Tag Archives: Gun Violence Archive

Stephen Golub: Guns: Here We Go Again… and again…and again…

Unhappy New Year

A Promised Land, by Stephen Golub, January 25, 2023

Benicia author Stephen Golub, Benicia CA, A Promised Land

California has kicked off 2023 with a bang: two mass shootings in 72 hours. (Mass shootings constitute events in which four or more people are injured or killed, not including the murderer.) This has probably been the country’s most massacre-intensive January ever – and certainly since the Gun Violence Archive started tracking this data in 2014. Only a small fraction of these nearly twice-daily horrors (647 in 2022) gets much media coverage. Still, this seems like a nightmarish Groundhog Day.

Over the course of nearly nine years, the satirical, fake news outlet the Onion has regularly summarized such slaughters 30 times with the same headline,  “‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.”

I won’t regurgitate most of the grisly statistics you’ve heard before. But it’s worth noting a few:

Family Values

Here’s one more statistical nugget: America is the only wealthy country in which gun violence is the top cause of death for children and teens.

The comparative data leaves other rich nations buried (so to speak) in the dust. Firearms killed 4,357 young people here in 2020. The next highest nations, based on a recent research review of selected similar societies: Canada and France, with 48 each. Correcting for Canada’s far smaller population, its gun mortality rate for folks aged one to 19 is still less than 10 percent of ours.

Even that shameful ratio under-represents how bad our relative situation is. Canada and France themselves have much higher rates than other wealthy nations. The next highest number on the list is that of Germany, where only 14 young people died due to guns in 2020. Given that its population is one-quarter of ours, that figure would extrapolate to just 56 if we were the same size.

Why?

Now, this is not to say that most gun-owners are fanatics about their weapons. Many are responsible, or support at least some gun safety measures, or legitimately use firearms for protection or hunting.

Still, why are so many Americans (though by no means the majority ) so dedicated to deadly weapons, including assault rifles?

Pick your poison. The National Rifle Association. Our distorted democracy. The self-perpetuating cycle of easy access and ease of use making for a way of life. The legacy of racial animus. The fear of guns being taken away, which drives the purchase of yet more. The related conviction that more guns equal more protection from more guns. Gun collection as a hobby. Americans loving (ahem) Freedom, as long as it’s that of a gun owner and not a gun victim. The reliance on a Second Amendment adopted at a time of muskets and citizen militias. Or maybe all of the above.

There’s yet another view of what drives our gun culture and gun deaths, courtesy of Arnold Schwarzenegger in the film Terminator 2. Though the context for this clip was the threat of nuclear holocaust, it works equally well for a different kind of self-destruction:

Another answer is even simpler and better than the one Ahnold offers. It’s asserted by the Australian comic Jim Jefferies, in mimicing a hypothetical American gun devotee:

“I like guns!”

Here are the two parts of Jeffries’ brilliant commentary on Americans’ penchant for firearms – though be forewarned, he’s very profane, is politically incorrect, and employs a word that’s apparently much more commonly accepted in Australia than here:

A Shot at Success?

Is there any light at the end of the gun barrel? There are glimmers of hope.

In 2022, the United States adopted the first national gun control law in decades, with even a bit of Republican buy-in. It looks like legislators voting for the bill suffered few if any negative electoral consequences. Though an increasing number of states have adopted “open carry” laws – which allow gun owners to carry firearms in public without the need for permits – last year also saw a range of state-level victories for gun safety.

As I’ve noted, loads of evidence indicates that countries and states with stronger gun laws have lower rates of gun deaths; maybe someday such data will mean something for our nation’s public policy.

In fact, we’ve seen instances of public opinion or legislation shifting on other issues more than previously thought possible. The examples range from acceptance of gay and lesbian marriage to last year’s so-called Inflation Reduction Act, which for all of its flaws was an unprecedented environmental step forward.

Still, manyof us have remained politically unmoved by the Sandy Hook and Uvalde school massacres, by a lone Las Vegas gunman murdering 60 concert-goers and injuring over 400 others, and by so many other atrocities that we lose count.

Now, the sure way to lose the fight is to lose hope. But for now, Americans face the reality of constantly shooting ourselves in the foot, the head, and everywhere in-between.


Stephen Golub, Benicia – A Promised Land: Politics. Policy. America as a Developing Country.

Benicia resident Stephen Golub offers excellent perspective on his blog, A Promised Land:  Politics. Policy. America as a Developing Country.

To access his other posts or subscribe, please go to his blog site, A Promised Land.

