Please, it is people that kill people. Misstating the facts only serve to confuse, and misdirect from the root cause. This writer appears to merely parrot political propaganda. Please, don’t waste our time like this.
Hi @Maya Sulkin, good article. The situation is disgusting. I just dropped a long comment in Bari's article/interview about guns. Some things can be done now, completely within legitimate political parameters. There's a lot of resistance in certain quarters, though.
I am appreciative of this article, especially coming from a 20 year old - good journalism. Your list of shootings is solid but without a few more facts (illegal/legal owned weapons, relationship of suspect/victim, etc) surrounding these deaths/injuries, it's not quite as complete as it could be. It'd be interesting to see this same type of list with overdose deaths across the country. Unfortunately, there's more than one epidemic going on in this country.
Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force. If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that’s it.
In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction, and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some.
When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force. The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gangbanger, and a single gay guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender.
There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad force equations. These are the people who think that we’d be more civilized if all guns were removed from society, because a firearm makes it easier for a mugger to do his job. That, of course, is only true if the mugger’s potential victims are mostly disarmed either by choice or by legislative fiat – it has no validity when most of a mugger’s potential marks are armed. People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that’s the exact opposite of a civilized society. A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a successful living in a society where the state has granted him a force monopoly.
Then there’s the argument that the gun makes confrontations lethal that otherwise would only result in injury. This argument is fallacious in several ways. Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser. People who think that fists, bats, sticks, or stones don’t constitute lethal force watch too much TV, where people take beatings and come out of it with a bloody lip at worst. The fact that the gun makes lethal force easier works solely in favor of the weaker defender, not the stronger attacker. If both are armed, the field is level. The gun is the only weapon that’s as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weightlifter. It simply wouldn’t work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn’t both lethal and easily employable.
When I carry a gun, I don’t do so because I am looking for a fight, but because I’m looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. I don’t carry it because I’m afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn’t limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force. It removes force from the equation … and that’s why carrying a gun is a civilized act.
I'm willing to, bet dollars to donuts, that the vast majority of these shootings were done by people who were not allowed to own pistols or revolvers as felons, and that these were not legally registered guns. That doesn't make it any better, but changing gun laws will not stop this type of violence. Do you think that a violent felon will not get a weapon because of these laws? I think not.
It seems kind of perplexing that the areas with the strictest gun laws have the highest rate of gun violence.
We do need stricter laws pertaining to mental illness precluding the purchase of guns, and these laws must be enforced. We also need to enforce the laws against straw buyers, something Chicago and Illinois refuse to do, but hey what do I know? We wouldn't want the jails and prisons filled with law breakers, do we?
Nice try Maya. Next time maybe provide more context and balance to offset the "rage". Adherence to your position would be much improved with less reactionary verbiage and more, deeper information.
Arrest these guns and let's put them away for a long time! I once saw a gun actually jump into the hand of a law abiding black gang member in Chicago. Then, it actually secreted a little metal object that hit a person. The POlice tried to blame the man, but he was minding his own business earning a living. He sells little white crystal thingees that help people feel good. By the way, the person that got hit by the little piece of metal was 12 years old. But, he survived his mom's attempt at abortion, so he should have been dead anyway.
And all this was caused by a gun. Crazy, isn't it?
Unfortunately, Maya, you live in a country very different from the one most of us grew up in.
One in which a very powerful industry and lobby have created a culture of perverse sanctimony around firearms.
Where no contradiction is seen between calling one's self "pro-life" while at the same time insisting on the right of the average citizen to purchase objects whose sole purpose is mass murder. Where people who claim to support the police make their lives more dangerous by the day, over their objections, as they spout mindless platitudes about ameliorating gun violence with more guns.
Because irresponsible jurists have reinterpreted the second amendment in ways antithetical to American history, our politicians must now regard as Constitutional heresy common sense prohibitions on assault weapons. Because we have a Republican Senate leader who won't even consider a Supreme Court nominee that doesn't have the NRA's approval, we must pretend to take seriously the idea that an AR-15 is a reasonable implement of self defense.
