Obviously, the issue of gun control has been a major discussion within the US for quite some time. Anytime there is a mass shooting (Odessa TX; Dayton OH; El Paso TX; MSD High School, Parkland FL; Music Festival, Las Vegas NV; Pulse Nightclub, Orlando FL; Sandy Hook Elementary, Newtown CT; and numerous others) the issue of gun control naturally surfaces. America seems to be a very violent country. Is this partially due to the numerous guns available, or are the guns actually helping keep us safer in these violent situations? in 200 words please
NRA head breaks silence to attack gun control
advocates: ‘They hate individual freedom’
Wayne LaPierre spoke at CPAC in the wake of the Florida school shooting, mounting an unrepentant
defense of gun rights
David Smith, Thu 22 Feb 2018 13.10 EST
Accessed 7-18-18 at:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/feb/22/nra-wayne-lapierre-gun-control-cpac-speech-2018
The head of the powerful National Rifle Association (NRA) has broken his silence more than a week after the
Florida school shooting with a vituperative attack on gun control advocates, accusing them of exploiting the
tragedy to push their agenda.
Wayne LaPierre, whose lobby group faces an unprecedented challenge from the activism of students, including
survivors of the massacre, sought to paint his opponents as “elites” and “socialists” hellbent on undermining
Americans’ constitutional rights.
“The elites don’t care not one whit about America’s school system and schoolchildren,” he told the
Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the National Harbor in Maryland. “If they truly cared,
what they would do is they would protect them. For them, it’s not a safety issue, it’s a political issue.
“They care more about control, and more of it. Their goal is to eliminate the second amendment and our
firearms freedoms so they can eradicate all individual freedoms… They hate the NRA, they hate the second
amendment, they hate individual freedom.”
Addressing a sympathetic audience of conservative grassroots activists, LaPierre continued: “They fantasise
about more laws stopping what other laws have failed to stop. So many existing laws were ignored. They don’t
care if their laws work or not. They just want to get more laws to get more control over people. But the NRA –
the NRA does care.”
The massacre of 17 students and staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in Parkland, Florida, last week
was the second deadliest shooting at an American public school and has spurred extraordinary protests across
the country. The debate reached a watershed on Wednesday when students and teachers confronted US Senators
in a noisy “town hall” event televised live by CNN; there were raucous cheers for the idea of sweeping bans on
assault weapons.
LaPierre’s name was initially kept off the agenda at the annual CPAC to protect him from media scrutiny. The
NRA often prefers to stay out of the spotlight in the wake of a major shooting.
LaPierre sought to put the warnings in the wider context of a “socialist enemy” within, who he said “oppose our
fundamental freedoms enshrined in the bill of rights”. He claimed that the Communist Manifesto and Karl Marx
were ascendent on university campuses, describing socialism as “a political disease”.
The NRA chief warned the packed ballroom: “You should be anxious and you should be frightened. If these socalled European socialists take over the House and the Senate and, God forbid, they win the White House again
our American freedoms could be lost and our country will be changed forever, and the first to go will be the
second amendment to the US constitution” – the right to bear arms.
Pushing the same agenda on school security as Donald Trump, he insisted: “The whole idea from some of our
opponents that armed security makes us less safe is completely ridiculous. If that’s true, armed security makes
us less safe, let’s just go ahead and remove it from everywhere.”
He continued: “We must immediately harden our schools. Every day young children are being dropped off at
schools that are virtually wide open, soft targets for anyone bent on mass murder. It should not be easier for a
madman to shoot up a school than a bank or jewelry store or some Hollywood gala.
“Schools should be the hardest target in this country. Evil must be confronted with all necessary force to protect
our kids.”
He ended his speech, which was met with a standing ovation, by repeating the notorious mantra he had issued
after the Sandy Hook school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012: “To stop a bad guy with a gun, it
takes a good guy with a gun.”
In an earlier speech, the NRA’s national spokeswoman singled out the media for criticism. Dana Loesch said:
“Many in legacy media love mass shootings. You guys love it. Now I’m not saying that you love the tragedy.
But I am saying that you love the ratings. Crying white mothers are ratings gold to you.”
Under intense public pressure, there has been speculation that Trump might use his credibility with Republicans
to take on the NRA, one of his strongest backers. But on Thursday he tweeted full support: “What many people
don’t understand, or don’t want to understand, is that Wayne, Chris [Cox] and the folks who work so hard at the
@NRA are Great People and Great American Patriots. They love our Country and will do the right thing.
MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
The president reaffirmed his proposal to address school shootings by giving some teachers guns, tweeting that it
would be a “great deterrent” to killers. He suggested “a little bit of a bonus” for trained teachers who are armed.
Trump, who held a listening session with students and parents on Wednesday, also said he would advocate for
tightening background checks for gun buyers, with an emphasis on mental health, and lifting the age limit to 21
to buy some types of guns – policies less likely to please the powerful pro-gun lobby group.
Many attendees at CPAC expressed support for the idea of arming teachers.
Debi Millman, a fundraiser based in Los Angeles, suggested it was more realistic than restricting a country
already awash with guns. “How many millions of them are there? You’re never going to be able to keep evil
out. A better solution for me is have the schools be able to defend themselves. If criminals know that if they
attack a school they’ll get their heads blown off, that’s a good idea.”
Randi Green, a personal trainer from Los Angeles, interjected: “Except for the fact most teachers are liberals
and would baulk at the idea.”
Green was sceptical about the students at Parkland who had been speaking out. “They’re definitely being
manipulated,” she said. “Everybody has a voice but these are young kids and I don’t think they know better than
lawmakers. I thought they were very disrespectful in the way they speak to people. I think the parents are
rooting them on.”
Scott Pio, 33, wearing a red “Make America great again” cap, also backed the proposal for teachers to carry and
conceal firearms. “We can arm everybody else around important people, why can’t we arm everybody around
our students, especially as they are soft targets? What are people so afraid of? Even city council managers are
already protected by guns.”
Pio, a software engineer from Fairfax, Virginia, also suggested making schools more secure, with only one
point of entry, and increasing the number of security guards on site. But he was opposed to a ban on semiautomatic weapons. “There are plenty of people in rural areas who use guns to protect their homes and go
hunting. But I’m OK with raising the age to 21 for assault rifles.”
Chris Davis, 44, a police officer from Pennsylvania, said he was “impressed” by the students who have spoken
out but criticized liberal campaigners demanding tighter gun controls. “These same people say President Trump
is a tyrant. The reason you have the second amendment is to protect yourself from a tyrant.”
Todd McKinley, 40, a retired soldier from Kingsport, Tennessee, added: “The left called him Hitler, but then
they want to grab all guns just like Hitler did.”
Only One Thing Explains Mass Shootings in the United States
The New York Times, November 8, 2017
When the world looks at the United States, it sees a land of exceptions: a time-tested if noisy democracy, a
crusader in foreign policy, an exporter of beloved music and film.
But there is one quirk that consistently puzzles America’s fans and critics alike. Why, they ask, does it
experience so many mass shootings?
Perhaps, some speculate, it is because American society is unusually violent. Or its racial divisions have frayed
the bonds of society. Or its citizens lack proper mental care under a health care system that draws frequent
derision abroad.
These explanations share one thing in common: Though seemingly sensible, all have been debunked by
research on shootings elsewhere in the world. Instead, an ever-growing body of research consistently reaches
the same conclusion.
The only variable that can explain the high rate of mass shootings in America is its astronomical number of
guns.
A Look at the Numbers
The top-line numbers suggest a correlation that, on further investigation, grows only clearer.
Americans make up about 4.4 percent of the global population but own 42 percent of the world’s guns. From
1966 to 2012, 31 percent of the gunmen in mass shootings worldwide were American, according to a 2015
study by Adam Lankford, a professor at the University of Alabama.
Adjusted for population, only Yemen has a higher rate of mass shootings among countries with more than 10
million people — a distinction Mr. Lankford urged to avoid outliers. Yemen has the world’s second-highest rate
of gun ownership after the United States.
Worldwide, Mr. Lankford found, a country’s rate of gun ownership correlated with the odds it would experience
a mass shooting. This relationship held even when he excluded the United States, indicating that it could not be
explained by some other factor particular to his home country. And it held when he controlled for homicide
rates, suggesting that mass shootings were better explained by a society’s access to guns than by its baseline
level of violence.
Factors That Don’t Correlate
If mental health made the difference, then data would show that Americans have more mental health problems
than do people in other countries with fewer mass shootings. But the mental health care spending rate in the
United States, the number of mental health professionals per capita and the rate of severe mental disorders are
all in line with those of other wealthy countries.
