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Kacey Beddoes
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Curtis Taylor
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2008-02-19
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By: Letter to the editor |
Issue date: 4/26/07 Section: Commentary
In response to Elon Glucklich's article ("Controlling the threat," ODE, Apr. 23, 2007), I am also outraged by the increase in gun violence in America, especially the recent shooting at Virginia Tech. Unfortunately, incidents like this happen all too often in all parts of this nation.
All Americans have the right to be safe from gun violence in their homes, neighborhoods, schools, and places of work. And all children have the right to grow up in environments free from the threat of gun violence.
It is too easy for anyone - children, teens, and troubled adults - to access firearms in this country and the lethality of guns make death or severe injury more likely. This must stop!
Curtis Taylor
Eugene
--
Original Source: Daily Emerald
<a href="http://media.www.dailyemerald.com/media/storage/paper859/news/2007/04/26/Commentary/Americans.Have.A.Right.To.Feel.Safe.From.Gun.Violence.Everywhere-2882636.shtml">http://media.www.dailyemerald.com/media/storage/paper859/news/2007/04/26/Commentary/Americans.Have.A.Right.To.Feel.Safe.From.Gun.Violence.Everywhere-2882636.shtml</a>
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eng
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Judy Riedl <jriedl@uoregon.edu>
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Americans have a right to feel safe from gun violence everywhere
gun control
gun violence
university of oregon
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Sara Hood
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Doug Gill
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2007-08-16
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By: Doug Gill
Posted: 5/7/07
I love British comedies. So I just had to see "Hot Fuzz" a couple weeks ago.
It's the latest action-comedy-murder-mystery-thriller from the makers of "Shaun of the Dead," directed by Edgar Wright and starring Nick Frost and Simon Pegg.
Expecting both a good time and a hearty laugh, I suddenly found myself feeling alone in a crowded theater and very uneasy. Why?
In the movie, Nicholas Angel (Pegg) is a hot-shot London police officer whose arrest record makes his co-workers look bad. So they transfer him to an idyllic English village where there hasn't been a crime in more than 20 years.
Yet Angel suspects that the week's five gruesome deaths were really murders. After all, people don't just accidentally blow themselves up, loose their heads or stab themselves in the throat with hedge clippers, do they? Maybe in the big city of London they do, but certainly not in Sandford, the community that cares.
I soon found myself feeling very unsettled.
What triggered my unease was a scene that generated the most laughter from the audience, a homage to the American western. Angel rides into town on a white horse sort of like Clint Eastwood. Loaded down with guns and ammunition, he surprises the murderous villagers who thought they'd killed Angel the night before. They open fire on him in a very explosive and gory scene.
Yet everyone in the audience, including myself, guffawed and cheered approvingly as our avenging Angel took out the NWA one-by-one: the friendly couple who run the pub, the kindly village priest and the grinning grocer played by former James Bond actor Timothy Dalton. A woman two rows in front of me leaped from her seat. "All right!" she shouted. Turning to her neighbor, she quipped, "Serves 'em right!" A bunch of guys behind me began really whooping it up. I could hardly hear the gunfire over them.
Yes, all of us were really getting into it. And who wouldn't have? The bad guys were getting their comeuppance for being so wicked.
Still, I found myself sitting alone in the dark, feeling troubled.
Then a still, quiet voice said, "A gunman has killed 33 people this week at Virginia Tech. Why are we laughing?"
Back in the theater, I could no longer see the humor in bullets ripping through the air and tearing into people's shoulders or legs. Instead, I could only see the victims of last week's shootings along with their grieving family members and friends. Squirming in my seat, I hoped that none of them were watching this movie. I didn't want them to see people being shot at - even if they were the bad guys. Feeling queasy, I certainly didn't want them to hear our cheers and laughter as blood splattered across the screen and bodies fell to the ground.
Granted, "Hot Fuzz" is just a movie. Our hero only wounded the villains so they couldn't shoot back. Heck, his name was Angel for heaven's sake. Nonetheless, in the wake of that week's tragedy, I felt as though I had disrespected the dead and, in some albeit small way, also contributed to a collective insensitivity toward violence in American culture today.
And this is a disturbing feeling - a very disturbing feeling indeed.
--
Original Source:<a href=http://media.www.thelantern.com/media/storage/paper333/news/2007/05/07/Opinion/Film-Violence.Not.Funny-2896365.shtml>The Lantern - May 7, 2007</a>
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eng
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The Lantern
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GERRICK LEWIS <lewis.1030@osu.edu>
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Film violence not funny
film violence
gun culture
gun violence
humor
ohio state university
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Adriana Seagle
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Diane Edbril and Daniel Loeb / The Philadelphia Jewish Voice
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2007-07-01
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<p>Lessons learned on the 8th anniversary of Columbine.
