Post by The Aztec Panther on Nov 29, 2022 10:36:38 GMT -8
Just something I came across on another board. Food for thought...
Though trailing behind motor vehicle crashes over the last couple of decades, firearms have become the leading cause of death among US children and adolescents in 2020 and beyond.
“CDC data shows 4,368 kids died from gunshot wounds in the US in 2020. Of those, 2,811 were considered homicides, 1,293 were suicides. An additional 149 were listed as ‘unintentional’ deaths, and 25 were classified as ‘legal interventions.’ Ninety of the deaths could not be classified due to a lack of information.”
www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2201761
These statistics should be sobering, perhaps more so for those of us who are parents. Worse, many of these deaths were - and are - preventable. In light of nearly daily events, I wanted to compile some of the research on the topic at hand, divided into these categories:
Common myths
How does the US compare to other nations?
Why do mass shootings occur?
What are potential solutions?
Why has nothing changed yet?
COMMON MYTHS
“Mass shootings have become less common, especially during the pandemic.” - Unfortunately, shootings have continued to climb each year despite pandemic lockdowns or isolation measures:
US mass shootings 2018: 323; 1670 victims
US mass shootings 2019: 439; 2160 victims
US mass shootings 2020: 614; 3061 victims
US mass shootings 2021: 693; 3545 victims
“Mental illness is to blame for shootings.” - “Fewer than one in five perpetrators of mass-casualty shootings have a diagnosable disorder that impairs the brain's ability to reason, perceive reality, and regulate mood….The prevalence of mental illness in the US is no different than in other countries, Swanson noted, and yet ‘we have a truly exceptional homicide rate’.”
www.health.com/news/mental-illness-gun-violence
“The guns were illegally-obtained so no measures would help.” - “Except for young school shooters who stole the guns from family members, most used legally obtained handguns in those shootings. Many guns used in violent crime or trafficked were “stolen from a licensed gun dealer or the collection of an individual gun owner.” - “After tightening gun laws, firearm homicide rates dropped 40 percent in Connecticut. And after Missouri eased gun laws, gun homicide rates rose 25 percent.”
www.americanprogress.org/article/gun-theft-united-states-state-state-analysis/
“Nothing can be done, it’s just part of our culture now” / “It’s too early to talk about shooting X” / “That shooting already happened.” - I hear these far too often but they are incredibly defeatist and incorrect in so many ways that I can only offer this article in reply.
HOW DOES THE US COMPARE TO OTHER NATIONS?
While the rates of gun violence in other nations can be a substantially larger problem than in the United States, “the actual U.S. rate of 4.43 deaths per 100,000 is almost 10 times as high [as socioeconomic estimates]….With the casualties due to armed conflicts factored out, even in conflict-ridden regions such as the Middle East, the U.S. rate is worse....The U.S. gun violence death rate is also higher than in nearly all countries in sub-Saharan Africa, including many that are among the world's poorest.”
www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/08/05/743579605/how-the-u-s-compares-to-other-countries-in-deaths-from-gun-violence
“In reality, gun violence is a huge issue in many other countries—just none that the US would consider a peer. Gun deaths are high in places like El Salvador, Guatemala and Colombia, where gang violence and drug trafficking are prevalent. Among developed economies, no others have nearly as many violent firearm deaths as the US.”
www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2022-us-gun-violence-world-comparison/
Gun-related killings as a percentage of all homicides by country: US: 79% Canada: 37% Australia: 13% UK: 4%
Gun Policy: Global Comparisons (Council on Foreign Relations)
WHY DO MASS SHOOTINGS OCCUR?
The LA Times compiled a database dating back to mass shootings in 1966 consisting of life histories, suicide notes, manifestos, trial transcripts, medical notes, social media, and interviews of perpetrators and their families. They identified four common traits amongst the shooters:
1. Childhood trauma and exposure to violence.
2. An identifiable crisis point typically expressed or communicated to others beforehand.
3. Studying the actions of other shooters or becoming radicalized online within echo chambers that justify their motives. Shooters want to be infamous, they want to be named with their face plastered across the news.
