Gun violence in America is growing like an infectious disease
Right wing zealots are obsessed with protecting Second Amendment rights while young people are being murdered by the growing public health menace of gun violence. If the rate of killing young people murdered by gun violence were caused by any other vector, the American public would demand a responsible public health cure.
It's impossible to understand why Second Amendment zealots are protected by the United States Supreme Court's supportive rulings, when young people are at risk of dying in the US, every day, from guns. Now, Seattle WA has reported yet another in the unbelievable litany of gun violence incidents on a college campus, including the death of at least one of four victims.
Meanwhile, right wing zealots are cruelly attacking the decision to exchange 5 ugly old terrorist Taliban leaders, who were held without trial in Guantanamo, for a young Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, who was held prisoner for 5 years. It's unbelievably hypocritical for the right wing nuts to ignore the deaths caused by growing gun violence, while they waste energy criticizing a humanitarian act to save an American soldier from certain death in captivity.
Although the right wing establishment within the Republican and Libertarian political parties are paralyzed by money the National Rifle Association showers on them to sustain support, maybe young and untainted voters can make a change in this zealotry.
Let's educate young people about the horrible danger of gun violence in America. This is the fact: guns kill people.
In the absence of guns, the death rate from gun violence would be reduced to practically zero.
Like any infectious disease, it's time to remove the causation and cure the epidemic. We can enforce gun safety regulations that will protect Second Amendment rights and save our youth from preventable violent deaths.
It's impossible to understand why Second Amendment zealots are protected by the United States Supreme Court's supportive rulings, when young people are at risk of dying in the US, every day, from guns. Now, Seattle WA has reported yet another in the unbelievable litany of gun violence incidents on a college campus, including the death of at least one of four victims.
Meanwhile, right wing zealots are cruelly attacking the decision to exchange 5 ugly old terrorist Taliban leaders, who were held without trial in Guantanamo, for a young Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, who was held prisoner for 5 years. It's unbelievably hypocritical for the right wing nuts to ignore the deaths caused by growing gun violence, while they waste energy criticizing a humanitarian act to save an American soldier from certain death in captivity.
Although the right wing establishment within the Republican and Libertarian political parties are paralyzed by money the National Rifle Association showers on them to sustain support, maybe young and untainted voters can make a change in this zealotry.
Let's educate young people about the horrible danger of gun violence in America. This is the fact: guns kill people.
In the absence of guns, the death rate from gun violence would be reduced to practically zero.
Like any infectious disease, it's time to remove the causation and cure the epidemic. We can enforce gun safety regulations that will protect Second Amendment rights and save our youth from preventable violent deaths.
Labels: infectious disease, Seattle, Second Amendment, United States Supreme Court
posted by Juliana L'Heureux | 6:11 PM
6 Comments:
The distinction between criminal violence and the lawful use of lethal force is, by the author's own words, beyond his understanding. Perhaps I will be successful in explaining why the courts continue to support the right to keep and bear arms:
There are good people who obey the law and do not use their weapons to injure people unless attacked.
There are bad people who use weapons to commit crimes and to support their gang, illegal narcotics trade and other criminal activities.
There are some even more bad people who go into posted gun free zones for the purposes of committing mass murder.
The author wants to make sure that good people have no viable defense against bad people. However, since he is unable to discern the difference, he merely assumes all gun owners are bad people waiting to commit a crime.
"In the absence of guns, the death rate from gun violence would be reduced to practically zero."
While this may be true, we would see a dramatic increase in "knife violence", "baseball bat violence", "fist violence", and any other sort of violence one can imagine. We know this to be true because the UK has nearly eliminated *lawful* gun ownership within its borders and the increases in violent crime are published annually.
But, such things do not matter to the author. He only wants to make sure guns are eliminated for the "good" of all. He has no concern for the death of the woman who could have saved herself.