<i>-- Diane Edbril and Daniel Loeb</i>
Yet another American gun massacre, and though the scale is more horrific, it is not surprising. The Virginia Tech massacre is not unlike the Amish schoolhouse shooting in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, late last year. Both of these, while unbearably sad, are hardly unexpected in this country. Our weak gun laws make it a certainty that the United States will continue to suffer recurrences of such preventable tragedies. There is a crying need for Americans to understand - It's about the guns!
Phil Goldsmith, President of CeaseFire PA, said "Since the Columbine shooting tragedy it has become even easier to obtain guns, as well as high capacity ammunition magazines. Many states, including Pennsylvania, have passed pre-emption laws that have undermined the ability of local governments to enact stricter gun laws. (Pennsylvania has preempted local regulation of firearms for over a decade.) Concealed carry laws have multiplied. In addition, for the last six years, the US Department of Justice has required the destruction of gun purchase background check records after just 24 hours, a measure that has prevented a comprehensive review of those who may have acquired guns despite falling into a prohibited category."
Currently:</p>
<p><ul id="obj"><li>Most of our states do not require gun owners to be licensed and for guns to be registered.</li><li>Most of our states have not closed the gun show loophole, so thousands of guns are purchased without background checks.</li><li>Most states impose no limits on the number of firearms one individual can acquire, making it easy for illegal gun traffickers to supply the criminal element.</li><li>Many of our states do not update criminal history databases in a timely manner, making it easy for criminals to obtain firearms.</li></ul></p><p>Imagine how much worse this tragedy could have been if Cho Seung-hui had been in possession of a military assault weapon as is his "right" now that Congress has allowed the Assault Weapons Ban to expire.
Cho Seung-hui was able to obtain firearms despite his psychological record since the burden of proof is on the government to prove that he was a danger to himself and those around him. However, when I get a driver's license, the burden of proof is on me to prove that my eyesight is adequate and that I understand the rules of the road. When I send my children to school or to summer camp, the burden of proof is on me to show that my children have been immunized and are not carrying any communicable diseases. Why not shift the burden of proof and require a recent attestation of sanity from a psychiatrist or psychologist before anyone can handle a firearm?
Will the American people stand up to the gun lobby and demand change, or will the administration simply blame the media for not concentrating their coverage on the majority of universities which do not have gun violence at any given moment?
As Phil Goldsmith observed: "Congress called for a Moment of Silence in response to this massacre. Indeed, a moment of silence is appropriate for such a devastating tragedy with such pain for families and students. But we also need loud, uncompromising noise, particularly in Pennsylvania, where too many of our citizens are being shot and killed in urban areas. The majority of Pennsylvanians favor sensible handgun laws, including Governor Ed Rendell. It is time for the majority's voices to be heard loud and clear."
<i>For information about the Stop Gun Violence Through Peace, Action & Education - A Community-Based Interfaith's Conference on May 20 and the weekly vigils. See last month's article on <a href="http://www.pjvoice.com/v22/22007guns.aspx">Interfaith Initiative Against Guns</a>.</i>
<b>Liviu Librescu Links:</b></p>
<p><ul id="obj"><li><a href="http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2007/virginiatech.shootings/victims/profiles/liviu.librescu.html">CNN Tribute Page</a></li><li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liviu_Librescu">Wikipedia</a></li><li><a href="http://www.esm.vt.edu/~llibresc/RESUME%20L.%20Librescu.pdf">61 page resume</a></li><li><a href="http://www.chabad.edu/templates/articlecco.html?AID=504498">Family Condolence Page</a></li></ul></p><p>--
© 2007. Permission is hereby granted to redistribute this issue of The Philadelphia Jewish Voice or (unless specified otherwise) any of the articles therein in their full original form provided these same rights are conveyed to the reader and subscription information to The Philadelphia Jewish Voice is provided. Subscribers should be directed to <a href="http://www.pjvoice.com/Subscribe.htm">http://www.pjvoice.com/Subscribe.htm</a>.
Original Source: <a href="http://www.pjvoice.com/v23/23001vatech.aspx">http://www.pjvoice.com/v23/23001vatech.aspx</a></p>
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eng
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Daniel Loeb (daniel.loeb@verizon.net)
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Never Again?
background checks
firearms
gun control
gun violence
guns
librescu
moment of silence
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Brent Jesiek
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The Lancet
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2007-06-11
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<b>Editorial</b>
<a href="http://www.lancet.com/">The Lancet</a>
Available online 26 April 2007.