4. The means to carry out their plans.
These correlate well to findings by the National Institute of Justice as well as those of the American Society of Criminology.
WORKABLE SOLUTIONS
To address the four commonalities of mass shooters item by item:
Childhood trauma and exposure to violence.
“Those early exposures to violence need addressing when they happen with ready access to social services and high-quality, affordable mental health treatment in the community. School counselors and social workers, employee wellness programs, projects that teach resilience and social emotional learning, and policies and practices that decrease the stigma around mental illness will not just help prevent mass shootings, but will also help promote the social and emotional success of all Americans.”
www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-08-04/el-paso-dayton-gilroy-mass-shooters-data
An identifiable crisis point typically expressed or communicated to others beforehand.
“Proactive violence prevention starts with schools, colleges, churches and employers initiating conversations about mental health and establishing systems for identifying individuals in crisis, reporting concerns and reaching out — not with punitive measures but with resources and long-term intervention. Everyone should be trained to recognize the signs of a crisis.”
www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-08-04/el-paso-dayton-gilroy-mass-shooters-data
“Multidisciplinary teams of law enforcement, legal, and mental health experts have been used successfully in schools and recommended for other environments as a feasible prevention strategy.”
www.heinz.cmu.edu/media/2020/February/new-studies-mass-shootings-assess-trends
Studying the actions of other shooters or becoming radicalized online.
“In the age of 24-hour rolling news and social media, there are scripts to follow that promise notoriety in death….Slow the spread of mass shootings by changing how we consume, produce, and distribute violent content on media and social media. Don’t like or share violent content. Don’t read or share killers’ manifestos and other hate screeds posted on the internet. We also need to study our current approaches. For example, do lockdown and active shooter drills help children prepare for the worst or hand potential shooters the script for mass violence by normalizing or rehearsing it?.” “More public mass shooters are motivated to kill large numbers for fame or attention, and experts recommend that the media limit their coverage of shooters to discourage copycats.”
www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-08-04/el-paso-dayton-gilroy-mass-shooters-data
www.heinz.cmu.edu/media/2020/February/new-studies-mass-shootings-assess-trends
The means to carry out their plans.
“In 80% of school shootings, perpetrators got their weapons from family members…weapons need to be better controlled, through age restrictions, permit-to-purchase licensing, universal background checks, safe storage campaigns and red-flag laws — measures that help control firearm access for vulnerable individuals or people in crisis.” “States with restrictions on large capacity ammunition magazines have fewer mass shooting deaths, as do states requiring firearm purchasers to be licensed through a background check process.” “A spike in gun purchases amid the pandemic may have allowed nearly 300,000 Americans to acquire guns without background checks, according to data obtained from the FBI…The number of background checks delayed past three days has increased by 54%. Under federal gun law, gun dealers are permitted to sell a firearm to a buyer if an FBI background check takes longer than three business days, which has been dubbed the Charleston Loophole as it’s how the shooter of nine at the Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2017 obtained his gun.”
www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-08-04/el-paso-dayton-gilroy-mass-shooters-data
Proposals from elsewhere include accomplice charges for those whose weapons are used in violent crime if they straw purchase or fail to properly secure and store their weapon or the need for disclosure and proof of safe storage in order to enroll your child in a particular school.
Regardless, gun policy should be treated as a public health issue, not as a blanket weapons ban. “One of the lessons of gun research is that we often focus just on firearms themselves, when it may be more productive to focus on who gets access to them. A car or gun is usually safe in the hands of a 45-year-old woman with no criminal record, but may be dangerous when used by a 19-year-old felon with a history of alcohol offenses or domestic violence protection orders. Yet our laws have often focused more on weapons themselves (such as the assault weapons ban) rather than on access. In many places, there is more rigorous screening of people who want to adopt dogs than of people who want to purchase firearms.” “Some might say you could ban smoking, but there is a lot of cancer among nonsmokers, and banning smoking wouldn’t stop smoking and will create black markets. It’s a bad policy. Instead the public health approach is focused on harm reduction. So if we are going to have lots of guns — which we clearly are for the next 50 years at least — we have to do lots of things.”
www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/11/06/opinion/how-to-reduce-shootings.html
Such laws also have a net benefit for victims of intimate partner violence as well. “Recent research has shown that laws to restrict firearm access for batterers subject to restraining orders are associated with an 11-percent reduction in rates of intimate partner homicide of women; however, such laws are only effective in reducing intimate partner homicides in States that have implemented a system to screen potential firearms purchasers for the existence of restraining orders against them.”
www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/factsheet-firearms-and-intimate-partner-violence
WHY HAS NOTHING CHANGED YET?
