GUN LAWS AND MASS KILLINGS-68

Rather than react emotionally and unthinkingly either for strict or unrestricted gun control laws in response to the unspeakable and horrendous shooting and mass killing at the Newtown, Connecticut school, I believe that a rational and logical reaction based upon facts would be a superior response. Here then are some facts in regard to mass killings in the USA: Mass killings in the United States (defined as three or more killings in one episode), rose from the 1960’s to the 1990’s, and then dropped in the 2000’s. Contrary to popular opinion, these mass killings have declined in the decade of 2000-2009 to 26 as contrasted to 42 in the decade of 1990-1999 and 32 in the decade of 1980-1989. The murder of school age children declined by 42% in the period 1992-2008 from the previous same time - span. Although it is still a haunting tragedy only 1% of school age children who are murdered die at school. Was the Newtown school shooting the biggest mass killing at a school in the history of the country? Not in terms of the number of human beings killed. On May 18, 1927 part-time caretaker, Andrew Kehoe, at a school in Bath, Michigan, killed 45 people, including 38 children from the 3rd to the 6th grade, and wounded 58 more with dynamite then shot to death two first responders and himself. He spent months placing explosives inside the school and in fact 500 lbs. of unexploded dynamite were discovered under the school that did not explode owing to faulty wiring. It was estimated that if all of the dynamite had exploded there would have been hundreds killed or severely wounded. He killed his wife before committing this insane act. What was his problem? He was having financial difficulties and was angry about having to pay taxes. There is never an adequate explanation of why madmen take these murderous and terrible actions. Despite this abomination in 1927, according to criminalist Grant Duwe of the Minnesota Department of Corrections, the year 1929 is known to be the high point for mass killings in the USA. Part of this is attributed to organized crime killings by Al Capone and his ilk. I doubt if the Main Stream Media in their zealotry to banish guns from the American public will mention the past mass killings in the USA. In 1994 there was an Assault Rifle ban lasting 10 years. This ban limited an ammunition clip to 10 rounds or fewer. What was the result of this ban? In short, nothing. There was no increase or decrease in the numbers of shootings during this time period compared to the previous 10 years. The likely reason was that people already owned the type of guns that were prohibited. There are an estimated 300 million firearms of all types in private hands in this country at this time. When Australia passed a strict gun control law in 1996 the type of guns that were restricted were confiscated from gun owners with severe penalties for those people who did not turn them in to the government. As Charles Krauthammer has said, can you imagine what would happen if the government tried to confiscate guns from Americans. The gun law passed in 1994 and those being talked about today, including what Sen. Dianne Feinstein has proposed, grandfathers in what people already own. It does appear that the current mass killers are younger that those in the past. Why? Some answers might be that there is less discipline imposed upon the youth of today and therefore they are subjected to more harmful external influences outside the family; movies, which the youth flock to today as opposed to older gents, are more graphic and violent than in the past; and the explosion of video games where gratuitous violence and nonstop shootings are experienced and played by these young people without consequences. Of course, it should go without saying (I will say it anyway) that a vast majority of the youth are not affected or impacted by all this senseless violence, yet for the relative few who are already mentally unstable this might push them over the edge of sanity. Thanks to the ACLU (American Criminal Liberties Union) and other left wing groups, there has been a movement in recent decades to make it more and more difficult to have clearly troubled people, especially youth, restrained or even forcible treated for mental illness. It is not that anyone wants everyone who is considered odd or a bit strange to be incarcerated else everyone excepting you and me might be locked up and I am not quite sure about you being allowed unimpeded freedom; just joking – I think. Gun-free zones have been the most popular response to previous mass killings. But many law-enforcement officials say they are actually counterproductive. “Guns are already banned in schools. That is why the shootings occur in schools. A school is a ‘helpless-victim zone,’” says Richard Mack, a former Arizona sheriff. “Preventing any adult at a school from having access to a firearm eliminates any chance the killer can be stopped in time to prevent a rampage,” Jim Kouri, the public-information officer of the National Association of Chiefs of Police, told Mack earlier this year at the time of the Aurora, Colo., Batman—movie shooting. Indeed there have been many instances – from the high-school shooting by Luke Woodham in Mississippi, to the New Life Church shooting in Colorado Springs, Colo. – where a killer has been stopped after someone got a gun from a parked car or elsewhere and confronted the shooter. Economists John Lott and William Landes conducted a ground breaking study in 1999, and found that a common theme of mass shootings is that they occur in places where guns are banned and killers know everyone will be unarmed, such as shopping malls and schools. According to columnist John Fund, Lott told him “Disarming law-abiding citizens leaves them as sitting ducks. A couple hundred people were in the Cinemark Theater when the killer arrived. There is an extremely high probability that one or more of them would have had a legal concealed handgun with him if they had not been banned.” Lott offered one more damning statistic: “With just one single exception, the attack on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson in 2011, every public shooting since at least 1950 in the USA in which more than three people have been killed has taken place where citizens are not allowed to carry guns.” According to a 2005 to 2007 study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin and Bowling Green University there is no evidence that private holders of concealed-carry permits (which are either easy to obtain or not even required in more than 40 states) are any more irresponsible with firearms nationwide than the police. What can be learned from this current tragedy? (1.) Mass killing is not a new phenomenon, which means it has been an unsolved problem with no easy solutions for some time. (2.) Simply passing gun control laws have not and will not solve the problem in this country. (3.) Intervening more forcibly to treat and/or restrain identifiably dangerously mentally ill people, especially young people, should be part of the solution. (4.) A voluntary or, if necessary, a mandatory reduction in gratuitous violence by movie and video game makers should also be part of the answer.