Ebola panic

Ebola is a nasty disease and the world needs to mobilize its resources and work to control and prevent it.  Worldwide, the fatality figures from this disease are pushing 5,000.

Alarm and even hysteria about it are rife even in the U.S., but we need to put our Ebola panic in perspective. In the U.S. a grand total of one person, who travelled here infected but asymptomatic, has died.

Meanwhile, in 2011 (the latest year I could easily find stats) the CDC reports that in this country alone, 11,068 people were the victims of firearm homicide. Another 19,990 committed suicide by firearm. 

Where's the outrage? Where's the panic? Where's the wall-to-wall media coverage? Where's the call for governmental action to stop the slaughter? Where is the finger-pointing in the halls of government and the organs of the mass media? Where's the mass condemnation of the agents pushing this particular disease? If we're concerned about a deadly epidemic, why don't we focus on this one?

A lesson the teacher learned too late

The other day in Fairfield, Connecticut, a "popular teacher" shot a teen-age boy to death. No, not a class-room altercation, not an angry kid out for revenge over some classroom disciplinary action. He shot his son, in the driveway of his sister's house next door.

The news report (see the Associated Press report from the Washington Post here) dwelt on the tragedy, the mistaken identity in the dark and the  confusion of events that led up to it.

But what struck me even more than that were the implications of this paragraph from the article:

     State police said the shooting happened after Jeffrey Giuliano got a call from his sister next door saying that someone might be trying to break into her home in their neighborhood of attractive colonial-style houses. Giuliano grabbed a handgun and went outside to investigate, troopers said.

To re-state: the sister - the boy's aunt - was frightened and called her brother. Not the police; her brother. Same phone, different number, different results.

Had he been thinking, the brother, the teacher, the parent, would have called 9-1-1. Instead, he grabbed a gun, and went out to play a real-life game of cops-and-robbers, an amateur in the starring role of a tragedy that will forever sear the lives of his entire family. He went out to "investigate," and then his world changed forever.

Had the sister and the brother holed up in their respective homes and waited for the professionals, the incident would have played out very differently, almost certainly without its tragic ending. The police would have arrived in a few minutes, and would have worked to resolve the apparent emergency non-violently. As the boy wasn't apparently threatening anybody, they would in all likelihood have been far more hesitant to use their guns; would have called in reinforcements if necessary, would have illuminated the boy, would have talked to him, would have discovered what was happening. Most important, they almost certainly would not have killed the boy, and the family-rending tragedy would have been averted.

The lessons are clear. Maybe guns don't kill ... but people who rely upon them to resolve their fears often do. Beyond that, if ever one thinks that guns are needed, call on the professionals. It's easy; just dial 9-1-1. Then you'll have all the firepower you need, and it will be in the hands of people who know how to use it ... and when not to.

We have too many guns. Far too many. And far, far too often, they become the vehicle of tragedy.



Afterthoughts: What do you suppose the father would give to have those moments back again, so he could change their course? And how long do you suppose it will take him to put this night in the past? Probably a lot more time than he has left on this earth ....

Ban them. Now.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who is struck by the tragic similarities between the murderous rampage at Ft. Hood last week, and the one at Virginia Tech last year. In both cases, innocent lives were shattered by unarticulated rage. In both cases, acts of courage, communities in shock, lingering questions about warning signs missed, of opportunities to stop the killer long before the killings occurred. And in both cases, calls for more effective ways of identifying and screening potential killers before their rage explodes.

But in both cases, there has been one glaring omission in the media coverage, in the cacophony of voices asking "how" and "why" on the morning after. Yes, it's appropriate to focus on the emotional demons that drove the murderer to kill. But shouldn't we be asking why we allow such deadly weapons to be available to them?

Both killers apparently used handguns guns capable of firing rapidly and often. And both of them appear to have legally acquired their murderous weapons. (In this most recent case, the alleged killer apparently bought an FN Herstal 5.7 mm. pistol at a local store called Guns Galore -- what a name! This particular model can handle a 30 round clip, and was unsuccessfully targeted for a federal ban in 2005.)

It should go without saying that they would have been far less effective killers if they did not have easy access to such weapons! Can anybody imagine that either killer would have been so murderously effective if he had been armed with a knife instead of a rapid-fire automatic?

