Gun Violence in Cincinnati at 10-Year High

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Blocking the Paths to Suicide

New York Times

Every year, nearly 40,000 Americans kill themselves. The majority are men, and most of them use guns. In fact, more than half of all gun deaths in the United States are suicides.

Experts and laymen have long assumed that people who died by suicide will ultimately do it even if temporarily deterred. “People think if you’re really intent on dying, you’ll find a way,” said Cathy Barber, the director of the Means Matters campaign at Harvard Injury Control Research Center.

Prevention, it follows, depends largely on identifying those likely to harm themselves and getting them into treatment. But a growing body of evidence challenges this view.

Suicide can be a very impulsive act, especially among the young, and therefore difficult to predict. Its deadliness depends more upon the means than the determination of the suicide victim.

Now many experts are calling for a reconsideration of suicide-prevention strategies. While mental health and substance abuse treatment must always be important components in treating suicidality, researchers like Ms. Barber are stressing another avenue: “means restriction.”

Instead of treating individual risk, means restriction entails modifying the environment by removing the means by which people usually die by suicide. The world cannot be made suicide-proof, of course. But, these researchers argue, if the walkway over a bridge is fenced off, a struggling college freshman cannot throw herself over the side. If parents leave guns in a locked safe, a teenage son cannot shoot himself if he suddenly decides life is hopeless.

Gun Availability is the Problem

Common Gunsense

The gun lobby is trying hard to keep the real facts about the causes and effects of gun violence from going public. Not only do events on the ground interfere with their dangerous mantra that more guns make us safer but there are more groups and individuals doing research and writing about the truth. This article by Mike Weiss takes on the gun lobby yet again:

"According to the FBI, from 2000 to 2012 there were slightly more than 200,000 homicide victims of which slightly more than two-thirds were killed with guns. This is an average of 10,400 gun homicides each year, a remarkably-stable number over the past thirteen years. Of these gun killings, slightly more than 15 percent involved women as victims, or roughly 21,000 over the same span of years. When women are homicide victims, most if not virtually all of these shootings grew out of some sort of IPV. Let's not forget, incidentally, that men were also shot to death by their girlfriends or their wives an average of 700 times per year. Taken together, domestic violence probably claimed more than 2,200 victims annually between 2000 and 2012, or one-fifth of all gun fatalities during those years.

The degree to which homicide grows out of personal disputes is shown by the fact that of the total murders committed in 2012, only slightly more than 20 percent took place during the commission of other crimes. The rest happened because people who knew each other, and in most cases knew each other on a long-term, continuous basis, got into an argument about money, or who dissed who, or who was sleeping with someone else, or some other dumb thing. And many times they were drunk or high on drugs, but no matter what, like Walter Mosley says, "sooner or later" the gun goes off.

Here's the bottom line on gun violence and crime. Every year 20,000+ shoot themselves intentionally, which is suicide. Another thousand, give or take a hundred, kill themselves accidentally with a gun. Then another 10,000 use a gun to kill someone else, but 8,000 of those shootings had nothing to do with other violent crimes. If we define gun violence as using a gun to end a human life, the FBI is telling us that less than 10 percent of those fatalities would be eliminated if we got rid of all violent crime. The NRA can try to convince its members that the reason for gun violence is that there's too much crime, but the data from the FBI clearly indicates that the reason for gun violence is that there are too many guns."

Stockton CA Mass Shooting

Fox News

Stockton police have confirmed 7 victims following a shooting at Madison Market in Stockton.

Of the seven victims, six were rushed to nearby hospitals and one died on scene.

Just after 9:40 p.m., a second victim died after arriving at the hospital.

Just after 10 p.m. a 3rd victim died. Police say one male and two females died in the shooting.

The victims were shot in a drive by shooting, according to police, and gang detectives are on the scene.

Stop Blaming Mental Health for Gun Violence. The Problem is the Availability of Guns.