A 2015 study estimated that only 4 percent of American gun deaths could be attributed to mental health issues.
And Mr. Lankford, in an email, said countries with high suicide rates tended to have low rates of mass
shootings — the opposite of what you would expect if mental health problems correlated with mass shootings.
Whether a population plays more or fewer video games also appears to have no impact. Americans are no more
likely to play video games than people in any other developed country.
Racial diversity or other factors associated with social cohesion also show little correlation with gun deaths.
Among European countries, there is little association between immigration or other diversity metrics and the
rates of gun murders or mass shootings.
A Violent Country
America’s gun homicide rate was 33 per million people in 2009, far exceeding the average among developed
countries. In Canada and Britain, it was 5 per million and 0.7 per million, respectively, which also corresponds
with differences in gun ownership.
Americans sometimes see this as an expression of deeper problems with crime, a notion ingrained, in part, by a
series of films portraying urban gang violence in the early 1990s. But the United States is not actually more
prone to crime than other developed countries, according to a landmark 1999 study by Franklin E. Zimring and
Gordon Hawkins of the University of California, Berkeley.
Rather, they found, in data that has since been repeatedly confirmed, that American crime is simply more lethal.
A New Yorker is just as likely to be robbed as a Londoner, for instance, but the New Yorker is 54 times more
likely to be killed in the process.
They concluded that the discrepancy, like so many other anomalies of American violence, came down to guns.
More gun ownership corresponds with more gun murders across virtually every axis: among developed
countries, among American states, among American towns and cities and when controlling for crime rates. And
gun control legislation tends to reduce gun murders, according to a recent analysis of 130 studies from 10
countries.
This suggests that the guns themselves cause the violence.
Comparisons in Other Societies
Skeptics of gun control sometimes point to a 2016 study. From 2000 and 2014, it found, the United States death
rate by mass shooting was 1.5 per one million people. The rate was 1.7 in Switzerland and 3.4 in Finland,
suggesting American mass shootings were not actually so common.
But the same study found that the United States had 133 mass shootings. Finland had only two, which killed 18
people, and Switzerland had one, which killed 14. In short, isolated incidents. So while mass shootings can
happen anywhere, they are only a matter of routine in the United States.
As with any crime, the underlying risk is impossible to fully erase. Any individual can snap or become
entranced by a violent ideology. What is different is the likelihood that this will lead to mass murder.
In China, about a dozen seemingly random attacks on schoolchildren killed 25 people between 2010 and 2012.
Most used knives; none used a gun.
By contrast, in this same window, the United States experienced five of its deadliest mass shootings, which
killed 78 people. Scaled by population, the American attacks were 12 times as deadly.
Beyond the Statistics
In 2013, American gun-related deaths included 21,175 suicides, 11,208 homicides and 505 deaths caused by an
accidental discharge. That same year in Japan, a country with one-third America’s population, guns were
involved in only 13 deaths.
This means an American is about 300 times more likely to die by gun homicide or accident than a Japanese
person. America’s gun ownership rate is 150 times as high as Japan’s. That gap between 150 and 300 shows that
gun ownership statistics alone do not explain what makes America different.
The United States also has some of the weakest controls over who may buy a gun and what sorts of guns may
be owned.
Switzerland has the second-highest gun ownership rate of any developed country, about half that of the United
States. Its gun homicide rate in 2004 was 7.7 per million people — unusually high, in keeping with the
relationship between gun ownership and murders, but still a fraction of the rate in the United States.
Swiss gun laws are more stringent, setting a higher bar for securing and keeping a license, for selling guns and
for the types of guns that can be owned. Such laws reflect more than just tighter restrictions. They imply a
different way of thinking about guns, as something that citizens must affirmatively earn the right to own.
The Difference Is Culture
The United States is one of only three countries, along with Mexico and Guatemala, that begin with the opposite
assumption: that people have an inherent right to own guns.
The main reason American regulation of gun ownership is so weak may be the fact that the trade-offs are
simply given a different weight in the United States than they are anywhere else.
After Britain had a mass shooting in 1987, the country instituted strict gun control laws. So did Australia after a
1996 shooting. But the United States has repeatedly faced the same calculus and determined that relatively
unregulated gun ownership is worth the cost to society.
