This past Wednesday afternoon I received frantic calls and texts from my mother and sister, asking me if my childhood friend, a UCLA student, was alright. Without any knowledge that a shooting had happened on the campus I somehow immediately knew that was the scenario my family members were referring to.
My friend is fine, but this isn’t about him. My immediate assumption when asked about the well-being of a college age friend was that there was a school shooting, and I was right.
It’s a bit ridiculous that public shootings have become so common in our society that they are the first thought some have when they’ve heard something is wrong. More frustrating than that is how we respond to these shootings. After each there is yet another call to change policies, and put in
preventative measures, which gets national attention for a week then fades away.
The reason often given for gun violence debates fading away, until of course the next shooting
comes around, is gridlock in our government. Democrats call for gun control, and recently Republicans have started calling for mental health care reform. Neither side is wrong: Better gun control and better mental health care would both likely reduce gun violence.
What happened at UCLA was fairly mild compared to other recent shootings years, but that should not diminish it.
Reform aimed at fighting gun violence has been proposed many times over the past few years. Currently the U.S legislature is tossing around the Mental Health Reform Act of 2016. The act aims to make health care more accessible to those who need it. Hopefully this will pass, because when nothing gets done it doesn’t really matter who is right and who is wrong.
This article appears in Jun 2-8, 2016.
nothing is going to change
Tossing more money at a mental health system that already fails so many people and makes a large profit off of keeping them stuck in a bad state just doesn’t make a great deal of sense to me.
We don’t need more laws, we need to change hearts. Where is all this anger and violence coming from? Is it jealousy, is it romance related or just killing to kill? Take away all the guns and killers will change their weapon. They kill.
You just want to take my guns away!
According to a reputable polling organization used by many reputable news sources (i.e., Quinnipiac University Polling Institute), “Ninety-two percent of voters, including 92 percent of gun owners and 86 percent of Republicans, support background checks prior to all gun sales.” I am part of this solid majority. But how the NRA got such a stranglehold on lawmakers in this country is weird and perverse. Once again, citizens’ votes do not matter when politicians currently in office are so perversely controlled.
Jared Loughner passed a background check. How’d that work out ?
And authorities had history with Loughner.
A whole society cannot be disarmed. The criminals will always have access to guns. How about prosecuting criminals to the fullest extent and not immortalizing them so much on the news.
Obviously, there is a huge breakdown in the morale of our society for people to be lashing out so violently. There are already laws in place to stop criminals from getting guns. Yes, this is a pronounced problem right now. Core values have changed and the mental health issue needs to be at the forefront.
People need to be able to speak up if they suspect that someone is acting strangely or having pronounced issues without repercussion. Too much “Political Correctness”.
Cars can be used as a weapon. Do we take away cars, too?
“How about…not immortalizing them so much on the news.” Annikazelia, you have something there. Forensic psychologist Reid Meloy has spoken extensively on the copycat/fame-seeking effect present in many mass shootings. According to Meloy, Loughner even posted updates on his Facebook page days before the shooting gleefully telling his friends that they would see him on national TV. There’s a reason why we no longer see gory, explicit news coverage of suicides, and the media needs to apply similar standards to gun violence.
“Cars can be used as a weapon. Do we take away cars, too?”
Yes, that’s likely so, but I have yet to have seen anyone carrying a car undercover onto, say a university campus or into a public library.
This article should not be called “something needs to be done about gun violence”. It should be called “How obamacare left out the mentally ill”. I’ve never had any of my guns commit any violence or anybody else’s for all that matters.
There have been three main approaches to gun violence in the US. Two have been successful, one has been a complete failure. The first approach was Bratton in New York City – strict accountability at a district and precinct level that led to very intensive policing. It was spectacularly successful, crimewise. Since implementation, NY city, a city with a population greater than Arizona, has reduced murder between unrelated people to 35 per year. Simply astonishing. Hasn’t been so successful politically. Deblasio got elected promising to get rid of the intensive policing, the stop and frisk piece essential to its success. Very few cities, if any, have been able to replicate Bratton’s results because they have not thought through how to systematize what Bratton’s powerful personality delivers in terms of leadership accountability. The “system” has landed with a thud in numerous cities.
The second approach has been strict gun control. We can see the results in Chicago which has more murders than at any time in the last 21 years. Almost as many murders in one city in 6 months as in Arizona all year.
The third approach has been Arizona. The best gun laws in the nation. Concealed carry with a permit, open carry, concealed carry without a permit. In 2014 Arizona had 276 murders, down from 464 in 2007. Despite having a much greater at risk population (i.e. poverty, etc) we had violent crime rates below the national average. There have been numerous incidents where robbers have been shot by law abiding citizens and criminals are very aware of these risks. In Arizona, committing a violent crime can cost you your life right on the spot.
With tighter gun control laws, our neighbors to the south will add them to the drugs they are now exporting to us. Even more will die.
JH, Chicago may have strict gun laws but they are meaningless since East Chicago is located in Indiana where like AZ they have virtually no gun laws. And you think AZ is safe because of ‘The Best Gun Laws’. What a joke. People are getting shot on a daily basis here. Gun violence is 10-20 times NYC. Please.
I need to correct my previous comment a little–Jared Lee Loughner was on MySpace, not Facebook.
The NRA doesn’t tell it’s members what to support. It’s the other way around. The NRA is simply reflecting the views of millions of people in this country who are also members. Please don’t vilify the NRA as some dark entity – it’s people, maybe your neighbor or co-worker. The private citizen to citizen gun sales you would like to bring under the background check umbrella cannot be enforced unless you engineer the universal registration of all guns. There can be no enforcement component to universal background checks without universal registration. People calling for background checks (which are already in place for the majority of gun sales) need to call a spade a spade and own up to what they are really proposing.
Ken,
Do the math. New York City has a population of 8.4 million. Arizona has a population of 6.7 million. New York City’s murders were 350 in 2015. Arizona’s had 276 murders in 2014. DPS hasn’t posted the the 2015 crime report yet but based on a few large cities, it will be even lower than 2014. So, obviously, we are not 10 to 20 times higher than New York City. We are safer.
Our murder rate is lower than the most successful crime fighting case study that has ever existed and our reduction from 2007 to 2014 is easily in the top five of the nation. We do have the best gun laws in the nation. The proof is in the pudding.
John Huppenthal
You stole my thunder, John. Idiots like Kenneth like to pull numbers out of their ass hoping people will fall for them.