Yay! USA! USA! We're number ONE in random carnage caused by firearms!

[Attero Dominatus]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2956578

Bluebear  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list      Tue Mar-04-08 02:20 AM
Original message
Yay! USA! USA! We're number ONE in random carnage caused by firearms!
   
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College campuses! Wendy's restaurants! Amish schools! Shopping malls!

And now, bracing myself for those who say "oh-oh, here come the gun grabbers!" . . . Well, have at it. This country has a sick culture of violence that is getting worse, and it's high time that a level of sane compromise be reached - fast - before we just rename our nation "The OK Corral".

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The NRA is doing better than ever-- they're riding high on the License to Murder law and are extremely pleased that they've passed concealed weapons laws (over the objections of most Americans) in almost all 50 states. And while they continue to erode our reasonable gun legislation, the guns they've put in our country are causing more and more problems.

Violent crime rose by double-digit percentages in cities across the country over the last two years, reversing the declines of the mid-to-late 1990s, according to a new report by a prominent national law enforcement association.

While overall crime has been declining nationwide, police officials have been warning of a rise in murder, robbery and gun assaults since late 2005, particularly in midsize cities and the Midwest. Now, they say, two years of data indicates that the spike is more than an aberration.

“There are pockets of crime in this country that are astounding,” said Chuck Wexler, the executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, which is releasing the report on Friday. “It’s gone under the radar screen, but it’s not if you’re living on the north side of Minneapolis or the south side of Los Angeles or in Dorchester, Mass.”

Local police departments blame several factors: the spread of methamphetamine use in some Midwestern and Western cities, gangs, high poverty and a record number of people being released from prison. But the biggest theme, they say, is easy access to guns and a willingness, even an eagerness, to settle disputes with them, particularly among young people.

So the NRA can claim that crime is falling (and they probably will). But what they won't tell you is that gun-related crime is rising, and more and more Americans are dying because of firearms violence. When anyone can get a gun, and laws like License to Murder encourage them to use it at the first sign of trouble, we're going to see more and more blood shed on our streets.

Police officials say the violence tends to happen among young men in their late teens and early to mid-20s. In some cases, it is random. But in many cases, it is among people who know one another, or between gangs, as a way to settle disputes. Arguments that 20 years ago would have led to fistfights, police chiefs say, now lead to guns.

“There’s really no rhyme or reason with these homicides,” said Edward Davis, the police commissioner in Boston. “An incident will occur involving disrespect, a fight over a girl. Then there’s a retaliation aspect where if someone shoots someone else; their friends will come back and shoot at the people that did it.”

In Richmond, Chief Magnus said he would often go to the scene of a crime and discover that 30 to 75 rounds had been fired. “It speaks to the level of anger, the indiscriminate nature of the violence,” he said.

“I go to meetings, and you start talking to some of the people in the neighborhoods about who’s been a victim of violence, and people can start reciting: ‘One of my sons was killed, one of my nephews,’ ” he said. “It’s hard to find people who haven’t been touched by this kind of violence.”

We can't say it any clearer: this is a direct result of the widespread, easy availability of firearms, and a culture that encourages even young people to use them. Because our firearms laws are weakening, in states all over the country, gun violence is rising. This isn't an emotional issue, or anything having to do with "rights." It's about bringing these numbers back down, and saving the lives of Americans.

_Forty of the 56 surveyed police departments, or 71 percent, saw homicide rates increase since 2004. That translated into an overall 10.2 percent jump in murders. Between 2005 and 2006, the increase in murders was much lower: 2.8 percent.

_Robberies rose among the cities by 6 percent since 2005 and 12 percent since 2004. Between 75 and 80 percent of the departments surveyed saw a spike in robberies.

_Felony assaults dipped slightly, by 2 percent, between 2005 and 2006, but rose slightly, by 3 percent, since 2004.

_Gun assaults saw a 1 percent boost from 2005 but spiked by nearly 10 percent during the 24-month period.

Where there are firearms, there will be firearms violence. When we flood our country with guns as the NRA has done, it should come as no surprise that we see gun violence numbers spike. To control them, we'll have to act on the interests of the majority-- we'll have to ditch the extremist gun policy of the NRA, pass stronger gun laws, and make the safety of Americans our first priority.

http://www.gunguys.com/?p=1964

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ingac70  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Journal  Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list      Tue Mar-04-08 02:23 AM
Response to Original message
1. Gotta be number one at somethin'! n/t.
   
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rpannier  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Journal  Click to send private message to this author  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list      Tue Mar-04-08 02:25 AM
Response to Reply #1
3. We're also number 1 in prison incarcerations
   
1% of the adult population is in a prison
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Mojorabbit  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list      Tue Mar-04-08 02:35 AM
Response to Original message
4. If this article had not started out
   
with this ... "License to Murder law " I might have thought it was not biased.
There is a whole host of reasons that are causing young people to end up in gangs, poverty being one.
The violence is a symptom of a whole heap of problems which have for years been swept under the rug.
Banning guns would be a feel good measure but the problems which stoke the violence will remain.
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The violence would get worse if guns were banned.

villager  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list      Tue Mar-04-08 02:47 AM
Response to Reply #4
9. yeah, controlling the guns is pointless -- all the drive-bys in L.A. will be done by Ninja stars
   
And the mall and fast-foot shootings will instead become large-scale piano wire garrotings...
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[Texacon]

And again the DUmmies show their complete and total ignorance of firearms and firearms issues.  What tards.

KC

[Airwolf]

Yeah banning gun did so well in Nazi Germany, Communist Russia, Australia and Britain with their ever increasing crime rates. Where as when people are allowed to own and carry the violence is much less. Yeah gun control and gun bans are so great that every dictator has at least one.

[Attero Dominatus]

And again the DUmmies show their complete and total ignorance of firearms and firearms issues.  What tards.

KC

I bet none of them has even come within six feet of a gun in real life. They only believe what the antigunnuts tell them.