That choice, more than any statistic or regulation, is what most sets the United States apart.
”In retrospect Sandy Hook marked the end of the US gun control debate,” Dan Hodges, a British journalist,
wrote in a post on Twitter two years ago, referring to the 2012 attack that killed 20 young students at an
elementary school in Connecticut. ”Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over.”
Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2017 The New York Times Company.
http://www.nytimes.com
Source Citation
Fisher, Max, and Josh Keller. “Only One Thing Explains Mass Shootings in the United States.” New York
Times, 8 Nov. 2017, p. A15(L). Biography in Context,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A513702478/BIC1?u=inspire&xid=b31e9ee1. Accessed 19 Feb. 2018.
America’s gun culture in 10 charts
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41488081
There has been another mass shooting in the United States – at least 17 people have been killed at a
high school campus in Parkland, Florida. It is the deadliest school shooting since 26 people were killed at
Connecticut school Sandy Hook in 2012.
The attack at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School is the sixth school shooting incident this year
so far that has either wounded or killed students.
Last year, an attack on a concert in Las Vegas left 58 dead, the worst mass shooting in the US, and again
raised questions about gun ownership and whether there should be tougher controls.
How does the US compare with other countries?
About 40% of Americans say they own a gun or live in a household with one, according to a 2017 survey,
and the rate of murder or manslaughter by firearm is the highest in the developed world. There were
more than 11,000 deaths as a result of murder or manslaughter involving a firearm in 2016.
Homicides are taken here to include murder and manslaughter. The FBI separates statistics for what it
calls justifiable homicide, which includes the killing of a criminal by a police officer or private citizen in
certain circumstances, which are not included.
Who owns the world’s guns?
While it is difficult to know exactly how many guns civilians own around the world, by every estimate
the US with around 270 million is far out in front.
Switzerland and Finland are the European countries with the most guns per person – they both have
compulsory military service for all men over the age of 18. Cyprus, Austria and Yemen also have military
service.
How do US gun deaths break down?
There have been more than 90 mass shootings in the US since 1982, according to investigative magazine
Mother Jones.
Up until 2012, a mass shooting was defined as when an attacker had killed four or more victims in an
indiscriminate rampage – and since 2013 the figures include attacks with three or more victims. The
shootings do not include killings related to other crimes such as armed robbery or gang violence.
The overall number of people killed in mass shootings each year represents only a tiny percentage of the
total number.
There were nearly twice as many suicides involving firearms in 2015 as there were murders involving
guns, and the rate has been increasing in recent years. Suicide by firearm accounts for almost half of all
suicides in the US, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A 2016 study published in the American Journal of Public Health found there was a strong relationship
between higher levels of gun ownership in a state and higher firearm suicide rates for both men and
women.
How old are the killers?
The average age of attackers in 91 recorded US mass shootings, including the Las Vegas attack, was 34.
Stephen Paddock, the gunman who killed 58 concertgoers in Las Vegas, is one of three killers aged over
60. The others are: William D Baker, 66, who killed five people in Illinois in 2001; and Kurt Myers, 64,
who killed five people in New York state in 2013.
The youngest killer is Andrew Douglas Golden, 11, who ambushed students and teachers as they left
Westside Middle School in Arkansas, in 1998. He was jointly responsible with Mitchell Scott Johnson, 13,
for five deaths and 10 injured.
Attacks in US become deadlier
The Las Vegas attack was the worst in recent US history – and the three shootings with the highest
number of casualties have all happened within the past 10 years.
The Parkland, Florida, attack is the worst school shooting since Sandy Hook in 2012.
What types of guns kill Americans?
Military-style assault weapons have been blamed for some of the major mass shootings such as the
attack in an Orlando nightclub and at the Sandy Hook School in Connecticut.
Dozens of rifles were recovered from the scene of the Las Vegas shooting, Police reported.
A few US states have banned assault weapons, which were totally restricted for a decade until 2004.
However most murders caused by guns involve handguns, according to FBI data.
How much do guns cost to buy?
For those from countries where guns are not widely owned, it can be a surprise to discover that they are
relatively cheap to purchase in the US.
Among the arsenal of weapons recovered from the hotel room of Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock
were handguns, which can cost from as little $200 (£151) – comparable to a Chromebook laptop.