A group of police officers on Dec. 25 pay their respects at a makeshift memorial in the Brooklyn, where New York police officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos were shot and killed on Dec. 20 as they sat in a marked squad car. (Carlo Allegri/Reuters)

Washington Post

But it is time to recognize that adequate treatment for people with a mental disorder is a distinct problem from gun violence. A much better indicator of whether someone will be violent is whether they come from a violent, poverty stricken environment, and whether they struggle with addiction. Eliminating poverty, domestic violence and childhood exposure to bloodshed would likely make a dent in our problem with gun violence. It may even have made a difference in the life of Ismaaiyl Brinsley.

But these are not problems for the mental health system to solve. And neither is the big problem of availability of guns. Among developed countries, the United States has the highest number of guns per every 100 people (88 as compared to 15 in Australia, six in Britain and 31 in Canada). In a 2012 survey, 43 percent of individuals indicated that there was at least one gun in the household.

Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn speaks Out - The True Threat

"We've got large numbers of high-capacity quality firearms in the hands of remorseless criminals who don't care who they shoot."

Pennsylvania Coroner to Auction off Guns Used in Suicides, Accidental Shooting Deaths

NY Daily News reports

A western Pennsylvania coroner is auctioning off about 100 guns used in suicides and accidental shooting deaths. 

Coroner Ken Bacha says the Nov. 8 surplus weapons sale is Westmoreland County government's first since his father was coroner in the 1980s. He says state law requires local governments sell off unclaimed property. Proceeds will help fund county government. 

Bacha's office took possession of the guns during death investigations. Family members had a year to get them back before they became county property. Some of the weapons have been in the county's hands for decades.

Bourbon Street Shooting In New Orleans Leaves Several Injured - Mass Shooting - Not a Gun Free Zone

Huffington Post

The States With The Most Gun Violence

Huffington Post

24/7 Wall St. discussed the CDC’s figures with John Roman, senior fellow at the Urban Institute, an economic and social policy think tank. Roman explained the probability of accidents, suicides, and domestic violence goes up in homes with guns. Americans are “three times more likely to have a suicide in a home with a gun than [they] are in a home without a gun.”

According to Roman, “The overwhelming trend is that strong gun law states have seen dramatic declines in violence. Weak gun law states have not seen the same decline.” While stricter gun laws lead to less violence, Roman noted, this relationship is not exactly straightforward, because people may purchase a gun in one state and bring it into another. “As long as there are weak gun law states, even strong gun law states will see gun violence.”

Although not necessarily gun related, violent crime, overall, was higher in many of these states. Seven states reported at least 420 violent crimes per 100,000 residents in 2011, versus the national rate of just 386.3 violent crimes per 100,000 residents that year. There were more than 600 violent crimes per 100,000 residents in Alaska, second only to Tennessee. Some specific crimes were even more likely in many of these states. Six of the 10 states reported more than 3,500 incidents of property crime per 100,00 residents, for example, versus a national rate of just 2,908.

Perhaps the authors have been reading our never-ending discussions about gun-violence rates vs. overall violence. In this article they've covered it pretty well.

Guns do more harm than good.

Ohio Man Shoots Toddler In The Head During Fight With Child's Mother

Huffington Post

Cleveland police say a man fatally shot his 2-year-old son in the head when he fired into the window of a home during a dispute with the child's mother.

Police say the boy was standing on a landing when he was struck early Tuesday and was taken to a hospital, where he died. The Cuyahoga (ky-uh-HOH'-guh) County medical examiner's office identified the child as Derrice Alexander Jr., of Cleveland.

Police say his father fled the scene and was later arrested but wasn't immediately charged.

Police Chief Calvin Williams says the man is a convicted felon and should not have had a weapon. He declined to give details about that criminal record.

Williams says the man seemed to be cooperating with investigators. They're trying to determine where he got the gun.

He was not charged immediately?????

The Gun Rights Legacy

Bullet-proof blanket for kids. Only place in the world where it's needed is America. #momsdemand #NotOneMore pic.twitter.com/vFFaitaR43

— Cornelia (@PaladinCornelia) June 6, 2014

Minneapolis Gun Incidents Increase 40% in One Year - But It's Not a Trend

The Star Tribune

Gun incidents rose 40 percent in Minneapolis last year, the first significant jump in years following a long-term downward trend in gun-related cases.

The gun incidents in the city report being released Wednesday include people being shot or shot at, reports of gunshot wounds or a gun used in a crime.

