OUR OPINION: Comments offer insight about shootings
December 16, 2012 at 6:05 pm in Grand Forks Herald
So often these days, readers who comment on news items online ask great questions and offer useful information. And the readers who’ve commented on the stories about the shootings in Connecticut are no exception. Continue Reading
Tom – Thanks for taking the time to answer those questions. Interesting results. Excellent information at the end of the article and where I hope the discussion goes on a national level. While I am not against limiting the availability of high capacity clips, drums etc, or even tougher laws on weapon purchases.. I don’t feel that outright bans are the answer.
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People should read this article and note that much is already being done. As dissapointing as our crime stats are, school shootings likely make up less than 2/10ths of 1 percent of our homicides. There’s good argument for Washington to not overreact. As awful as these things are, statistically, as far as child safety, there’s much bigger fish to fry. Everyone is deeply saddened by these senseless acts, but when I see Democrats jumping on these bandwagons, I wonder if it’s political. But, sadly, many honestly think some imaginary result is worth the distraction. It reminds me of my dog chasing his tail.
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Of course it’s political. And, the anti-gun people are always ready to attempt to further their agenda. In the words of Rahm Emanuel: “You never let a serious crisis go to waste.” And, they don’t intend to. Dianne Feinstein and her ilk are poised and waiting for such chances to attempt knee jerk legislation.
Sure, it was tragic that the kids were killed. And, Adam Lanza is to blame for it… not the guns he used. He picked them up and he pulled the trigger. He was mentally ill and that’s what people should focus on.
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He wouldn’t have been able to do it without a semiautomatic large clip weapon.
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From reports, he shot himself when he heard the cops closing in. So if he had had to take more time to shoot and to reload, he would have shot fewer times before the cops arrived. This would have likely resulted in fewer dead. How many is hard if not impossible to estimate. I’ll agree, there would have been less carnage if he didn’t have a semiautomatic large clip weapon (I never have hear how large a clip he had).
I’m not sure the discussion would have been much different if there were only 15 or 10 1st graders killed, however it certainly would have made a difference to 5 or 10 families.
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From Wikipedia, Japan has a murder rate of 0.3 per 100,000 with 0.02 commited with a firearm. The US has a murder rate of 4.2 per 100,000 with 3.7 commited with a firearm. So, the murder rate where something other than a gun was used is almost 2 times higher in the US than in Japan. You’d expect that, with the limited access to guns, the Japanese would resort to using other methods at a HIGHER rate. The opposite is true.
We don’t ONLY have a gun problem in the US, we also have a murder problem and a lack of respect for life and for each other in the US.
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Well-said. It seems like we have a growing lack of respect for everything today. Just fill in your choice of subject. In that same wiki piece, the murder rates in Central America, Mexico, Brazil, etc. were 10 times the U.S. I wonder how many of our deaths per 100,000 are directly related to drugs and drug related crimes. Minus the Central American influence, would our stats be more like Great Britain? Gun incidents in our schools, although glaring and disgusting, are few in number. Should our focus be on bullying and other violence in our schools. That might improve school safety more than any gun discussion.
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