing another crime, and not involving struggles over sovereignty. The focus on excluding shootings that do not involve other crimes (e.g., gang fights or robberies) has been used from the original research by Lott and Landes to more recently the FBI."
February 21, 2018, 05:01 PM
rtquigGoing back at least 14 years, we had a school shooting at night. Seems an F-16 missed the target and hit the school. Only the night janitor was on duty and heard it but at the time didn't know what it was.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/..._Intermediate_SchoolOn November 4, 2004, at around 9pm, an F-16 Fighting Falcon jet from the 113th Wing of the District of Columbia Air National Guard, based at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland on a training mission at the Warren Grove Bombing Range was climbing upward at 8,000 feet. The lead pilot was on a training ride in pursuit of an upgrade to instructor pilot. A recent software change in the F-16 allowed the externally mounted targeting pod to stabilize on a spot on the earth when the avionics were in Air to Ground Mode, Strafe Sub-Mode. The pilot intended to fire a laser at a strafe target located on the range. The laser and gun share the same trigger. The pilot pulled the trigger, firing not only the laser but also the internal M61 Vulcan cannon, discharging 27 rounds of 20mm ammunition which then fell to the ground, with eight striking the school's roof and the rest hitting the parking lot and the side of the building.
A janitor, who saw holes in the ceiling and had heard something on the roof, contacted the police.
February 21, 2018, 09:19 PM
Sigmundquote:
Originally posted by Rightwire:
Agreed, I coach H.S. Varsity hockey and it is a miracle that these guys make it to a game without leaving a critical piece of gear at home. They forget to bring the pucks out, fill the water bottles. There is no WAY students arranged a rally that fast. No WAY...
Even the WashPost is admitting students are getting help:
https://www.washingtonpost.com...m_term=.ec9c9ccb06e7Students take charge of gun-safety movement with some help from existing groupsBy David Weigel and Wesley Lowery
February 21 at 6:10 PM Email the author
A half-dozen students from Iowa City High School began planning their first-ever protest for gun safety Sunday evening, logging into a group chat and saying they wanted to do something in solidarity with the students in Parkland, Fla., who had survived the mass shooting there that left 17 people dead.
“We need concrete actions, not just walking out cuz we’re angry and then go back to school the next day like nothing happened,” Esti Brady, 16, wrote in the chat. More than 250 students braved cold rain the next morning and marched 1½ miles, giving speeches using a megaphone borrowed from Women’s March organizers.
Students also walked out of high schools in Illinois, and they participated in a “die-in” at the White House. In Tallahassee on Wednesday, survivors of the Parkland massacre rallied at the state capitol for stronger gun control and implored the nation’s adults to do something.
Such displays have given gun-safety advocates fresh hope that the Parkland shooting — and the widespread response to it among youths — could create new momentum across the country to enact firearms restrictions. And the grass-roots campaigns that have sprung up in high school hallways among angry and tearful teenagers are now attracting attention from national groups demoralized after a string of shootings prompted no political response.
The students have attracted political attacks from advocates for gun rights, who have accused them of being shills for anti-gun, left-wing lobbyists. And while the students have claimed little to no involvement from national advocates, the gun-control groups are entering the fray behind the scenes, aware of how quickly such a moment can fade but also wanting to avoid tainting what they describe as an organic, youth-driven movement.
Anti-gun groups are going out of their way to claim distance from the student activists while praising their efforts. Everytown for Gun Safety, the group founded by Michael Bloomberg in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., school shooting in 2012, connected some of the Parkland students with its “survivor network.” The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence is starting to talk to students about rallies planned for March and expects to set aside money to help students who can’t afford to travel to the events. Giffords, formerly known as Americans for Responsible Solutions, shared “some context on gun violence protection” with students who requested it, according to Peter Ambler, the group’s executive director.
“It’s important to recognize that in every single way possible this is an authentically grass-roots, student-led movement,” Ambler said. “Of course we’re reaching out and trying to lift them up, and give them the resources we can muster to make them successful. But we have been sort of at arm’s length, in the background doing whatever we can to support them.”
Major donors already have stepped up to bolster the marches, from George and Amal Clooney, who have pledged $500,000. Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg vowed matches.
In Florida, student organizers have been coordinating with the leadership of the Women’s March — which is helping them plan a march on Washington that, like their own back in 2017, will be accompanied by other rallies across the nation. They also have met several times with parents of the children killed in Newtown as well as several students who survived that shooting.