Our Supreme Court has been engineered by a private legal interest group with young judges compliant to an "original meaning" philosophy of Constitutional interpretation. Which diverges from the traditional "original intent" in ways that curiously permit whole clauses of the Constitution to be regarded as window dressing - in particular, the "well regulated militias" clause of the 2nd Amendment. In an age where progressive radicals are rightly criticized for explicitly declaring that intent doesn't matter when people speak, so-called conservatives have curiously censored our Founding Fathers using precisely the same principle.
There are some who hope that Kavanaugh and Roberts may be looking to carve out a reasonable middle ground on gun rights. We can only hope. Otherwise, our country will be held hostage until a future court elevates regard for the nation's well being above slavish adherence to interpreting the Constitution as one would a mere legal statute - and demonstrates that this court's precedents aren't any more inviolable than those it has disregarded.
Investigative journalism doesn't just count the dead this week. The facts are: homicides per 100,000 US population dropped by over half in 2018 from what it was in 1980 (10.4 to 4.96). Despite widespread new laws in US largest cities to limit guns since 2018, the US homicide rate jumped to over 7 per 100,000, the increase mostly in the US largest cities (FBI data).
It is not enough to count the tragic deaths and blame it on guns... there are other causes that we need to consider despite the political strangle hold on guns. Try locking up adolescents and masking them for years, widespread censure ship across essentially all corporate media, growing racist anger and hate on police functions and dissent. All, a witches brew of violence that no academic or state funded researcher will undertake.
These stats are sobering and this many people killed with guns in a short period of time deserves a few minutes for all of us to stop and think. My resulting online search brought me to some interesting national statistics including almost 46,000 killed by guns in 2020 (2021 data doesn’t seem to be available). Of the approximately 46,000 gun deaths, 54% were self-inflicted (ie., suicide by gun). I also found that 79% of all murders that year were caused by a gun. Which, grimly, makes sense because it is far easier to murder someone with a gun than a knife or a club.
Suicides that year overlapped gun deaths. But, including all types of deaths by suicide, more people killed themselves with guns than were killed by other people with guns.
If we take gun related suicides, out of the total gun deaths in 2020, we are left with 19,384 murders by guns. In comparison, over 38,000 died in vehicular accidents that year. 46,000 died by suicide. 382,000 people died “with" COVID. 930,000 abortions were performed with 100% extermination efficiency. Cancer killed 600,000 and heart disease 700,000.
Now, before you go off half-cocked, I believe that even 1 murder by a gun is too many. And, you may think that using car accidents, COVID, abortions, cancer and heart disease as a comparison is a non sequitur use of data. I agree that these various reasons for deaths are not comparable by any means except - someone died and those who loved them grieve and mourn. And, I suppose, we could look at preventing deaths by changes in laws (vehicular speed limits of 25 MPH or less, outlaw abortion nationally, completely outlaw smoking of all types, force people to properly manage their chronic diseases, clean up our environment, and somehow remove the 400,000 million guns estimated to be in existence in the USA). So, using mathematics, statistics and common sense as my guide, I don’t think any type of gun control is going to change the number of deaths in this country much - when we think of all the ways people can (and will) die.
I don’t own a gun. I won’t buy a gun. I will never shoot anybody. Partly because I know that the odds of me personally being killed with a firearm is 1 in 17,000 presuming I have the average risk of being shot compared to all Americans. But, I don’t have even that much risk. That’s because I’m not a drug dealer, a gang member, nor am I involved in any other criminal activity. And, I’m blessed to live in a generally low crime area of the country. So, I roughly figure my chance of dying by gunfire is 1 in 250,000 or less, contrasted with the chances of me dying in the next 30 years of something else, which is about 100%.