Dear Tom rkba, your thoughtful comments reflect the status quo on Second Amendment rights; but as a professional registered nurse, my response must reflect the public health concerns. It's a fact, in the absence of guns,the incidence, morbidity and mortality of gun violence would be statistically zero. As for knife violence, I worked in an emergency department in an inner city famous Baltimore City hospital before guns were a public health hazard. We saw plenty of knife violence, indeed, there was a morbid joke about bringing in more help when the moon was full to handle the increase in incidents. Nevertheless, I never saw the carnage with knife violence like what's described to me by my colleagues who are now routinely calling in families to see the remains of their children who are victims of gun violence. Second Amendment rights are now superceding our human rights to be protected from harm. Unfortunately, there's no "protection from harm" amendment in the US Constitution, but our founding fathers did say we were entitled to expect inalienable rights, so we might broadly interpret that as meaning the right to be protected from harm.Thank you for your thoughtful response, glad to know people are reading my blog, but, as you know, I will always disagree with your rationale on protecting Second Amendment rights over human rights.
Hello Ms. L'Heureux,
It does not matter to you that the legally standing facts do not support your statement. Violent crime is down. The FBI statitics says so, the DOJ statistics says so. Also while guns sales have increased 10fold, crime has been reduced. I think better sentencing, video camera and yes, 10 million licensed gun carriers are to be credited.
I do agree that if there were no guns, gun crime would go away. Feel free to quote me on that. As such as if there were no cars, car deaths wouldn't exist, or swimming pool deaths if pools didn't exist. I do believe unicorns are not real, so let's avoid that discussion. But we live in a country that has a 2nd amendment.
The 2nd amendment is the most restricted amendment of all, wouldn't you agree? I live in California. Even though I have a license to carry from 3 other States, I can not here because I live in the wrong county. When I buy a handgun, I must wait 10 days, even though I own many more already. I also can only buy 1 gun a month. What if you had to wait 10 days for a newspaper, or get one newspaper a month? A right is a right?! Some of the strictest gun laws in the country here in California. Eric Rogers lived here.
I am a law abiding citizen, I obey the laws of the states I am in when I am in them. Can you admit the criminal do not?
My licenses to carry allow me to do so in 40 States, why is that? Why does a State regulate my safety? Or why only 20% of them?
Anyway, you keep with the emotion and your miscalculations, I prefer to stick to the facts.When people tell me I am paranoid when I say people want to take my guns, I will just point them to your writing it.
Have a great weekend.
Dear Juliana L'Heureux, I can agree that it takes less skill to kill using a gun than a knife, however, dead is dead and criminals will kill with what ever is handy. No limits on guns will decrease the total violent crime. Since most gun uses never involve firing a shot but only the threat of violence to stop a violent crime, you would never see the majority of the 2.5 million instances every year where a gun stops a violent crime.
Second, your comment about being "protected from harm" as a human right is interesting. Police/Government have no duty or responsibility to protect any individual (SCOTUS Castle Rock), so responsibility for your protection is yours. With that responsibility comes the right to choose the training and tools you need. A gun is many times part of that set of tools and you have no right to limit my self defense.
Great news! All we have to do is turn in our guns and the world will join hands and sing Kumbaya! What's that you say? Criminals won't turn theirs in? No big deal! We can just wait until they either shoot everyone or run out of bullets!
In the absence of logic and reality, and in the presence of unicorns and rainbows, the population of clueless Liberals would be 100%
Wow I'm thrilled about these comments but not one of these defensive statements refutes the premise. Regardless of whether or not violent crimes are down, the fact remains that guns are killing young Americans at a rate at least as high as infectious diseases; and we have the capacity to save their lives. Gun deaths are preventable. Guns kill people. Of course, there's no way to call back the extraordinary hoarding of guns collected by obsessive compulsive people who believe they can somehow magically shoot more than one weapon at a time at a perceived threat. What we can do, however, is tax ammunition to the extent that the means to kill with a gun is reduced by the expense related to keep fire arms operational. I don't understand how the rational of guns killing people seems to be an intellectual challenge for Second Amendment zealots but the statistical reality of the correlation just doesn't resonate with them, unfortunately. Nevertheless, thank you for your comments.
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