This is crazy! We as a nation get all excited about killer spinach and tainted lettuce, but we freely allow our killers to buy guns. It is time -- way past time -- to stop this madness, reclaim the Second Amendment for the purpose the founders intended, and join the company of civilized nations which strictly control access to such deadly weapons.

No refuge from guns

Today we learned that the Bush administration wants to let people carry loaded, concealed guns in national parks (click here for the news article). This letter is in reply.

To the editor, New York Times:

Permitting guns into National Parks is an incredibly bad idea. Poachers will be delighted. So will the deranged predators, the rapists, the thieves, the sociopaths who prey upon innocent people. But for the rest of us, it’s a recipe for tragedy.

The NRA tells us guns will make parks safer. Wrong. Department of Justice figures clearly show that the innocent are far, far more likely to be the victims of gun violence than the beneficiaries. In 2004, a fairly typical year, private citizens used their guns to kill 170 criminals. Criminals used their guns to kill 11,624 innocent victims. What makes anybody think that appalling ratio will somehow be reversed if we allow guns into our national parks?

When people come to National Parks, they’re looking for respite, for peace and quiet, for the simpler joys of our natural world. They want to get away from the violence and tension of their workaday world. Let’s not ruin it for them, for all of us.

Update: In 2009, President Obama signed into law a provision permitting guns to be carried in national parks.

Note: this was originally posted on ketches, yaks & hawks 30 May 2008

Another letter on the 2nd

To the editor,
New York Times

Your analysis of the Washington, D.C. gun control case before the U.S. Supreme Court (Gun Case Causes Bush Administration Rift,” March 17, 2008) is interesting, but like many stories reviewing the Second Amendment, it relies on the standard but confusing punctuation which inserts a comma between the words “Militia” and “being.”

However, examination of volume I of the Journal of the Senate of the United States and the Annals of Congress for the first Congress shows that text of the amendment actually submitted to the states for ratification lacks that comma, resulting in a sentence which clearly links the concept of militia service to the right to bear arms: "A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed."

That linkage is all the more important given the technological development of weaponry from the time of the Revolution to the modern day. In the late 18th Century, the militia relied on the same types of weapons a common citizen might possess, but the responsibilities of today’s militia -- the National Guard and the Reserves -- demands weapons nobody would suggest should be in private hands.

This is not merely an interesting grammatical distinction, for a proper understanding of the Second Amendment best serves the needs of this nation even now.

Submitted March 17, 2008

Note: this was originally posted on ketches, yaks & hawks 17 March 2008

Just some more random shootings in America

Nine shot in a Memphis home; six are dead. Police said that neighbors reported hearing shots but that was not uncommon in the area.

In Emory, Texas, also on Sunday, a pair of teenagers angered that the girl's parents wanted her to stop seeing each other, apparently shot the girl's parents and brothers.

Yesterday, in Ft. Collins, Colorado, a woman was convicted of ordering her ex-lover's wife to her knees and then shooting her in the head.

The carnage goes on and on and on and on. If the killers had the same intent but didn't have guns, would these murders have occurred? One can't be sure, of course, but it's a lot tougher and a lot chancier to kill people with bare hands or even knives. Does anybody honestly believe that even a fraction of the killing would be occurring if guns weren't so horribly prevalent in our country?

Note: the second story was reported in the News Tribune of Tacoma, Washington, and the third in the Las Cruces Sun News of New Mexico, but the original links are now invalid

Note: this was originally posted on ketches, yaks & hawks 7 March 2008

The sheriff says it all

A gunman in a jacket wordlessly opened fire inside a Wendy's today, killing a firefighter who had gone back to fetch his child's toy. "This was not a robbery. He didn't demand anything," said a spokesman for the local sheriff. "Looks like this was just another random shooting like we've seen around the United States."*

Just another day in America.

Any bets whether this gun entered circulation entirely legally?

If we're going to fight the "long war" against terrorism, why don't we focus on where the terrorism hurts us the most. Let's deny the deadliest weapons to our home-grown terrorists. Let's get rid of all privately owned handguns, assault rifles, and their like. Now.
------------------------------------

* Reported in (and paraphrased from) the New York Times, March 3, 2008

Note: this originally posted on ketches, yaks & hawks 3 March 2008

It seems others are noticing too

The lead editorial in today's New York Times notes that Senators Obama and Clinton have maintained a distressing silence on gun control, even as the nation suffers a surge of massacres and the Republican candidates pander to the NRA.