The blood had not yet dried in the lecture rooms of Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, before polarised camps claimed that the slaughter of 32 students and teachers vindicated their particular stance on gun control. So shrill was the debate about whether the tragedy would have been better prevented by reducing firearms through stronger gun laws or by increasing availability through liberalising right-to-carry legislation, that the more important issue of gun violence as a public-health menace has been neglected. Until the debate widens to address violence as a preventable social problem, rather than solely a legal concern, mass shootings will continue. To pretend that the Blacksburg tragedy is unique ignores the legacy of school shootings in Dunblane, Columbine, and elsewhere, and deprives people of an opportunity to reduce future risks.
Violence is a broad problem that involves communities, not just criminals, and populations around the world, not just the USA. In 2003, 1·6 million people were killed by violence worldwide, more than by road traffic crashes or malaria. One-third died as a result of homicide. The incidence is rising, fuelled by inequalities, victimisation, and lack of social trust, so that gunshot wounds are a major cause of death for young men.
Because the USA has the highest homicide and gun-homicide rates of any industrialised democracy, the country is a natural focus for attempts to learn more about violence. But despite many Federally funded programmes, objective research on interventions to reduce violence is lacking. Nor has the Campbell Collaboration, established to synthesise evidence for the social sciences, provided guidance. In 2004, the <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=RedirectURL&_method=externObjLink&_locator=url&_plusSign=%2B&_targetURL=http%253A%252F%252Fwww.nap.edu%252Fcatalog%252F10881.html">US National Research Council</a> critically reviewed gun violence and concluded that there was little quality science to inform decision making. The reason is that most studies are based on associations or on before-and-after series.
A 2004 survey from Harvard estimated that 38% of households and 26% of individuals had at least one of the 283 million private firearms in the USA. Even teenagers report ready access to guns. Several studies in the USA and elsewhere cite protection as the main reason for having a gun, despite the fact that guns are far more likely to be used offensively, including suicide, than for self-defence. The association of firearms and their use in homicide between populations (four shooting deaths per 100 000 in the USA vs 0·15 per 100 000 in Cameroon where private guns are banned) is complex and obviously involves cultural factors as well.
Yet, interventions within populations that remove guns do seem to reduce gun crime in a reproducible manner. In 2003, more than half the guns retrieved from crimes were traced to 1% of dealers. When such a dealer in Milwaukee stopped selling inexpensive handguns, local gun crime was reduced by 96% and the transfer of new weapons to criminals decreased by 44%. In Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, and Kansas City, policing to remove illegal firearms from the street reduced gun crime as well. Multiple interventions combining social networks with stronger enforcement can also be successful, such as the 63% drop in homicides after Operation Ceasefire in Boston. Tougher gun laws in Brazil in 2003, allied with a buy-back programme of 450 000 guns, reduced the gun-homicide rate by 8% and hospitalisation for gunshots by 4·6%.
How can such findings inform sensible policy decisions? The National Research Council concludes that individual-level data are needed. Characteristics of victims can be enhanced with WHO's <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=RedirectURL&_method=externObjLink&_locator=url&_plusSign=%2B&_targetURL=http%253A%252F%252Fwww.who.int%252Fclassifications%252Ficd%252Fadaptations%252Ficeci%252Fen%252Findex.html">International Classification of External Causes of Injuries</a>, which by introducing standard reporting criteria, enables comparisons between studies. But there are few details about perpetrators, since criminal background checks for sales by gun dealers are destroyed within 24 h and private second-hand sales, which constitute 40% of gun transfers in the USA, are not recorded. To understand assailants' risk factors requires records of gun ownership or ballistic fingerprinting, to which the powerful US National Rifle Association is opposed.
The events in Blacksburg on April 16 demand a more mature evaluation of gun violence, based on the right to health instead of the right to bear arms, and which places public welfare above self-interest. The National Research Council's call for accurate, individual-level data from rigorous studies is essential, in order to provide robust information on which sound interventions can be based. But until such data are available, the best current evidence clearly supports an immediate reduction in the availability of firearms as a public-health priority.
--
Reprinted with permission from Elsevier (The Lancet, 2007, Vol 369, Issue 9571, p 1403)
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eng
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Clare Truter, Rights Manager, S&T, Elsevier (permissions@elsevier.com)
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Gun violence and public health
editorial
gun violence
public health
risk