One major roadblock to change thus far has been the lobby power of various associations, particularly that of the NRA. “From 2000 to 2012, the NRA and its allies in the firearms industry combined to pour $80 million into US House of Representatives, Senate and presidential races, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics. In the 2016 presidential election, the NRA spent about $20 million for ads attacking Democrat Hillary Clinton and another $10 million for ads supporting Republican Donald Trump. Since the 1990s, the NRA has been able to deliver a powerful punch against local and national politicians it views as a threat to gun rights, contributing to the defeat of numerous centrist candidates.” “The NRA officially spends about $3m per year to influence gun policy. However, that is only the recorded contributions to lawmakers, and considerable sums are spent elsewhere via PACs and independent contributions - funds which are difficult to track.”
www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/nra-the-powerful-us-gun-rights-lobby/ar-AAXObqo
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-35261394
Additionally, many bills have historically been introduced only to wither away before passing Congress. Currently, something as simple as the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2021 (which has majority bipartisan support in polls) cleared the House of Representatives over a year ago in March 2021 only for the Senate to push it back again May 25th of this year.
www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/8
"The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing." Change is an active choice but the lack of change is approval of the way things are now. A better way forward is achievable; preferably before your friend, your mother, your child is the next victim. “Data show that mass shooters have much in common. Instead of simply rehearsing for the inevitable, we need to use that data to drive effective prevention strategies.” “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights:” first among them, Life.
www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-08-04/el-paso-dayton-gilroy-mass-shooters-data
old.reddit.com/r/news/comments/z4fsdf/police_walmart_shooter_bought_gun_just_hours/ixqq3g3/
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. — Voltaire
Though trailing behind motor vehicle crashes over the last couple of decades, firearms have become the leading cause of death among US children and adolescents in 2020 and beyond.
“CDC data shows 4,368 kids died from gunshot wounds in the US in 2020. Of those, 2,811 were considered homicides, 1,293 were suicides. An additional 149 were listed as ‘unintentional’ deaths, and 25 were classified as ‘legal interventions.’ Ninety of the deaths could not be classified due to a lack of information.”
www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2201761
These statistics should be sobering, perhaps more so for those of us who are parents. Worse, many of these deaths were - and are - preventable. In light of nearly daily events, I wanted to compile some of the research on the topic at hand, divided into these categories:
Common myths
How does the US compare to other nations?
Why do mass shootings occur?
What are potential solutions?
Why has nothing changed yet?
COMMON MYTHS
“Mass shootings have become less common, especially during the pandemic.” - Unfortunately, shootings have continued to climb each year despite pandemic lockdowns or isolation measures:
US mass shootings 2018: 323; 1670 victims
US mass shootings 2019: 439; 2160 victims
US mass shootings 2020: 614; 3061 victims
US mass shootings 2021: 693; 3545 victims
“Mental illness is to blame for shootings.” - “Fewer than one in five perpetrators of mass-casualty shootings have a diagnosable disorder that impairs the brain's ability to reason, perceive reality, and regulate mood….The prevalence of mental illness in the US is no different than in other countries, Swanson noted, and yet ‘we have a truly exceptional homicide rate’.”
www.health.com/news/mental-illness-gun-violence
“The guns were illegally-obtained so no measures would help.” - “Except for young school shooters who stole the guns from family members, most used legally obtained handguns in those shootings. Many guns used in violent crime or trafficked were “stolen from a licensed gun dealer or the collection of an individual gun owner.” - “After tightening gun laws, firearm homicide rates dropped 40 percent in Connecticut. And after Missouri eased gun laws, gun homicide rates rose 25 percent.”
www.americanprogress.org/article/gun-theft-united-states-state-state-analysis/
“Nothing can be done, it’s just part of our culture now” / “It’s too early to talk about shooting X” / “That shooting already happened.” - I hear these far too often but they are incredibly defeatist and incorrect in so many ways that I can only offer this article in reply.