We're waiting, Barack and Hillary. Tell the nation what you propose to do to free us form this frightening assault by domestic terrorists.

Note: this was originally posted on ketches, yaks & hawks 1 March 2008

Zero

That's the number of times the words "gun," guns" or "firearms" came up during the much-ballyhooed "final" debate last night between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Never mind the carnage on our streets, in our shopping malls, on our campuses, in our homes. Never mind that the radical right's candidates keep promising to protect our right to own howitzers. Never mind that the NRA's handmaidens in Congress keep assaulting what few gun control laws are on the books (the latest, to let would-be poachers and rapists carry loaded weapons into national parks on the specious theory that we'll all be safer, even though it's a well-established fact that guns are far, far more likely to be used to commit crimes than to defend victims ... and the probable reality that folks out enjoying nature probably don't really want to pack heat in case they meet well-armed criminals on the trail).

Never mind all that. The "courageous" "liberals" running for President aren't paying attention. Seemingly, all they want is the White House as a resume item.

[Note: President Obama signed the appalling national parks amendment into law.]

Note: this was originally posted on ketches, yaks & hawks, 27 February 2008

February must be NRA month

Again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again.

The litany of death -- a peculiarly American litany of death -- continues.

February 1, Cockeysville, Maryland: A 15 year old is accused of killing his parents and two brothers. With a gun.

Groundhog's Day: Five women killed in a shopping mall in Tinley Park, Illinois. Robbery gone bad? Psychopathic misogyny? Does it matter? Five women are dead, because a murderer had a gun.

February 7, Los Angeles: A police officer, three hostages and the killer, all dead. Once again, because the murderer had a gun. Even the highly trained police SWAT team couldn't prevent it, but lost one of their own.

Same day in Kirkwood, Missouri: Another killer with a gun killed another police officer, and then invaded a City Council meeting and killed four more, including several local officials.

February 8: A killer with a gun murdered two nursing students and herself at Louisiana Technical College in Baton Rouge. Nurses are meant to save lives, not lose them to gunfire.

February 11: One high school student in Memphis allegedly shot another in a gym class, and then handed his gun to the coach. Too bad he wasn't shooting hoops instead.

Fbebruary 12: An 8th grader in Oxnard, California is the apparent victim of a hate crime; now brain dead, he is alleged to have been shot by a 15 year-old. A hater becomes a killer with a gun in his hand.

Valentine's Day at Northern Illinois University: Five college students shot to death in a lecture hall and 15 more wounded by a suicidal killer with a gun. Four guns. Four legally purchased guns. A modern day St. Valentine's Day massacre.

When are we going to get rid of the guns? The time is past for debating the issue (aside to totalrecoil: yes, that was an interesting article, albeit with major logical flaws; I'm going to respond to it soon). Intellectual arguments about the Founder's intent are fascinating, much like medieval discussions of dancing angels and pinheads, but the fact is America is hemorrhaging because of the private arsenals permeating our land. We've got to get rid of the guns and rejoin the civilized world.

It's that simple.

I just wish America's so-called leaders would break free of the NRA's evil enchantment and do it. (I know John McCain and Mike Huckabee are hopeless, but are you listening, Senators Obama and Clinton?)

Note: this was originally posted on ketches, yaks & hawks 14 February 2008

The second comma and the Second

By now, we should all realize that the Second Amendment is used by the N.R.A. and its sycophants to argue that we should all have the right to possess grotesquely lethal arsenals.

We should also recognize the the Second links gun ownership to membership in the militia. Here as a reminder is the text as usually printed, from the National Archives:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

First, let's dispense with one of the sillier arguments one sometimes hears from gun advocates, that the term "militia" somehow includes odd collections of alienated "survivalists" crashing around in the woods. No, thanks to the use of the "well regulated" phrase, we may easily dismiss that fatuous argument: in the modern day, a "well regulated Militia" means the National Guard and the various Reserve units of the regular military.