None of what I’ve written here is meant to excuse or downplay the heinous crimes we’ve seen via mass shootings or other gun-related murders. Such events are inexplicable. They are horrendous and we all want them to stop!!! The trouble is that the people carrying out these crimes are clearly mentally ill in some capacity. Our mental health services are lacking nationally (by the way, I am a mental health practitioner, so I know something about that). But, even if mental health resources were readily available to everyone in the US, do we really expect someone like this most recent killer to drop in for some therapy, and even if he did, would that a therapist be able to stop him from flipping his lid, or that a psychiatrist treating him with psych meds would keep him grounded, or that police will someone catch him in advance before he commits such an evil act? I think we all know the answer to that question, if we’re willing to think about it.
For my part, I’m going to try to be nice to everyone I meet and treat my fellow citizens with respect. I’m going to help some people in legitimate need. I’m going to encourage people to expand their horizons by reaching for their dreams. And, I’ll continue my profession which is helping people heal from the grief that comes after losing a loved one by any means.
There are two main categories of gun violence: gangs and mentally ill.
Treat the mentally ill, including more aggressive interventions in high school for obviously disturbed boys posting scary thoughts on social media.
Take warnings more seriously. Nearly all mass shooters announced in advance. The one who didn’t was the Las Vegas shooter, though how he was able to outfit his hotel room with an arsenal, no maid service, no room service, without arousing the slightest suspicion of the hotel… boggles the mind. All the others listed by this intern were known to law enforcement in advance.
Restore law enforcement in the cities, which have been taken over by black gangs, with the blessing of powerful white liberals who oppose vigorous prosecution and imprisonment. Both groups are responsible for the mayhem now destroying every major city.
I also don't own or use guns, but the more I've learned about the issue the more I recognize the fact that my lack of need for a gun is largely due to the fact that other people have them. If I were poorer and lived in a bad neighborhood, it would make all kinds of sense for me to get one.
Please, it is people that kill people. Misstating the facts only serve to confuse, and misdirect from the root cause. This writer appears to merely parrot political propaganda. Please, don’t waste our time like this.
Hi @Maya Sulkin, good article. The situation is disgusting. I just dropped a long comment in Bari's article/interview about guns. Some things can be done now, completely within legitimate political parameters. There's a lot of resistance in certain quarters, though.
I am appreciative of this article, especially coming from a 20 year old - good journalism. Your list of shootings is solid but without a few more facts (illegal/legal owned weapons, relationship of suspect/victim, etc) surrounding these deaths/injuries, it's not quite as complete as it could be. It'd be interesting to see this same type of list with overdose deaths across the country. Unfortunately, there's more than one epidemic going on in this country.
Why the Gun is Civilization:
- By Marko Kloos
Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force. If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that’s it.
In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction, and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some.
When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force. The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gangbanger, and a single gay guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender.
There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad force equations. These are the people who think that we’d be more civilized if all guns were removed from society, because a firearm makes it easier for a mugger to do his job. That, of course, is only true if the mugger’s potential victims are mostly disarmed either by choice or by legislative fiat – it has no validity when most of a mugger’s potential marks are armed. People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that’s the exact opposite of a civilized society. A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a successful living in a society where the state has granted him a force monopoly.
Then there’s the argument that the gun makes confrontations lethal that otherwise would only result in injury. This argument is fallacious in several ways. Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser. People who think that fists, bats, sticks, or stones don’t constitute lethal force watch too much TV, where people take beatings and come out of it with a bloody lip at worst. The fact that the gun makes lethal force easier works solely in favor of the weaker defender, not the stronger attacker. If both are armed, the field is level. The gun is the only weapon that’s as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weightlifter. It simply wouldn’t work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn’t both lethal and easily employable.
When I carry a gun, I don’t do so because I am looking for a fight, but because I’m looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. I don’t carry it because I’m afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn’t limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force. It removes force from the equation … and that’s why carrying a gun is a civilized act.
This is very sobering.
Sophomoric take. Criminals shot people.
Thank you, Maya. Eloquent evocative writing, devoid of hysteria. I would encourage the weekly roster of shootings in the same dispassionate tones.