Assault rifles, also recovered from Paddock’s room, can cost from around $1,500 (£1,132).
In addition to the 23 weapons at the hotel, a further 19 were recovered from Paddock’s home. It is
estimated that he may have spent more than $70,000 (£52,800) on firearms and accessories such as
tripods, scopes, ammunition and cartridges.
Who supports gun control?
US public opinion on the banning of handguns has changed dramatically over the last 60 years. Support
has shifted over time and now a significant majority opposes a ban on handguns, according to polling by
Gallup.
But a majority of Americans say they are dissatisfied with US gun laws and policies, and most of those
who are unhappy want stricter legislation.
Some controls are widely supported by people across the political divide – such as restricting the sale of
guns to people who are mentally ill, or on “watch” lists.
But Republicans and Democrats are much more divided over other policy proposals, such as whether to
allow ordinary citizens increased rights to carry concealed weapons – according to a survey from Pew
Research Center.
In his latest comment on the shootings, President Donald Trump said he would be “talking about gun
laws as times goes by”. The White House said now is not the time to be debating gun control.
His predecessor, Barack Obama, struggled to get any new gun control laws onto the statute books,
because of Republican opposition.
Who opposes gun control?
The National Rifle Association (NRA) campaigns against all forms of gun control in the US and argues
that more guns make the country safer.
It is among the most powerful special interest lobby groups in the US, with a substantial budget to
influence members of Congress on gun policy.
In total about one in five US gun owners say they are members of the NRA – and it has especially
widespread support from Republican-leaning gun owners, according to Pew Research.
In terms of lobbying, the NRA officially spends about $3m per year to influence gun policy.
The chart shows only the recorded contributions to lawmakers published by the Senate Office of Public
records.
The NRA spends millions more elsewhere, such as on supporting the election campaigns of political
candidates who oppose gun controls.
The US has had 57 times as many school shootings as the
other major industrialized nations combined
By Chip Grabow and Lisa Rose, CNN
Updated 5:08 PM ET, Mon May 21, 2018
(CNN)School shootings are a reality in America, an average of one a week just this year alone.
But how does the US compare with other countries in the world?
That’s difficult to ascertain because very little research exists to quantify that.
For the purposes of this analysis, we followed the criteria below The scope: First, we looked at the G7 countries — the countries with the largest advanced economies in the
world.
The countries are Canada, the US, Japan, Germany, Italy, France, the UK.
The time period: From January 1, 2009 to May 21, 2018.
The definition: The parameters we followed in this count are
Shooting must involve at least one person being shot (not including the shooter)
Shooting must occur on school grounds
We included gang violence, fights and domestic violence (but our count is NOT limited to those
categories)
We included grades Kindergarten through college/university level as well as vocational schools
We included accidental discharge of a firearm as long as the first two parameters are met
The analysis: For US stats, CNN reviewed media reports and a variety of databases including those from the
Gun Violence Archive and Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems. For international stats, we looked at
local and national media reports.
The caveat: Reporting on non-fatal school shootings is not always available. There may be additional school
shootings with injuries that did not make it into the newspaper or digital publications, and therefore aren’t
counted in databases that rely on media reports. This is true for shootings in the US and elsewhere.
What we found:
There have been at least 288 school shootings in the United States since January 1, 2009.
That’s 57 times as many shootings as the other six G7 countries combined.
Broadening out the list
Next, we wanted to broaden our list out to include some countries that were mentioned in a few of the viral
posts that were going around this weekend.
In some of the incidents, the casualty count is very high (the Peshawar siege; the Kenya attack). But when it
comes to the frequency of attacks, the US still leads by a wide margin.
Number of school shootings in the US compared with select countries
When compared with countries that were mentioned in a few viral social media posts, the
US still leads in frequency of school shootings since January 1, 2009.
Country
Shooting incidents
United States
288
Mexico
8
South Africa
6
India
5
Pakistan
4
Nigeria
4
Afghanistan
3
France
2
Canada
2
Brazil
2
Greece
1
China
1
Kenya
1
Azerbaijan
1
Germany
1
Russia
1
Estonia
1
Turkey
1
Hungary
1
Spain
None identified
Australia
None identified
Switzerland
None identified
Italy
None identified
Japan
None identified
Netherlands
None identified
Argentina
None identified
United Kingdom None identified