Without any further ado, one might -- I would argue, should -- read the Second as linking the right to "keep and bear Arms" to membership in such a "well regulated Militia." Apparently, however, some argue that because of the positioning of the three commas in the Second, the phrase about the Militia is essentially window dressing.

But their grammatical gymnastics fall apart when one examines the version of what we now call the Second as actually submitted to the States for ratification and sees that it does not include the first or third comma! Here is is, as printed in volume I of the Journal of the Senate of the United States of America:

A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.

One finds the same punctuation in the Annals of Congress for the first Congress, in which is copied the ratification of the Bill of Rights by the several States, either directly or by reference.

With this punctuation, it becomes abundantly clear that the right to "keep and bear Arms" qualifies and is inextricably linked to the necessity of having a "well regulated Militia." Simply put, Congress intended and the States ratified an amendment making that linkage quite clear. Put another way, there is no Constitutional right to private ownership of guns for private purposes.

I wish this analysis was entirely my own, but modesty forfends; I direct you to a very interesting and insightful column on the punctuation of the Second Amendment published in today's New York Times by Adam Freedman, a regular columnist with the New York Law Journal.

Not only should guns be strictly controlled for protection of the public safety, but the Constitutional basis exists for doing so. Let's get rid of the guns. We should, and we can.

Note: this was originally posted in a slightly different form on ketches, yaks & hawks 16 December 2007

Leadership?

The last presidential debate before the Iowa caucuses occurred tonight, capping a lengthy series of debates among both the Democrats and the Republicans vying for the White House.

For all the verbiage in all the debates, we heard nothing constructive about gun-related violence or gun control. (The New York Times had a good editorial on the topic earlier this week.) A few gibes thrown by Republicans at other Republicans suggesting they weren't sufficiently in favor of gun ownership ("I favor machine guns for everybody!" "Bazookas are better!" "I want a howitzer in every garage!"), and that's about it. Nothing from the other side of the aisle.

Nothing about the 33 killed at Virginia Tech. Nothing about the rampage in Omaha earlier this month. Nothing about the shootings in Colorado just a few days ago. Nothing about the assault weapons ban, which President Bush and the Republican Congress allowed to lapse three years ago. Nothing about America's dismal first place ranking in the world's homicide by firearm rate. Nothing about the slaughter occurring every day and every night throughout our land. Nothing about a culture of violence and retribution which lionizes guns and rhapsodizes about vengeance and killing.

Democrats? They avoid the topic like the plague. Look under "Issues" on Hillary Clinton's web site, and you won't find anything about gun control. Ditto Barack Obama. Ditto John Edwards.

Republicans' web sites are a little more open -- they're agin' it, and proud. Fresh meat for their faithful. Rudy Giuliani is a "strong supporter of the Second Amendment" ... and no, boys and girls, that doesn't mean he wants you to join the National Guard if you like to play with guns. Mitt Romney sings from the same homicidal hymnal. You'll find Fred Thompson in the same bloody robes. Mike Huckabee would have you believe he's the choirmaster. John McCain tries to be even more adamant.

So, while home-grown terrorists build their arsenals and slaughter Americans by the thousands on our streets and in our homes, the Democrats are busy ducking the issue and the Republicans cry out for more.

Leadership. Wish it was as easy to find as guns.


P.S. Wanna know how often the word "guns" was mentioned in the debate? Yep. Zero.

Note: this was originally posted on ketches, yaks & hawks 13 December 2007

Nearer my god to thee

And again. Coming to a city near you.

"Gunman Kills 2 at Missionary Dormitory Near Denver." Two more points for the N.R.A. and its sycophants. Yeah, yeah, yeah, guns don't kill people; people kill people. But they sure make it a whole lot easier. Let's get rid of the damn things.

Somehow, a society that does its utmost to confront hate and prevent murder is going to be nearer God than this one.

Note: this was originally posted on ketches, yaks & hawks 9 December 2007

Going out in style

It's happened again. America's ridiculous love affair with guns has led another psychopathic citizen to blast away his fellow human beings for the sport of it. This time he killed eight, apparently as a set-piece to his own suicide because he reportedly wanted to "go out in style."

Some style. American style.

