The Gun Report: February 19, 2014
"About 60 more people than usual have been murdered with firearms each year since Missouri got rid of background checks for gun sales in 2007, according to a new study by the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research. The state has seen a 23 percent increase in firearm homicide rates, even as the murder rate dropped 5 percent nationally. The rise in murders occurred only for those involving a firearm.
The carnage may not be limited to Missouri. As the Chicago Sun-Times reports:
Two candidates for Texas governor are campaigning for an “open carry” gun law. The Tennessee legislature is considering a measure to allow guns in parks. In California, a federal court last week threw out the state’s concealed-carry restrictions. Illinois’ permissive new concealed-carry gun law has produced applications that appear to meet state guidelines most recently from an applicant who has been arrested 19 times and a Latin Kings gang member who has been arrested for domestic battery.
Because many perpetrators of homicide have backgrounds that would prohibit them from possessing firearms under federal law, they seek out private sellers to acquire their weapons,” the study’s author Jon Vernick, said. “Requiring a background check on all gun sales is a commonsense approach to reducing gun violence that does not infringe upon the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding gun owners.”
Here is our daily accounting of gun violence in the news (34 incidents, 17 fatalities):
http://nocera.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/19/the-gun-report-february-19-2014/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0#more-8013
Note: According to the Gun Violence Archive, 2,307 people have been injured by gun violence in America and 1,401 have been killed since Jan. 1, 2014.
Second Amendment absolutists say that these numbers are misleading, deceptive, and an attempt to twist statistics. The fact of the matter is that these numbers are what they are, and are presented as evidence that gun violence, like cancer, is a public health hazard, and needs to be addressed as such. Too many Americans, especially our children, are being maimed and killed all because the right-wing gun lobby wants to sell more guns with absolutely no oversight or regulation.
Please support a gun control organization of your choice (see the list pinned to the top of this Group) and help restore sanity to the out-of-control gun culture in this nation.