Category Archives: NADA – New American Dark Ages

New American Dark Ages

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The solution to gun violence is clear « Fareed Zakaria

The solution to gun violence is clear « Fareed Zakaria

In fact, the problem is not complex, and the solution is blindingly obvious. …

For most crimes — theft, burglary, robbery, assault — the United States is within the range of other advanced countries. The category in which the U.S. rate is magnitudes higher is gun homicides.

The U.S. gun homicide rate is 30 times that of France or Australia, according to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, and 12 times higher than the average for other developed countries.

So what explains this difference? If psychology is the main cause, we should have 12 times as many psychologically disturbed people. But we don’t. The United States could do better, but we take mental disorders seriously and invest more in this area than do many peer countries.

Is America’s popular culture the cause? This is highly unlikely, as largely the same culture exists in other rich countries. Youth in England and Wales, for example, are exposed to virtually identical cultural influences as in the United States. Yet the rate of gun homicide there is a tiny fraction of ours. The Japanese are at the cutting edge of the world of video games. Yet their gun homicide rate is close to zero! Why? Britain has tough gun laws. Japan has perhaps the tightest regulation of guns in the industrialized world.

The data in social science are rarely this clear. They strongly suggest that we have so much more gun violence than other countries because we have far more permissive laws than others regarding the sale and possession of guns. With 5 percent of the world’s population, the United States has 50 percent of the guns.

There is clear evidence that tightening laws — even in highly individualistic countries with long traditions of gun ownership — can reduce gun violence. In Australia, after a 1996 ban on all automatic and semiautomatic weapons — a real ban, not like the one we enacted in 1994 with 600-plus exceptions — gun-related homicides dropped 59 percent over the next decade. The rate of suicide by firearm plummeted 65 percent. (Almost 20,000 Americans die each year using guns to commit suicide — a method that is much more successful than other forms of suicide.)

The solution to gun violence is clear « Fareed Zakaria

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Dueling amendments: “You can’t yell fire in a crowded theater, but you can bring a gun into it.” — Richard Cohen

Richard Cohen: The debacle of gun control – The Washington Post, The Washington Post Published: January 14

All across the nation in recent days, political leaders have declared their intention to rein in guns, but all they have done actually is signal defeat. They have proposed this or that marginal program — something about magazines, something about bullets, something about background checks, something about assault rifles and maybe, just to be truly silly, something about mental health, as if the crazed shooter can be easily Rorschached. … All this and nothing about the core problem, which is handguns. They have remained out of bounds although they account for the vast majority of the 100,000 or so annual shootings — an astounding 1 million gun deaths since 1968. …

[T]he Second Amendment is more strictly interpreted than even the First. You can’t yell fire in a crowded theater, but you can bring a gun into it.

Richard Cohen: The debacle of gun control – The Washington Post

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Once, ‘Gun Nuts’ Had Good Point | ABQ Journal

» Once, ‘Gun Nuts’ Had Good Point | ABQ Journal by Kathleen Parker

In one remarkable incident in May 1967, as recounted in The Atlantic by UCLA law professor Adam Winkler, 24 men and six women, all armed, ascended the California capitol steps, read a proclamation about gun rights and proceeded inside — with their guns, which was legal at the time.

Needless to say, conservatives, including then-Gov. Ronald Reagan, were suddenly very, very interested in gun control. That afternoon, Reagan told reporters there was “no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons.”

The degree of one’s allegiance to principle apparently depends mainly on who is holding the gun. …

This still leaves open the loophole of private sales that do not require background checks, which President Obama wants to close. We will hear more about this in coming weeks, but the call meanwhile to ban assault weapons or limit magazines in the wake of the horrific mass murder of children and others at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut is hardly draconian. It won’t solve the problem of mentally disturbed people exacting weird justice from innocents, but it might limit the toll. Having to stop one’s rampage to reload rather breaks the spell, or so one would imagine.

One also imagines that the old Reagan would say there’s no reason a citizen needs an assault weapon or a magazine that can destroy dozens of people in minutes. He would certainly be correct and, in a sane world, possibly even electable.

» Once, ‘Gun Nuts’ Had Good Point | ABQ Journal

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Guns aren’t the only solution to the gun problem

Taft School Shooting: Teen Gunman Told Teacher Ryan Heber ‘I Don’t Want to Shoot You’ – ABC News

By RUSSELL GOLDMAN (@GoldmanRussell)

Jan. 11, 2013

A California teacher’sbrave conversation with a 16-year-old gunman who had opened fire on his classmates allowed 28 other students to quickly escape what could have been a massacre.

Science teacher Ryan Heber calmly confronted the teenager after he shot and critically wounded a classmate, whom he claimed to authorities had bullied him for more than year at Taft Union High School.

Taft School Shooting: Teen Gunman Told Teacher Ryan Heber ‘I Don’t Want to Shoot You’ – ABC News

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Common Sense Gun Reforms | ABQ Journal

Worth reading.

» Common Sense Gun Reforms | ABQ Journal By Patrick Davis / ProgressNow New Mexico on Fri, Jan 11, 2013

Fortunately for New Mexico, our Legislature is about to convene and the issue of public safety and responsible gun ownership must be front and center. The public is demanding action and while we wait on Congress to debate, our Legislature can act.

I call on the governor and legislators to enact these and other simple common sense reforms in the first days of the session, pass them with an emergency clause so that they may be immediately implemented, and give our children a safer and brighter future in this new year.

» Common Sense Gun Reforms | ABQ Journal

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Everyone thinks you’re paranoid — thank gawd you gotta gun #furg

The 2nd amendment places its worshippers above all others. They have no obligations to anyone. Their rights and their power are absolute. Absolute rights obviate the need for compromise or consideration or empathy. That power must be exhilarating, like shooting a tin can or slaughtering a living being. What a rush, right there in your pocket. To hell with anyone else.

But the security of a gun comes with at a price: Constant vigilance. You cannot let your guard down lest someone else get the draw sooner. You cannot trust someone without a gun because, surely, they want to take yours. You cannot trust your government for the same reason. Everyone thinks you’re paranoid. All you can trust is your only friend in the world: your gun.