That is just ridiculous when you see it laid out this way
Collective madness
No one talks any more
Just start shooting
I'm willing to, bet dollars to donuts, that the vast majority of these shootings were done by people who were not allowed to own pistols or revolvers as felons, and that these were not legally registered guns. That doesn't make it any better, but changing gun laws will not stop this type of violence. Do you think that a violent felon will not get a weapon because of these laws? I think not.
It seems kind of perplexing that the areas with the strictest gun laws have the highest rate of gun violence.
We do need stricter laws pertaining to mental illness precluding the purchase of guns, and these laws must be enforced. We also need to enforce the laws against straw buyers, something Chicago and Illinois refuse to do, but hey what do I know? We wouldn't want the jails and prisons filled with law breakers, do we?
Nice try Maya. Next time maybe provide more context and balance to offset the "rage". Adherence to your position would be much improved with less reactionary verbiage and more, deeper information.
Arrest these guns and let's put them away for a long time! I once saw a gun actually jump into the hand of a law abiding black gang member in Chicago. Then, it actually secreted a little metal object that hit a person. The POlice tried to blame the man, but he was minding his own business earning a living. He sells little white crystal thingees that help people feel good. By the way, the person that got hit by the little piece of metal was 12 years old. But, he survived his mom's attempt at abortion, so he should have been dead anyway.
And all this was caused by a gun. Crazy, isn't it?
Unfortunately, Maya, you live in a country very different from the one most of us grew up in.
One in which a very powerful industry and lobby have created a culture of perverse sanctimony around firearms.
Where no contradiction is seen between calling one's self "pro-life" while at the same time insisting on the right of the average citizen to purchase objects whose sole purpose is mass murder. Where people who claim to support the police make their lives more dangerous by the day, over their objections, as they spout mindless platitudes about ameliorating gun violence with more guns.
Because irresponsible jurists have reinterpreted the second amendment in ways antithetical to American history, our politicians must now regard as Constitutional heresy common sense prohibitions on assault weapons. Because we have a Republican Senate leader who won't even consider a Supreme Court nominee that doesn't have the NRA's approval, we must pretend to take seriously the idea that an AR-15 is a reasonable implement of self defense.
Our Supreme Court has been engineered by a private legal interest group with young judges compliant to an "original meaning" philosophy of Constitutional interpretation. Which diverges from the traditional "original intent" in ways that curiously permit whole clauses of the Constitution to be regarded as window dressing - in particular, the "well regulated militias" clause of the 2nd Amendment. In an age where progressive radicals are rightly criticized for explicitly declaring that intent doesn't matter when people speak, so-called conservatives have curiously censored our Founding Fathers using precisely the same principle.
There are some who hope that Kavanaugh and Roberts may be looking to carve out a reasonable middle ground on gun rights. We can only hope. Otherwise, our country will be held hostage until a future court elevates regard for the nation's well being above slavish adherence to interpreting the Constitution as one would a mere legal statute - and demonstrates that this court's precedents aren't any more inviolable than those it has disregarded.
Put 2 cops on every corner
Walking the beat
It will help solve many potential crimes
A lot of talk nothing is done
How does this problem get solved?
Real fuckin answers 🥺
Investigative journalism doesn't just count the dead this week. The facts are: homicides per 100,000 US population dropped by over half in 2018 from what it was in 1980 (10.4 to 4.96). Despite widespread new laws in US largest cities to limit guns since 2018, the US homicide rate jumped to over 7 per 100,000, the increase mostly in the US largest cities (FBI data).
It is not enough to count the tragic deaths and blame it on guns... there are other causes that we need to consider despite the political strangle hold on guns. Try locking up adolescents and masking them for years, widespread censure ship across essentially all corporate media, growing racist anger and hate on police functions and dissent. All, a witches brew of violence that no academic or state funded researcher will undertake.
My community too. If you look at the comments here, you'll find little compassion.
