The march of death begins

Today is March the third (in the usa, anyway) and there has already been another shooting. This time a gun man opened fire in a Wendy's restaurant in Florida. He managed to kill two people including himself and injure another five others.

More death

Its always sad to see more deaths from gun violence, especially when the violence breaks out on a campus. So many people attend University to gain a better education, to make more out of their life. It's hard to hear that someone can walk in and snatch that life away without a word.

At a University near Chicago, a man opened fire in a classroom of 140 people. Reports are still coming in, but it looks like there is a total of 5 deaths, including the gunman, and many more causalities, some places reported as many as 17.

This isn't how a higher education is supposed to go. When are we going to see some real problem solving by the government? They feel free to spend trillions of our tax dollars on "keeping peace" in a foreign country, but seem to care nothing about the violence that is plaguing the country on such a regular basis. What sort of budget is the President willing to spend to help stop these weekly episodes of gun violence? Are we willing to talk real solutions yet?

Making the harder choice

Apparently a man gave more than just serious thought to opening fire during pre-game excitement at the Super bowl last week. From the look of things, he stopped himself. I am so proud of him for stopping himself. It took a lot of courage to pull himself up at the last minute, contact his family, and ask for help.

While life was definitely not going his way, and he felt the only way to be heard was through the deaths of others, he was able to make a better decision.

I commend Kurt William Havelock for NOT firing a gun, even when he had the chance and the motive.

Law, anyone?

i recently watched the movie "Shooter". I had a huge problem with the movie because it felt like it was sponsored by the NRA. Not only were guns glorified in almost a god status, the movie encouraged the idea that "guns could solve the problem". I hate this concept because it negates the rights of the public for public justice (and no i don't suggest that public executions are the way to go). People need to have laws in place that *everyone* is held to. If guns solve the problem the only law that is obeyed is "The person with the biggest gun and fastest draw wins". That is not a good basis for society.

Apparently this idea that guns really do solve problems was not just in the movies. 52-year-old Charles Thornton, decided he too could take the law into his own hands. He walked into a council meeting and shot 5 people dead,wounding two others. Apparently his thoughts were shared by his brother who said, ""My brother went to war tonight with the people and government that were putting torment and strife into his life and he ended it," Gerald Thornton said. "I'm OK with it."

If this is the kind of law you want to live by, you will live a dangerous and short life indeed.

New Gun Control Regulations for 2008??

With President Bush throwing his support behind the newest Gun Control regulations, its almost enough to think twice about supporting it. Yet, when examined, its pretty amazing that these regulations weren't in practice already. From restrictions on individual ownership of machine guns to prohibiting felons, the mentally ill, and those with restraining orders against them from owning guns, these regulations sound more like common sense rather than radical and new. Still, those against the regulations state that the administration is against individual rights. Sadly, they are probably correct but without actually knowing the intentions of the White House, we can almost assuredly say their motives are suspect if nothing else.

Even with motives that are suspect, i can not see why these regulations aren't being met with dancing in the street. It was only a month ago that there were mass shootings in the states. If December is any sort of example, than it should be clear that when people decide to kill, they aren't getting just one or two deaths in. They are going for as many fatalities as possible. Limiting what sort of fire arms that are available and who they are available to, seems like a great way to prevent these sorts of deaths.

So i am most surprised to find that few in the states seem to be happy about these measures. (Or maybe no one is talking about their support of gun control.) I somehow thought that all these mass deaths related to gun violence would somehow impact the USA in a much bigger way. Yet, in reality it seems that not enough people have died to justify these extreme measures in Gun Control.

If a plane is hijacked and flown into a building, its worth restricting public rights in order to keep more people safe. If a gun is bought and used to open fire in a public place, people feel that they're lives are not at risk, even though the latter scenario is much more common than the former. I am not sure what makes people so sure that it won't happen to them.

If prying the gun out of a gunman's cold dead hand is the only way to limit gun use, than the only way gun violence will drop is by having fewer people around to shoot.

Shocked!

It has been just about a month since the last shooting in the USA to make headlines in Australia. As I paused to reflect on this, I stumbled. It wasn't a massive stumble, but a mere slip of the mouse that brought me to news.google.com. It was here that i found this article.

This article is entitled "Violent Crime Dips in First Half of '07". I was glad to know that these crimes were losing their appeal to perpetrators, so i expectantly opened the article. The article spoke of the FBI statistics for violent crimes (which included gun violence) around America. It sited many places that violent crime had been drastically reduced but the article finished with a paragraph that somewhat disturbed me.

The FBI report did not separate out data for the District, which has reported a 7 percent increase in homicides for 2007, part of an overall surge in gun violence. (bold and italics added by me)

Somehow the overall surge of gun violence hardly rates a mention because fewer people are choosing to bludgeon their victims to death. Hooray for statistical spin! The article itself is cautious to be quite as positive as the Justice Department spokesman Peter A. Carr who said,
"The report suggests that violent crime remains near historic low levels". Instead it points out that in major cities the violent crimes are down, but in rural and suburban areas these crimes are up.

Perhaps that the Justice Department sees the world through rose coloured glasses while us mere mortals have to just stick with the headlines.