Connecticut School Shooting

[ChainzCooper]

I don't know Jessica's law has been passed in many states (it should be in every state) its time we step it up on something we can all agree on
Jordan

[Beowulf]

I've read through some of this, not all, but I assume somebody did mention Conneticut has some of the strictest gun laws in the country.

[RivkahChaya]

Personally, I think "Jessica's law," and laws modeled after it, are bad ideas, because they basically instruct anyone who molests someone under 12 not to leave any witnesses.

Unless that was yet another attempt at satire, Chainz, in which case, don't quit your day job.

[Archaic]

Online Interactive Tally: Number of US Gun Deaths Since Newton

Slate.com and the Twitter user "@GunDeaths" have created an interactive tally that attempts to track all gun deaths in the US on a daily basis. It's very sobering.

With the interactive feature you can click on Male, Female, Adult, Teen, Child and get more details.

For example, on Christmas Day a 10 year old child was shot dead in Memphis Tennessee, and a 2 year old child was shot dead in South Carolina.
Apparently both were accidental shootings that happened in the children's homes.

Slate article & Interactive Tally: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_a..._shooting.html

National Public Radio also has a radio segment you can listen to about this project. I listened to it in the car coming home tonight... food for thought.

NPR radio story: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/...weet-at-a-time

Best regards,
Archaic

[Archaic]

Interactive Tally: State By State

Forgot to add, you can also use the interactive feature on a map of the US and go state by state if you want.

In the 14 days since Newton there have been 7 gun deaths in my state of Washington.
(For my across-the-pond friends, that's not Washington DC but a state way out west on the Pacific Ocean; north of California and just south of British Columbia, Canada.)

Look how many blue markers there are for gun deaths on the East Coast!

Archaic

[Ally]

And yet, nobody is tracking the stabbing deaths in Washington:

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Police-Auburn-man-killed-cousin-over-Christmas-4150160.php

http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2012/12/girlfriend_held_in_mans_stabbi.html

Huh. Wonder why that is. Possibly there's no hysterical overreaction to knifings like there is to guns.

[Limehouse]

And yet, nobody is tracking the stabbing deaths in Washington:

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Police-Auburn-man-killed-cousin-over-Christmas-4150160.php

http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2012/12/girlfriend_held_in_mans_stabbi.html

Huh. Wonder why that is. Possibly there's no hysterical overreaction to knifings like there is to guns.

Fair enough comment, but how many 2 and 10 year old children have been 'accidently' stabbed to death in their own homes?

[c.d.]

well...since this is a site devoted to Jack the Ripper...if Jack's victims had been able to pull out a gun when he pulled out his knife, do you think they would have still been victims?

c.d.

[c.d.]

Fair enough comment, but how many 2 and 10 year old children have been 'accidently' stabbed to death in their own homes?

Certainly quite a few have been rushed to an emergency room after swallowing something poisonous like cleaning products. I suppose we could ban those products and hope for the best.

Not meant to be a smart ass comment.

c.d.

[RavenDarkendale]

My feeling about guns is that we should have some restrictions, such as prohibiting private citizens from owning Military Grade Weapons. I say "Military Grade" because my brother-in-law said my .22 rifle and .22magnum rifle were assault weapons because they hold more that 8 shells. They are tube fed guns, which means I cannot reload very swiftly, unlike assault weapons that are clip/magazine feed and can be so swiftly reloaded with another clip so fast that it scarcely slows the shooting.

But with all weapons, even single shot shotguns and muzzle loaders, comes responsibility for the weapon. Contrary to what the NRA may think, the person holding the gun is responsible for every bullet in that gun. After all, we expect our law officers to account for every time they discharge weapons. Why not private citizens?

In the case of the plumber, the citizen should have to justify pulling the trigger. Did the citizen try to identify the person who walked into the home before shooting? Did the citizen warn the intruder to leave or be shot? Apparently from what I'm reading here the answer to all of this is NO. This is manslaughter.