HOW DOES THE US COMPARE TO OTHER NATIONS?
While the rates of gun violence in other nations can be a substantially larger problem than in the United States, “the actual U.S. rate of 4.43 deaths per 100,000 is almost 10 times as high [as socioeconomic estimates]….With the casualties due to armed conflicts factored out, even in conflict-ridden regions such as the Middle East, the U.S. rate is worse....The U.S. gun violence death rate is also higher than in nearly all countries in sub-Saharan Africa, including many that are among the world's poorest.”
www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/08/05/743579605/how-the-u-s-compares-to-other-countries-in-deaths-from-gun-violence
“In reality, gun violence is a huge issue in many other countries—just none that the US would consider a peer. Gun deaths are high in places like El Salvador, Guatemala and Colombia, where gang violence and drug trafficking are prevalent. Among developed economies, no others have nearly as many violent firearm deaths as the US.”
www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2022-us-gun-violence-world-comparison/
Gun-related killings as a percentage of all homicides by country: US: 79% Canada: 37% Australia: 13% UK: 4%
Gun Policy: Global Comparisons (Council on Foreign Relations)
WHY DO MASS SHOOTINGS OCCUR?
The LA Times compiled a database dating back to mass shootings in 1966 consisting of life histories, suicide notes, manifestos, trial transcripts, medical notes, social media, and interviews of perpetrators and their families. They identified four common traits amongst the shooters:
1. Childhood trauma and exposure to violence.
2. An identifiable crisis point typically expressed or communicated to others beforehand.
3. Studying the actions of other shooters or becoming radicalized online within echo chambers that justify their motives. Shooters want to be infamous, they want to be named with their face plastered across the news.
4. The means to carry out their plans.
These correlate well to findings by the National Institute of Justice as well as those of the American Society of Criminology.
WORKABLE SOLUTIONS
To address the four commonalities of mass shooters item by item:
Childhood trauma and exposure to violence.
“Those early exposures to violence need addressing when they happen with ready access to social services and high-quality, affordable mental health treatment in the community. School counselors and social workers, employee wellness programs, projects that teach resilience and social emotional learning, and policies and practices that decrease the stigma around mental illness will not just help prevent mass shootings, but will also help promote the social and emotional success of all Americans.”
www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-08-04/el-paso-dayton-gilroy-mass-shooters-data
An identifiable crisis point typically expressed or communicated to others beforehand.
“Proactive violence prevention starts with schools, colleges, churches and employers initiating conversations about mental health and establishing systems for identifying individuals in crisis, reporting concerns and reaching out — not with punitive measures but with resources and long-term intervention. Everyone should be trained to recognize the signs of a crisis.”
www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-08-04/el-paso-dayton-gilroy-mass-shooters-data
“Multidisciplinary teams of law enforcement, legal, and mental health experts have been used successfully in schools and recommended for other environments as a feasible prevention strategy.”
www.heinz.cmu.edu/media/2020/February/new-studies-mass-shootings-assess-trends
Studying the actions of other shooters or becoming radicalized online.
“In the age of 24-hour rolling news and social media, there are scripts to follow that promise notoriety in death….Slow the spread of mass shootings by changing how we consume, produce, and distribute violent content on media and social media. Don’t like or share violent content. Don’t read or share killers’ manifestos and other hate screeds posted on the internet. We also need to study our current approaches. For example, do lockdown and active shooter drills help children prepare for the worst or hand potential shooters the script for mass violence by normalizing or rehearsing it?.” “More public mass shooters are motivated to kill large numbers for fame or attention, and experts recommend that the media limit their coverage of shooters to discourage copycats.”
www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-08-04/el-paso-dayton-gilroy-mass-shooters-data
www.heinz.cmu.edu/media/2020/February/new-studies-mass-shootings-assess-trends
The means to carry out their plans.
