World News Korner

Mother Jones creates guide to mass shootings in America.

Courtesy of Mother Jones:

It is perhaps too easy to forget how many times this has happened. The horrific mass murder at a movie theater in Colorado in July 2012, another at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin that August, another at a manufacturer in Minneapolis that September—and then the unthinkable nightmare at a Connecticut elementary school that December—were some of the latest in an epidemic of such gun violence over the last three decades. Since 1982, there have been at least 67 mass shootings across the country, with the killings unfolding in 30 states from Massachusetts to Hawaii. Thirty of these mass shootings have occurred since 2006. Seven of them took place in 2012, and another five occurred in 2013, including in Santa Monica, California, and at the Washington Navy Yard. We've gathered detailed data on the cases and mapped them below, including information on the shooters' profiles, the types of weapons they used, and the number of victims they injured and killed.*

Weapons: Of the 143 guns possessed by the killers, more than three quarters were obtained legally. The arsenal included dozens of assault weapons and semi-automatic handguns with high-capacity magazines. Just as Jeffrey Weise used a .40-caliber Glock to slaughter students in Red Lake, Minnesota, in 2005, so too did James Holmes, along with an AR-15 assault rifle, when blasting away at his victims in a darkened movie theater. In Newtown, Connecticut, Adam Lanza wielded a .223 Bushmaster semi-automatic assault rifle as he massacred 20 school children and six adults.

The killers: More than half of the cases involved school or workplace shootings; the other 30 cases took place in locations including shopping malls, restaurants, and religious and government buildings. Forty four of the killers were white males. Only one of them was a woman. (See Goleta, Calif., in 2006.) The average age of the killers was 35, though the youngest among them was a mere 11 years old. (See Jonesboro, Ark., in 1998.) A majority were mentally troubled—and many displayed signs of it before setting out to kill.

The article provides numerous links so that there sources can be checked, as well as a very troubling map of the various locations of the shootings.

In my mind the findings of this study demonstrate a number of objective truths.

Almost all shooters are men.

The vast majority of them use weapons that were obtained legally, putting to rest the NRA contention that stricter gun laws will not reduce the killings.

And most of the killers were mentally troubled, though in some cases the severity of their illness was not yet known.

To my mind, while it is reasonable to address the mental illness piece, and of course more attention to that problem in this country should always be welcome, the quickest fix is to dramatically reduce the easy access to guns, through background checks, mandatory registration, and the restriction of certain types of firearms.

We should especially reduce access to the kinds of military style assault weapons which seem to be favored among those who want to kill a large number of people as quickly as possible. There is really NO logical reason why anybody who is NOT a member of the military or law enforcement should want or need anything like that.

In Australia they found that the number of gun deaths dropped 59%, and the number of suicides went down 65%, in the decade following the introduction of strict laws on gun control.

There is no doubt that something needs to be done, and it needs to be done quickly.

I am tired of the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms trumping every other right in this country. We also have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and ALL of those are placed in jeopardy when we live in a country where mentally unbalanced people have easy access to weapons designed specifically for the taking of human life.

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