Then the case of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin gunned down by George Zimmerman under the Florida "Stand Your Ground law". Zimmerman did the right thing in calling 911 to report a suspicious sighting. That should have been sufficient. He was specifically told not to confront Martin, and not even to get out of his vehicle. He ignored the 911 dispatcher, confronted Martin, and gunned him down. This is murder, not self defense.

Make people responsible for their guns, knowing that they can be held accountable for every shot, and less people will be inclined to shoot first and ask questions later! You shoot with no warning, no challenge such as "Halt! Who goes there? Identify yourself. I have a gun!" and it's at least a manslaughter charge IMHO.

God Bless

Datkendale

[Errata]

Personally, I think "Jessica's law," and laws modeled after it, are bad ideas, because they basically instruct anyone who molests someone under 12 not to leave any witnesses.

Unless that was yet another attempt at satire, Chainz, in which case, don't quit your day job.

I think that most molesters get that message from the rumors they hear about what happens to people who hurt kids in prison.

Mandatory minimums have so far proven to be terrible. For example, the mandatory minimums associated with crack possession are patently ridiculous. And the charge of manslaughter exists for a reason. It is entirely possible to take a life without intending to take a life, and intent matters.

Though I have to say on a personal level, I wouldn't mind if anyone who molests a child was executed, the ramifications of that mandate would be catastrophic. The warped bond between molester and victim can easily result in children categorically denying the abuse, because while they want it to stop, rarely does a molested child want their molester dead. At least not immediately. You can't ask a child who blames themselves for their abuse to sentence their molester to death. Nothing could be more calculated to reinforce their beliefs.

[Limehouse]

Certainly quite a few have been rushed to an emergency room after swallowing something poisonous like cleaning products. I suppose we could ban those products and hope for the best.

Not meant to be a smart ass comment.

c.d.

I suppose the answer is to keep guns, knives and poisonous substances well away from children.

[Limehouse]

My feeling about guns is that we should have some restrictions, such as prohibiting private citizens from owning Military Grade Weapons. I say "Military Grade" because my brother-in-law said my .22 rifle and .22magnum rifle were assault weapons because they hold more that 8 shells. They are tube fed guns, which means I cannot reload very swiftly, unlike assault weapons that are clip/magazine feed and can be so swiftly reloaded with another clip so fast that it scarcely slows the shooting.

But with all weapons, even single shot shotguns and muzzle loaders, comes responsibility for the weapon. Contrary to what the NRA may think, the person holding the gun is responsible for every bullet in that gun. After all, we expect our law officers to account for every time they discharge weapons. Why not private citizens?

In the case of the plumber, the citizen should have to justify pulling the trigger. Did the citizen try to identify the person who walked into the home before shooting? Did the citizen warn the intruder to leave or be shot? Apparently from what I'm reading here the answer to all of this is NO. This is manslaughter.

Then the case of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin gunned down by George Zimmerman under the Florida "Stand Your Ground law". Zimmerman did the right thing in calling 911 to report a suspicious sighting. That should have been sufficient. He was specifically told not to confront Martin, and not even to get out of his vehicle. He ignored the 911 dispatcher, confronted Martin, and gunned him down. This is murder, not self defense.

Make people responsible for their guns, knowing that they can be held accountable for every shot, and less people will be inclined to shoot first and ask questions later! You shoot with no warning, no challenge such as "Halt! Who goes there? Identify yourself. I have a gun!" and it's at least a manslaughter charge IMHO.

God Bless

Datkendale

I agree totally. What a sensible post. Thank you.

[Colin Roberts]

And yet, nobody is tracking the stabbing deaths in Washington:

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Police-Auburn-man-killed-cousin-over-Christmas-4150160.php

http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2012/12/girlfriend_held_in_mans_stabbi.html

Huh. Wonder why that is. Possibly there's no hysterical overreaction to knifings like there is to guns.

Fair enough comment, but how many 2 and 10 year old children have been 'accidently' stabbed to death in their own homes?