“In 80% of school shootings, perpetrators got their weapons from family members…weapons need to be better controlled, through age restrictions, permit-to-purchase licensing, universal background checks, safe storage campaigns and red-flag laws — measures that help control firearm access for vulnerable individuals or people in crisis.” “States with restrictions on large capacity ammunition magazines have fewer mass shooting deaths, as do states requiring firearm purchasers to be licensed through a background check process.” “A spike in gun purchases amid the pandemic may have allowed nearly 300,000 Americans to acquire guns without background checks, according to data obtained from the FBI…The number of background checks delayed past three days has increased by 54%. Under federal gun law, gun dealers are permitted to sell a firearm to a buyer if an FBI background check takes longer than three business days, which has been dubbed the Charleston Loophole as it’s how the shooter of nine at the Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2017 obtained his gun.”
www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-08-04/el-paso-dayton-gilroy-mass-shooters-data
Proposals from elsewhere include accomplice charges for those whose weapons are used in violent crime if they straw purchase or fail to properly secure and store their weapon or the need for disclosure and proof of safe storage in order to enroll your child in a particular school.
Regardless, gun policy should be treated as a public health issue, not as a blanket weapons ban. “One of the lessons of gun research is that we often focus just on firearms themselves, when it may be more productive to focus on who gets access to them. A car or gun is usually safe in the hands of a 45-year-old woman with no criminal record, but may be dangerous when used by a 19-year-old felon with a history of alcohol offenses or domestic violence protection orders. Yet our laws have often focused more on weapons themselves (such as the assault weapons ban) rather than on access. In many places, there is more rigorous screening of people who want to adopt dogs than of people who want to purchase firearms.” “Some might say you could ban smoking, but there is a lot of cancer among nonsmokers, and banning smoking wouldn’t stop smoking and will create black markets. It’s a bad policy. Instead the public health approach is focused on harm reduction. So if we are going to have lots of guns — which we clearly are for the next 50 years at least — we have to do lots of things.”
www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/11/06/opinion/how-to-reduce-shootings.html
Such laws also have a net benefit for victims of intimate partner violence as well. “Recent research has shown that laws to restrict firearm access for batterers subject to restraining orders are associated with an 11-percent reduction in rates of intimate partner homicide of women; however, such laws are only effective in reducing intimate partner homicides in States that have implemented a system to screen potential firearms purchasers for the existence of restraining orders against them.”
www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/factsheet-firearms-and-intimate-partner-violence
WHY HAS NOTHING CHANGED YET?
One major roadblock to change thus far has been the lobby power of various associations, particularly that of the NRA. “From 2000 to 2012, the NRA and its allies in the firearms industry combined to pour $80 million into US House of Representatives, Senate and presidential races, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics. In the 2016 presidential election, the NRA spent about $20 million for ads attacking Democrat Hillary Clinton and another $10 million for ads supporting Republican Donald Trump. Since the 1990s, the NRA has been able to deliver a powerful punch against local and national politicians it views as a threat to gun rights, contributing to the defeat of numerous centrist candidates.” “The NRA officially spends about $3m per year to influence gun policy. However, that is only the recorded contributions to lawmakers, and considerable sums are spent elsewhere via PACs and independent contributions - funds which are difficult to track.”
www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/nra-the-powerful-us-gun-rights-lobby/ar-AAXObqo
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-35261394
Additionally, many bills have historically been introduced only to wither away before passing Congress. Currently, something as simple as the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2021 (which has majority bipartisan support in polls) cleared the House of Representatives over a year ago in March 2021 only for the Senate to push it back again May 25th of this year.
www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/8
"The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing." Change is an active choice but the lack of change is approval of the way things are now. A better way forward is achievable; preferably before your friend, your mother, your child is the next victim. “Data show that mass shooters have much in common. Instead of simply rehearsing for the inevitable, we need to use that data to drive effective prevention strategies.” “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights:” first among them, Life.
www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-08-04/el-paso-dayton-gilroy-mass-shooters-data
old.reddit.com/r/news/comments/z4fsdf/police_walmart_shooter_bought_gun_just_hours/ixqq3g3/
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. — Voltaire