When are we going to get guns off our streets? Put differently, when are we going to join the civilized world? Readers of this blog, like anybody else in America who is paying attention, know that the chances that a gun will be used in a criminal homicide is far, far higher than the likelihood it will be used in self-defense, and that the number of gun-related homicides is surpassed by gun-related suicides.

America's homicide by firearm rate is in a league by itself, far above the civilized world. Canada is a country pretty much like ours, eh? Our homicide by firearm rate is more than ten times higher than Canada's. Surprise! Canada has effective gun control; the U.S. doesn't. Duh. Remember England, America's "mother country"? Their rate is barely a hundredth of ours. Effective gun control there, too. Oh yes, we need guns to protect our liberty, right? Well, that's what the N.R.A. and all the rest of the gun crazies say, but y'know, neither Canada nor Britain come to mind when lists of totalitarian dictatorships get compiled. Neither do Holland, or Australia, or Denmark or Japan, yet they all have firearm-related homicide rates that are a small fraction of ours, and yes, they all have effective gun control.1

This time it happened in Omaha, but don't worry, this peculiar form of American madness will soon be coming to a city near you.

Let us hope that the Supreme Court -- yes, I know it's the Reagan/Bush/Bush Supreme Court, so I'm not too hopeful -- makes it clear once and for all that the Second Amendment is about membership in the National Guard, and that Congress and the states have the power to start getting these terroristic weapons off our streets, and to start saving the thousands upon thousands of Americans who will otherwise be needlessly killed. It's time to finally start restoring some sanity -- and safety -- to our country.

Now, that would be stylish.

1. E.G. Krug, K.E. Powell, and L.L. Dahlberg, "Fire-Arm Related Deaths in the United States and 35 Other High- and Upper-Middle Income Countries," International Journal of Epidemiology, vol 27 (1998), p. 216.

Note: this was originally posted on ketches, yaks & hawks 5 December 2007

Another terrorist attack, but that's okay

In Cleveland today, somebody went to a high school and started shooting students. Apparently at least three victims were carried out on stretchers. Right now, not much more is being reported, but it's a safe bet that it wasn't some maligned Middle Eastern terrorist organization aided and abetted by Iran or Syria that did it.

Nope, probably some home-grown, all-American terrorist aided and abetted by the National Rifle Association and a craven bunch of bipartisan cowards in Congress and the White House who steadfastly refuse to acknowledge that America's worst terrorism problem is right here at home, where anybody with murderous intent can easily acquire an a ridiculously lethal arsenal. Money talks a lot more loudly than reason, and the N.R.A. and its sycophants have lots of money.

Terrorism overseas and terrorism by foreigners on our soil is terrible, and has to be fought, even if it takes extralegal means, right? But terrorism here, by Americans availing themselves of our easy access to guns, why, that's just the gun lobby and the gun industry doing business. Ain't America grand?

We've got to get rid of the guns. That won't stop murder altogether, but it will reduce the level of carnage to something more comparable to the civilized world. And thousands upon thousands of Americans will avoid becoming victims of home-grown terrorists. Let's drown out the N.R.A. and its friends.

Note: this was originally posted on ketches, yaks & hawks 10 October 2007

Virginia Tech Review Panel

This letter is in response to the report of the Review Panel's report on the Virginia Tech killings of April 16, in which the Panel criticized various agencies for not "connecting the dots" linking together the indications that the murderer could pose a danger to the university community.

Submitted to the Washington Post August 30, 2007

Dear Editor:

The Virginia Tech Review Panel correctly notes that "no one connected all the dots" but it is the Review Panel that fails to make the most important connection. The Panel analyzed a great many relatively peripheral issues, but missed the most salient fact: the Virginia Tech killer, like murderers all across America, easily acquired his deadly arsenal. When will we recognize the significance of our firearm homicide rate being more than quadruple that of any other advanced country -- and about ten times the rate of our otherwise very similar neighbor to the north? The difference is not that the people of Canada, Japan and Europe are better than us; the difference is that our country is flooded with legal handguns and other deadly firearms. Yes, improved coordination between schools and mental health providers and law enforcement agencies should be encouraged, but if we do not want more Virginia Techs or Columbines, the first thing we must do is get rid of the guns.

