Quote:
Originally Posted by ThirdOfFive
I think the problem is that media is being used for social engineering purposes, which is flat-out wrong. Kids being shot and killed in school, insofar as overall gun deaths go, aren't even a blip on the radar. America averages something like 33,000 gun deaths each year from all causes. This year 24 kids have been killed by gunfire at school and this year is a sad exception--numbers year by year since the late 1990's are usually far lower, often in the single digits. It is a fact that a school kid is statistically in more danger of being killed by lightning than killed at school. By far the greatest number of gun deaths, 58% on average per year, is suicide. Homicides are at 37.2% per year (numbers provided by Brittanica ProCon) and it is a safe bet to assume that the overwhelming number of those are criminal-related, drug and gang disputes mainly. Legal intervention and unintentional deaths come in at 1.2% and 1.3%.
Every student killed is a tragedy. I get that. But what we are seeing is shameless. It is my belief (borne out by several studies) that media overhype is the primary cause of copycat killings, and it is anyone's guess just how many of these dead kids would still be alive if it wasn't for what media is doing.
Let's be honest. This is about GUNS, not kids. We have elected senators and representatives who represent us. Using media to try to force an issue via over-the-top emotion instead of the legislative system is doing no one any favors, least of all our kids.
What can be done? Nothing, until we can be honest with ourselves. The gun "debate" solves nothing: people are entrenched on one side or the other and no statistic, or argument, is going to change that. On a personal level I try to avoid media that pushes the emotional hyperbole but that is nearly impossible: we are saturated with it. The irony is that school deaths by gunfire are actually DOWN since the 1990s, but you'd never know that from what we see, hear and read today.
We can all start by being honest, with ourselves at least. Far too few of us are.
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Let's say that it is correct that a small % of children are KILLED at school (or going to school) by GUNS. That % does NOT mean that the problem of shootings in schools is insignificant. People need to think about these shootings as DOMESTIC TERRORISM. Today about 100% of all school children have been traumatized by what they saw happen at Robb Elementary. And parents and ALL US citizens will shudder and feel UNSAFE as they just drive past schools for a long time - the TERRORISM perpetrated within that classroom is a SCAR on the psyche of ALL American citizens.
..........What happened at the Robb Elementary calls into QUESTION the ability of the Government and local Police EVERYWHERE to protect the US population from MASS MURDERERS wielding specialized high capacity weapons of war. The outright TERROR PROJECTS beyond a small Texas town, beyond Texas, and ultimately throughout the whole US. Children and parents from Pittsburgh to Portland now know that as far as GUNS go the US still has a frontier mentality - solve your problems with a GUN.
..........And the shooting in Tulsa has proven that no one is safe from the GUN culture anywhere! There was NOT even a WAITING PERIOD for that shooter to possibly come to his senses!