“The amazing thing about this specific movement is that it’s run by the students, and the students are at the forefront of it all,” said Dylan Baierlein, 18, who graduated from Marjory Stoneman Douglas last spring and has been working with Never Again MSD. “And the people and groups who have reached out to help understand that, they’ve given us advice and support without taking over. And I think that’s invaluable.”
The students in Iowa City said they put together their rally with no outside help, no funding and promotion only from a student newspaper. The organized student efforts in Parkland began the day after the shooting, when several groups of friends from the school’s drama and journalism programs met up at a vigil and vowed that something had to be done.
Students have been organizing at the same rapid clip across the country. Lane Murdock, a 15-year-old at Ridgefield High School in Connecticut, started the National School Walkout campaign last week with a Change.org petition. When the questions started to come in, she teamed up with Paul Kim, the 17-year-old student-body president, and created a joint email account to help organize what, by Tuesday, was more than 78,000 students pledging a walkout on April 20.
“I hadn’t told my parents when I started it,” Murdock said. “My mom came home that night and was like, ‘Hey, what’s going on?’ My dad was at a restaurant where he overheard people talking about the walkout, and he said, ‘Hey, that’s my daughter!’ ”
[He won’t return to school until gun laws change.]
The worry that students could come under political attack was well-founded. On some fringe conservative news sites, the highest-profile students from Parkland were probed for evidence that they were being coached. David Hogg, a Douglas senior and student journalist who did several bracing interviews, was attacked by the far-right site Gateway Pundit as “the child of an FBI agent” willing to be “used as a pawn for anti-Trump rhetoric and anti-gun legislation.”
“This kid is a shill,” tweeted Republican strategist and commentator Bradley Blakeman.
Jack Kingston, a former Republican congressman and current CNN commentator, said the students’ rapid organizing raised questions about whether they had been “hijacked by left-wing groups that have an agenda.”
“Do we really think 17-year-olds on their own are going to plan a nationwide rally?” Kingston asked. “Organized groups that are out there like George Soros are always ready to take up the charge, and it’s kind of like instant rally, instant protest, and those groups are ready to take it to the streets.”
Soros, who has donated to the Brady Campaign in the past, fully supports the Florida students’ cause but has not provided them any funding, Laura Silber, the communications director for Soros’s Open Society Foundation, said in a statement Wednesday.
And this week, the aide of a state lawmaker from Florida accused two Parkland students who were interviewed on television of being actors who travel the country.
Such attacks do not — yet — appear to be gaining steam. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) quickly retorted this on Twitter: “Claiming some of the students on tv after #Parkland are actors is the work of a disgusting group of idiots with no sense of decency.”
Even the aide’s boss, Republican state Rep. Shawn Harrison, felt compelled to issue a statement rebuking his staffer — and he later fired him.
Several of the activist students said the group has yet to discuss fully how they’ll handle it if their members come under sustained political attack. But they insist they’ll be able to lean on one another as a support system.
“We know that we don’t have to take anything from anybody. We are survivors,” said Diego Pfeiffer, 18, a senior at Douglas who helped organize Never Again MSD. “We understand that there are trolls and there are people who are going to work against our goals.”
Several students have gone viral after giving interviews in which they called for new gun-control measures or sent tweets ridiculing the responses of pro-gun politicians. They attacked the president by name and accused Rubio of callousness. On television, they were given a platform nearly equal to that of the political class, and they used it.
“We needed to capture the faces of the movement,” said Alex Wind, 17, a junior who was one of the first three members of Never Again MSD, which has quickly ballooned to several dozen members.
Among those faces were Cameron Kasky, a 17-year-old junior and Wind’s best friend, and Hogg, whose interviews on CNN on Thursday and Friday were shared widely. On Saturday, the world met Emma González, an 18-year-old junior whose infuriated address at a gun-control rally quickly became Twitter’s top trending topic and perhaps the most widely shared moment from the shooting’s aftermath.
“I was trending number one on Twitter and I didn’t have a Twitter account,” said González, who has since started an account that has amassed 272,000 followers — and counting. “Now I’ve got this platform that just whipped itself up out of nowhere.”
And student organizers say members of their group have decamped to New York and Los Angeles to hold meetings with other activists and organizations who have offered support, although they have declined to say with whom they are meeting.
“These kids know they are plugging into a political movement that is growing in power, and they are laying bare the gun industry mythology that you can’t talk about changing the laws after a mass shooting,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.). “It used to be that Republicans would respond to mass death and destruction by stubbornly insisting that there was no possible legislative route that could save lives. But things have started to change.”
Read more at PowerPost