Note: this was originally posted on ketches, yaks & hawks 30 August 2007

Do guns make us safer?

The murder of 33 students and faculty at Virginia Tech April 16 shocked America, but even more shocking is the nearly absolute silence of political, civic, media and even school leaders on the topic of gun control. Indeed, about the only discussion heard on this topic since the killings goes in the opposite direction with calls to make it easier for students to carry handguns to school, on the specious theory that a heavily armed student body would somehow reduce the chance of deadly violence on campus.

Wrong.

The argument that guns will prevent rather than foster homicides is the most egregious of the hoary myths promulgated by the National Rifle Association, its adherents and its collaborators.In 2004, according to federally reported statistics, private citizens used gunfire to kill 170 criminals. In the same year, there were 11,624 murders and non-negligent homicides by gun. Put another way, 68 times more innocent people than criminals were killed by privately owned guns.But guns are deadly in other ways, too: 16,907 Americans committed suicide with guns in 2004 alone. Another 780 are killed by accidental shootings every year, which means gun owners are four and a half times more likely to kill an innocent person -- often a family member -- accidentally than they are to shoot a criminal.

Indeed, guns are the weapons of choice for both murder and suicide in the United States. Gunfire accounted for 66.4% of homicides and 53.7% of suicides in 2004. This isn't to say the murder and suicide won't occur if we get rid of the guns, but guns certainly make it a lot a lot easier.Do guns make us safer? The answer is quite clearly a resounding NO.

Sources:
U.S. Dept. of Justice, Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics Online
Centers for Disease Control
U.S. Dept. of Transportation

Note: this was originally posted on ketches, yaks & hawks 29 August 2007

Homegrown terrorism

American politics, American thought, American society have all been dominated these past six years by terrorism, the spectre of terrorism, and wars bred by or blamed on terrorism. Yet the terror that pervades American life most perniciously slips below the radar of American discourse.

Murder by gunfire. Or more precisely, handguns.September 11, 2001 was one of the darkest moments in American history. Almost 3,000 innocents were killed that awful day, and the memories and images of that terrible day are seared into our brains. The toll of war has been even worse; as of today, 4,171 more Americans have been killed fighting the wars spawned in the wake of September 11.

Yet homicide by handgun claimed more Americans in that appalling year than did terrorism, and that's not even counting another 2,239 homicide victims killed by other types of guns in 2001. Nor does it count an even greater number of suicides by handgun.

Neither has war, with all its horror and violence and agony and waste, come close to killing nearly as many Americans as domestic gunfire. We've been at war in Iraq for four and a half six years, but the death toll from gun-related homicides here at home in just the one year of 2002 was almost exactly three times the number of Americans killed in Iraq during all these years of war.

In terms of international terrorism 2001 was thankfully an aberration; terrorism at home has been a constant worry, but so far we haven't suffered any more casualties on our shores. Tragically, however, it was also an aberration when it comes to deaths by gunfire, but in the opposite sense, for 2001 saw fewer firearm homicides in the U.S. than any other year since at least 1976; the toll is almost always worse.Simply put, even in these tragic years following the horrific attacks of September 11, gun-related violence has scarred the lives of far more American families than have international terrorism and war combined. Think of the people you know: how many have suffered loss from terrorism or war, compared to how many have been affected by handgun violence?

Yet the issue of domestic gun-related violence isn't even on the table in American politics. No presidential candidate would dare suggest taking handguns off our streets. No legislative leader makes any effort to close the wide open market for these deadly weapons. No bipartisan coalitions in Congress call for controlling these agents of death. The few politicians who favor even the mildest efforts to limit access to handguns are on the defensive trying to hold on to such few limits as exist, much too wary of reactionary propaganda to push for anything more meaningful.

This nation is supposedly waging a "global war on terrorism," a "long war" which it is claimed we will pursue until that distant day when "victory" is achieved. But the reality is that we are right now being terrorized at home by terrorists native to our own land armed with guns legally sold throughout the country. When are we going to fight terror where it hurts us the most? When are we going to enlist in this war on terrorism? When are we going to demand that our elected representatives stand up to the apologists for this form of terror, and consign these murderous weapons to the scrap heap?

Note: this was originally posted on ketches, yaks & hawks 13 August 2007