These stats are sobering and this many people killed with guns in a short period of time deserves a few minutes for all of us to stop and think. My resulting online search brought me to some interesting national statistics including almost 46,000 killed by guns in 2020 (2021 data doesn’t seem to be available). Of the approximately 46,000 gun deaths, 54% were self-inflicted (ie., suicide by gun). I also found that 79% of all murders that year were caused by a gun. Which, grimly, makes sense because it is far easier to murder someone with a gun than a knife or a club.
Suicides that year overlapped gun deaths. But, including all types of deaths by suicide, more people killed themselves with guns than were killed by other people with guns.
If we take gun related suicides, out of the total gun deaths in 2020, we are left with 19,384 murders by guns. In comparison, over 38,000 died in vehicular accidents that year. 46,000 died by suicide. 382,000 people died “with" COVID. 930,000 abortions were performed with 100% extermination efficiency. Cancer killed 600,000 and heart disease 700,000.
Now, before you go off half-cocked, I believe that even 1 murder by a gun is too many. And, you may think that using car accidents, COVID, abortions, cancer and heart disease as a comparison is a non sequitur use of data. I agree that these various reasons for deaths are not comparable by any means except - someone died and those who loved them grieve and mourn. And, I suppose, we could look at preventing deaths by changes in laws (vehicular speed limits of 25 MPH or less, outlaw abortion nationally, completely outlaw smoking of all types, force people to properly manage their chronic diseases, clean up our environment, and somehow remove the 400,000 million guns estimated to be in existence in the USA). So, using mathematics, statistics and common sense as my guide, I don’t think any type of gun control is going to change the number of deaths in this country much - when we think of all the ways people can (and will) die.
I don’t own a gun. I won’t buy a gun. I will never shoot anybody. Partly because I know that the odds of me personally being killed with a firearm is 1 in 17,000 presuming I have the average risk of being shot compared to all Americans. But, I don’t have even that much risk. That’s because I’m not a drug dealer, a gang member, nor am I involved in any other criminal activity. And, I’m blessed to live in a generally low crime area of the country. So, I roughly figure my chance of dying by gunfire is 1 in 250,000 or less, contrasted with the chances of me dying in the next 30 years of something else, which is about 100%.
None of what I’ve written here is meant to excuse or downplay the heinous crimes we’ve seen via mass shootings or other gun-related murders. Such events are inexplicable. They are horrendous and we all want them to stop!!! The trouble is that the people carrying out these crimes are clearly mentally ill in some capacity. Our mental health services are lacking nationally (by the way, I am a mental health practitioner, so I know something about that). But, even if mental health resources were readily available to everyone in the US, do we really expect someone like this most recent killer to drop in for some therapy, and even if he did, would that a therapist be able to stop him from flipping his lid, or that a psychiatrist treating him with psych meds would keep him grounded, or that police will someone catch him in advance before he commits such an evil act? I think we all know the answer to that question, if we’re willing to think about it.
For my part, I’m going to try to be nice to everyone I meet and treat my fellow citizens with respect. I’m going to help some people in legitimate need. I’m going to encourage people to expand their horizons by reaching for their dreams. And, I’ll continue my profession which is helping people heal from the grief that comes after losing a loved one by any means.
There are two main categories of gun violence: gangs and mentally ill.
Treat the mentally ill, including more aggressive interventions in high school for obviously disturbed boys posting scary thoughts on social media.
Take warnings more seriously. Nearly all mass shooters announced in advance. The one who didn’t was the Las Vegas shooter, though how he was able to outfit his hotel room with an arsenal, no maid service, no room service, without arousing the slightest suspicion of the hotel… boggles the mind. All the others listed by this intern were known to law enforcement in advance.
Restore law enforcement in the cities, which have been taken over by black gangs, with the blessing of powerful white liberals who oppose vigorous prosecution and imprisonment. Both groups are responsible for the mayhem now destroying every major city.
I also don't own or use guns, but the more I've learned about the issue the more I recognize the fact that my lack of need for a gun is largely due to the fact that other people have them. If I were poorer and lived in a bad neighborhood, it would make all kinds of sense for me to get one.
So true.