How many children have been killed in automobile accidents?

We Americans kill some 30,000 to 40,000 of our own on our highways and byways each year. Where, oh where is the outrage?

In the thirty-day period leading up to 9-11 we probably killed more of our own in our automobiles than did the nineteen terrorists in their hijacked airplanes, on that fateful day. Where was the outrage?

The same could be said regarding the thirty-day period following 9-11. Where was the outrage?

Who amongst you that have little regard for our Second Amendment has ever texted while driving? Who amongst you has ever accelerated to get through a yellow light, when the law clearly dictates that you 'proceed with caution'?

I have neither read Victor Hugo's Les Misérables, nor seen any of its stage adaptations. But I have seen the recently released cinema adaptation - it's quite good, by the way - and I believe that it should serve as a refreshing reminder to us all that our Second Amendment exists NOT so that rednecks dressed in camouflage can enjoy the supposed 'sport' of shooting at animals that can't shoot back, but so that we can all hopefully stand up to tyranny, should the need to do so ever arise.

Is that 'need' at all likely to arise in my lifetime, or in that of my fifteen-year-old son? Of course not! But knowing that I could participate in a stand such as the Paris Uprising of 1832, as a result of my proactive choice to maintain a personal arsenal, gives me a since of 'completeness' that I am sure few Britons could even begin to understand (excepting perhaps the Protestant Unionists in Northern Ireland¹).

My personal arsenal, by the way, is eerily similar to that which Adam Lanza carried with him on the morning of his deadly rampage. It consists of a Glock 19 (9mm handgun), a SIG Sauer P228 (9mm handgun), and a Stag Arms Model 2 (5.56mm AR-15/M4 replica carbine rifle).

My arsenal is always under lock & key as I have resigned myself to the fact that it cannot be safely situated as a day-to-day/night-to-night home-defense mechanism. In the unlikely event of post-hurricane/earthquake/blackout/etc. looting in my neighborhood, however, I will be able to defend my home. In the even more unlikely event of governmental tyranny, I will at least be able to 'take a stand'.

I do not hunt! I would however hunt in order to feed and/or clothe my family, should the need to do so arise.

I am not opposed to hunting, but I am profoundly opposed to the use of hunting as a sporting/recreational medium. It is not sport: Period! And it should be deemed as being no more recreational than unearthing potatoes.

Anyway, … having said all of that, I would gladly put my life on the line to protect the Second Amendment. It represents a fundamental right to self-preservation that we should all revere.

On the other hand, … 'Gun Control' in the United States is in dire need of an overhaul. The fact that I could (apparently) purchase a firearm at a gun show without having to submit to a background check or undergo a waiting period before taking receipt of the weapon, is un-fυcking-believable, and there can be no rationale behind it, excepting of course that of the all-too-powerful gun lobby.

¹ Speaking of Northern Ireland: The Britons that sneer at our Second Amendment are as naïve and uninformed as those Americans that call for "England" to end its "occupation" of the six Irish counties that - unbeknownst to most Americans - the "Orange" contingent has pledged to never surrender.

Please don't think that I am some sort of Ulster Unionist: I am not! I am just embarrassed by the stupidity that so many of my Septic brethren are willing to exhibit in this instance.

[RivkahChaya]

well...since this is a site devoted to Jack the Ripper...if Jack's victims had been able to pull out a gun when he pulled out his knife, do you think they would have still been victims?

c.d.

If any of them had been able to afford a gun, they wouldn't have been out hooking, trying to rustle up doss money. If one of them had stumbled upon a discarded gun, she probably would have pawned it, and had doss money for a year.

I'm not trying to be funny-- probably one reason JTR was hunting in the East End was to find women who couldn't afford much by means of self-defense. I doubt that women in richer areas were packing heat, but they could retreat behind locked doors after dark, and didn't have to go out looking for doss money, and for all I know, women who had to walk home in the evenings, but were a little better off, did carry knives. I really have no idea.