Monday, July 23, 2012
Mother Jones: Mass murder map
by Larry Geller
It's perhaps too easy to forget how many times this has happened. The horrific mass murder at a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora, Colorado on Friday is the latest in an epidemic of such gun violence over the last three decades. Since 1982, there have been at least 50 mass murders carried out with firearms across the country, with the killings unfolding in 27 states.
[Mother Jones, MAP: 50 Mass Murders Across America in 30 Years, 7/20/2012]
The article includes a clickable map. Yes, the Xerox killing in 1988 in Honolulu is included:
Incident: Xerox killings
Location: Honolulu, Hawaii
Date: 11/2/99
Shooter: Byran Koji Uyesugi, 40, a Xerox service technician, opened fire inside the building with a 9mm Glock. He fled and was later apprehended by police.
Fatalities: 7
Injured: 0
Total victims: 7
And both presidential candidates, Mitt Romney and Hawaii’s favorite son Barack Obama, are talking 2nd Amendment instead of gun control.
Indeed, the White House’s only remarks in the aftermath of the carnage in Aurora have been to say the president backs the country’s existing laws — even though the alleged gunman in the Colorado shootings legally acquired various weaponry, including an assault rifle and 6,000 rounds of ammunition purchased online.
[MetroNews (Canada),Obama, Romney won't talk gun control, 7/23/2012]
I have no idea if the tweet below is accurate, but it illustrates the issue nicely:
From the MetroNews article:
There are an estimated 270 million guns in the hands of U.S. citizens, making the country the most heavily armed nation on Earth on a per capita basis.
Polling suggests the American public has grown increasingly resistant to tougher gun control legislation over the past two decades, with many states loosening laws to the extent that their citizens can carry weapons in public.
Gun sales are booming, with 2011 breaking records for gun purchases; the numbers for 2012 are expected to soar even higher. An estimated 50 per cent of American households now contain guns.
Both Obama and Romney have learned lessons from those who have waded into the debate before them, said William Schneider, a well-known American political analyst and public policy professor at George Mason University — gun control is a no-win issue, no matter how passionately gun control advocates clamour for it.
What have we become? We justify abortion,it devalues children as expendable. We deny psyciatric treatments, issues, responsabilties. We are willing to suffer earthquakes, water and land toxicity to harvest natural gas. We would even believe that a pill would cure all of this. Pills given so we do not indure responsabilty for our addictions. We are in the season of being held accountable for non-responsabilties. Sorrows grow in this enviroment that we have created, from no self disapline, and a whole lot of cosumtion and greed. It is time for sack cloth, ashes, and prayer.We have turned Sodom and Gommorah into a country.
: July 29, 2012 at 4:28:00 PM HST << Home
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