Two top law enforcement officials said it’s too soon to say whether the report’s findings signaled the beginning of something new in crime, and pointed instead to the long-term decline.

“Minneapolis is on the right track,” said Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek, who said the city should stick with its strategies for fighting gun crime. Those things include “going after violent offenders, removing illegal guns, working on the gangs and narcotics problems, and most importantly they leverage their partnerships with other agencies,” he said.

Other highlights in the report, called Results Minneapolis, include a rise in cellphone thefts, a rise in police response times and a drop in internal affairs complaints from 1,427 in 2012 to 934 in 2013. The report also said the department, despite being led by a woman for the first time, had a smaller percentage of female officers last year (15 percent) than it did 10 years previously (16.4 percent).

The sharp rise in gun incidents comes at a time when it’s still far too easy for young people to find illegal guns on the street, Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said.

“We’re like the kid with a finger in the dike against this flood of guns,” he said. His office built a website, www.changethestoryhennepin.com, that addresses youth and gun violence. It includes the statistic that 15,576 children and teenagers were injured by firearms nationwide in 2010, a rate of one injury every 30 minutes.

Why No Guns on Military Bases

USA Today

The overriding concern of those who wrote the rule was safety — the idea that ubiquitous guns, mixed with young soldiers in stressful conditions, could lead not just to accidental shootings but also to fistfights escalating to gunfire, or to more suicides, which already plague the military.

As horrific as mass shootings are at military installations, they're rare. Starting with the 2009 spree at Fort Hood by Maj. Nidal Hasan, there have been three in five years.

The hypocrisy is blatant in this case. Pro-gun fanatics are screaming in unison for guns on military bases because of the extremely rare mass shootings.  Yet, the rare nature of accidental child deaths is the very reason they object to safe storage laws. In fact, according to them, the 30,000+ gunshot deaths each year are rare in comparison to the number of gun owners, therefore no additional restrictions are required.

But now, military personnel need to be armed.

The USA Today article mentioned suicides. Of course the extremists insist that gun availability makes no difference in suicide rates.  And when that bizarre cop-out doesn't work, they say it's a person's right to kill themselves if they want to - it's a free person's right to decide.

But, I would think that reasonable people who are concerned with soldier suicides and who have no gun bias clouding their opinion, agree, allowing guns on state-side military bases would result in more suicides not less.

Libertarian Juan Williams Calls Out the Fox Commentators for Saying Gun Availability Has Nothing To Do With It

Fascinating Discussion on the Fort Hood Shooting

Retired Colonel and true hero, Medal of Honor recipient, Jack H. Jacobs said allowing concealed carry on military bases is a ridiculous idea.  He said if we did that we'd see a lot more incidents like this one.

Perhaps my number 4 gun control law would have prevented this one as well as the Nadal one.

Ask Yourself Why

Stephen Colbert Shows How Fox News Blames Anything but Gun Availability

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Video Archive

Gun Availability is the Problem

Business Insider

The New York Firefighter Shooter

CBS news reports

Police have found a body inside the charred remains of the home of the New York man who police say shot and killed two firefighters and injured two more early on Christmas Eve.

William Spengler, 62, who served 17 years in prison for manslaughter in the 1980 hammer slaying of his grandmother, set his house afire before dawn on Dec. 24, before taking a revolver, a shotgun and a semiautomatic rifle to a sniper position outside, Police Chief Gerald Pickering said.

Police revealed that a body believed to be the killer's 67-year-old sister, Cheryl Spengler, was found in his fire-ravaged home.

Authorities say Spengler sprayed bullets at the first responders, killing two firefighters and injuring two others who remained hospitalized Tuesday in stable condition, awake and alert and expected to survive. He then killed himself as seven houses burned on a sliver of land along Lake Ontario.

Pickering said it was unclear whether the person believed to be Spengler's sister died before or during the fire.

A big part of the pro-gun argument depends on the mistaken idea that criminals and madmen will always get guns regardless of what we do. This is an obvious falsehood. It would be like saying there will always be murders so we shouldn't bother to make it illegal or strive to prevent them.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Arkansas - Gun Availability

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