A piece by Jeff Mullin on the Opinion page of the Enid News & Eagle Sunday rubbed me the wrong way:
http://www.enidnews.com/opinion/ano...cle_acd9bbb2-3cbd-538f-854d-bba53bccc317.html
Or, here's the text:
Posted: Sunday, October 4, 2015 4:15 am Another day, another mass shooting somewhere in America
There are stories you hope never to write, or hear, again. This is one of them.
Again on Thursday we were bombarded with news that some deranged person with a gun was killing innocent people somewhere in this country.
This time the scene was the campus of a small junior college in Oregon, while the shooter was a young man who described himself as depressed, and sullen, and is said to have sought mental health treatment.
But the results were all too familiar, several dead, many wounded, a campus and a town shattered, not to mention the impact on victims families.
Nine people died Thursday in Oregon, and nine more people were wounded.
This was the 45th school shooting and the 294th mass shooting in America in 2015, and were only in early October.
As often happens in these instances, a hero emerged at Umpqua Community College.
Chris Mintz, an Army veteran who had just begun attending college, took action trying to protect fellow students.
As a result, he suffered seven gunshot wounds in the back, abdomen and hands, and wound up with two broken legs.
Police in Roseburg, Ore., home of Umpqua Community College, have declined to confirm the name of the shooter, to not give him the notoriety he apparently sought.
I applaud this decision and will likewise keep the killer anonymous, preferring instead to turn the spotlight on those like Mintz, who acted so selflessly in the face of this bloody attack.
And now we are once again left asking, what can be done?
What can we do as a nation to try and prevent these slaughters, which are now occurring an average of once every two weeks, according to the FBI?
As always, from the left there are cries for gun control and from the right a stern push-back and a call for more access to guns, not less.
Between 2004 and 2013, 33,636 people died in this country as the result of gun violence, a figure that includes all U.S. gun deaths, homicides, suicides and accidents.
In that same span, 2,013 people died as the result of terrorist acts.
The enacting of restrictive gun control laws in this country will not happen at this time because there is no political will to introduce such legislation.
One in every three Americans owns at least one gun, to the tune of a total of somewhere between 270 and 310 million firearms in the U.S.
In addition, gun manufacturers make somewhere around $13.5 billion annually, while gun shops bring in approximately $3.1 billion.
Besides that, the gun lobby is extremely powerful and has deep pockets.
In the wake of a prolonged 1996 shooting spree on the island of Tasmania that left 35 dead, Australia passed laws banning semiautomatic and automatic rifles and shotguns.
In addition, the government instituted a mandatory buy-back program for the banned guns.
From 1996 to 2012, the rate of firearm homicides in Australia dropped by 59 percent, according to a study by Andrew Leigh of Australian National University and Christine Neill of Wilfrid Laurier University.
In that same span, the firearm suicide rate fell by 65 percent.
Does gun control work?
It seems to have worked in Australia, but that nation doesnt have the deep-seated cultural relationship with firearms that the United States has.
So we will again be left wringing our hands and pondering pumping more money into our countrys mental health systems, will read the stories of the dead and mourn with their families.
Then we will move on, secure in the knowledge that somewhere in this country in the coming weeks the tragedy will be played out again.
Another crazed gunman will kill several people and wound many more at a school, a shopping center or a workplace.
Pray that it doesnt happen here.
Mullin is senior writer of the News and Eagle. Reach him at [email protected] or at (580) 548-8145.
Here is my response which they may, or may not, publish. I had so much more to say, but Letters to the Editor are limited to 300 words, and once per month:
I must take issue with Mr. Mullins opinion piece on the shootings in Oregon. We all pray it doesnt happen here. We pray it doesnt happen anywhere, ever again. But, for starters, the numbers are flawed. You claim there have been 45 school shootings, and that this was the 294[SUP]th[/SUP] mass shooting in America in 2015. How can that be? If true, we have averaged more than one school shooting per week, and more than one mass shooting per day so far thisyear. If so, the news media has been woefully inadequate in reporting the news.
The Australian constitution does not guarantee them the right to keep and bear arms. Thus, their gun rights supporters are at a distinct disadvantage. Thats why it was so easy for their government to implement the gun buyback and to outlaw and confiscate certain firearms. The effectiveness of their strict laws since 1996 has been disputed repeatedly by such as the head of the New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, Don Weatherburn, who said The fact is that the introduction of those laws did not result in any acceleration of the downward trend in gun homicide. A University of Melbourne study found that the NFA (those strict new gun control measures) did not have any large effects on reducing firearm homicide or suicide rates. Dr. Jeanine Baker and Dr.Samara McPhedran found no evidence for an impact of the laws on homicide in a 2006 article in the British Journal of Criminology.
I suggest we start by enforcing the laws we currently have on the books. We dont need any more gun control measures. And, lets fix the mental health system. We repeatedly hear that the shooters were known to have mental health issues. Thats my limit of 300 words.
If you would care to join me in expressing your opinion, here is the link:
https://enidnews-dot-com.bloxcms.com/site/forms/online_services/letter/
Keep in mind, you are limited to only 300 words.
http://www.enidnews.com/opinion/ano...cle_acd9bbb2-3cbd-538f-854d-bba53bccc317.html
Or, here's the text:
Posted: Sunday, October 4, 2015 4:15 am Another day, another mass shooting somewhere in America
There are stories you hope never to write, or hear, again. This is one of them.
Again on Thursday we were bombarded with news that some deranged person with a gun was killing innocent people somewhere in this country.
This time the scene was the campus of a small junior college in Oregon, while the shooter was a young man who described himself as depressed, and sullen, and is said to have sought mental health treatment.
But the results were all too familiar, several dead, many wounded, a campus and a town shattered, not to mention the impact on victims families.
Nine people died Thursday in Oregon, and nine more people were wounded.
This was the 45th school shooting and the 294th mass shooting in America in 2015, and were only in early October.
As often happens in these instances, a hero emerged at Umpqua Community College.
Chris Mintz, an Army veteran who had just begun attending college, took action trying to protect fellow students.
As a result, he suffered seven gunshot wounds in the back, abdomen and hands, and wound up with two broken legs.
Police in Roseburg, Ore., home of Umpqua Community College, have declined to confirm the name of the shooter, to not give him the notoriety he apparently sought.
I applaud this decision and will likewise keep the killer anonymous, preferring instead to turn the spotlight on those like Mintz, who acted so selflessly in the face of this bloody attack.
And now we are once again left asking, what can be done?
What can we do as a nation to try and prevent these slaughters, which are now occurring an average of once every two weeks, according to the FBI?
As always, from the left there are cries for gun control and from the right a stern push-back and a call for more access to guns, not less.
Between 2004 and 2013, 33,636 people died in this country as the result of gun violence, a figure that includes all U.S. gun deaths, homicides, suicides and accidents.
In that same span, 2,013 people died as the result of terrorist acts.
The enacting of restrictive gun control laws in this country will not happen at this time because there is no political will to introduce such legislation.
One in every three Americans owns at least one gun, to the tune of a total of somewhere between 270 and 310 million firearms in the U.S.
In addition, gun manufacturers make somewhere around $13.5 billion annually, while gun shops bring in approximately $3.1 billion.
Besides that, the gun lobby is extremely powerful and has deep pockets.
In the wake of a prolonged 1996 shooting spree on the island of Tasmania that left 35 dead, Australia passed laws banning semiautomatic and automatic rifles and shotguns.
In addition, the government instituted a mandatory buy-back program for the banned guns.
From 1996 to 2012, the rate of firearm homicides in Australia dropped by 59 percent, according to a study by Andrew Leigh of Australian National University and Christine Neill of Wilfrid Laurier University.
In that same span, the firearm suicide rate fell by 65 percent.
Does gun control work?
It seems to have worked in Australia, but that nation doesnt have the deep-seated cultural relationship with firearms that the United States has.
So we will again be left wringing our hands and pondering pumping more money into our countrys mental health systems, will read the stories of the dead and mourn with their families.
Then we will move on, secure in the knowledge that somewhere in this country in the coming weeks the tragedy will be played out again.
Another crazed gunman will kill several people and wound many more at a school, a shopping center or a workplace.
Pray that it doesnt happen here.
Mullin is senior writer of the News and Eagle. Reach him at [email protected] or at (580) 548-8145.
Here is my response which they may, or may not, publish. I had so much more to say, but Letters to the Editor are limited to 300 words, and once per month:
I must take issue with Mr. Mullins opinion piece on the shootings in Oregon. We all pray it doesnt happen here. We pray it doesnt happen anywhere, ever again. But, for starters, the numbers are flawed. You claim there have been 45 school shootings, and that this was the 294[SUP]th[/SUP] mass shooting in America in 2015. How can that be? If true, we have averaged more than one school shooting per week, and more than one mass shooting per day so far thisyear. If so, the news media has been woefully inadequate in reporting the news.
The Australian constitution does not guarantee them the right to keep and bear arms. Thus, their gun rights supporters are at a distinct disadvantage. Thats why it was so easy for their government to implement the gun buyback and to outlaw and confiscate certain firearms. The effectiveness of their strict laws since 1996 has been disputed repeatedly by such as the head of the New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, Don Weatherburn, who said The fact is that the introduction of those laws did not result in any acceleration of the downward trend in gun homicide. A University of Melbourne study found that the NFA (those strict new gun control measures) did not have any large effects on reducing firearm homicide or suicide rates. Dr. Jeanine Baker and Dr.Samara McPhedran found no evidence for an impact of the laws on homicide in a 2006 article in the British Journal of Criminology.
I suggest we start by enforcing the laws we currently have on the books. We dont need any more gun control measures. And, lets fix the mental health system. We repeatedly hear that the shooters were known to have mental health issues. Thats my limit of 300 words.
If you would care to join me in expressing your opinion, here is the link:
https://enidnews-dot-com.bloxcms.com/site/forms/online_services/letter/
Keep in mind, you are limited to only 300 words.