At least one mass shooting every day so far in July

Yesterday: Four more mass shootings in US, four dead, sixteen injured

Gun Violence Archive, mass shootings on Sunday, July 10, 2022

Date State City Or County Address # Killed # Injured
10-Jul-22 California Downey 8100 block of Leeds St 3 2
10-Jul-22 Missouri Kansas City 4128 Broadway Blvd 1 5
10-Jul-22 Illinois Chicago 448 N State St 0 4
10-Jul-22 New York Brooklyn Boardwalk and W 21st St 0 5

Sunday in Downey, California – 3 dead, 2 injured

[BenIndy editor: apologies for the 15-second commercial…]


Gun Violence Archive definition  of “mass shootings”
Mass Shooting Methodology and Reasoning

Mass Shootings are, for the most part an American phenomenon. While they are generally grouped together as one type of incident they are several with the foundation definition being that they have a minimum of four victims shot, either injured or killed, not including any shooter who may also have been killed or injured in the incident.

Mass shootings in first 8 days of July: triple the number killed in Highland Park

Source: Gun Violence Archive, Mass Shootings

By Roger Straw, July 9, 2022 

So the nation was shocked – again – on the 4th of July, and the Benicia-sized community of Highland Park is entering into the echoing chamber of lifelong grieving.

The loss is unimaginable…until it’s real.

And that loss, heaped unbearably onto 8 families in Highland Park, 8 of the 11,700 households, is decidedly real.  But it’s not just those 8.  Horrors and a broken sense of security now haunt the extended families of those 8, and the families of friends, co-workers, classmates, neighbors and acquaintances…  Highland Park is a lakeside community of 30,000 – now at sea.

The Gun Violence Archive notes that on that same day, July 4, there were five other mass shootings in the US, with 22 others injured and 2 more dead.

In just the first eight days of July, there have been 29 mass shootings in the US, killing 25 and injuring 151.  Divide those numbers by eight days: we’ve had 3.6 mass shootings every day, over 3 killed and nearly 20 injured, EVERY DAY IN THE USA so far in July!

But it takes school children or a parade to make  our news.

So yes, it seems I’m obsessed with the numbers.  But no, I’m obsessed with the pain and the horror and the imbecilic wanton disregard of those who hide behind the 2nd Amendment while the nation falls to pieces.

What will it take, before we follow the wisdom of Australia, Japan, and others?

We need guns off the streets, out of our homes, away from the hands not only of the mentally ill and violently prone, but away from us all.  There should be no right to bear 21st century arms in a peace-loving society.  What will it take, to tear down the lie that our nation’s founders would stand by while citizens gun each other down for no good reason?  What will it take to recognize that a well-armed militia of muskets just simply has nothing whatsoever to do with an AK-47 in the homes and hands of you and me?

God Almighty.  What will it take?


Click here for Roger’s excel file downloaded initially from Gun Violence Archive, but with additional tabs noting mass shootings in:

    • In July so far…
    • Since Highland Park
    • 1 or more killed
    • In July, 1 or more killed
    • California

Not in the news: Since Uvalde,11 mass shootings in U.S.

Uvalde family, ABC News, May 25, 2022

By Roger Straw, May 29, 2022 6:28 pm PT (NOTE: Today’s report was outdated less than 2 hours after it was posted.  As of 8pm, Gun Violence Archive is reporting 2 additional mass shootings: 7 injured in Henderson NV, and 6 injured in Phoenix AZ.  Totals now in 5 days since Uvalde: 13 mass shootings, 8 killed, 58 injured.)

EARLIER:  It goes on and on…. In the last 5 days, there have been another 11 mass shootings, 8 killed, 45 injured.  (Details below.)  All this since the massacre at Robb Elementary in Uvalde TX, where 19 fourth graders were shot to death along with 2 teachers.

The most recent mass shooting reported today was in nearby Merced CA.  Two more were in my home state of Michigan.

We need sensible gun control NOW!  …including universal background checks and a strong assault weapons ban, at minimum.

Reference: Gun Violence Archive (https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting)

Incident Date State City Or County Address # Killed # Injured
29-May-22 California Merced Cowden Ave 1 3
29-May-22 Michigan Detroit Littlefield St and Plymouth Rd 0 3
29-May-22 Oklahoma Taft 104 Elm St 1 7
29-May-22 Illinois Chicago 800 block of S Karlov Ave 0 5
28-May-22 Tennessee Chattanooga 100 block of Market St 0 6
28-May-22 Florida Malabar 2500 block of Billie Ln 0 4
28-May-22 California Fresno 2233 N 1st St 1 3
28-May-22 Colorado Colorado Springs 3800 block of E Pikes Pike Ave 1 3
27-May-22 Michigan Stanwood 10711 185th Ave 4 1
27-May-22 Alabama Anniston 1204 Front St 0 6
25-May-22 Pennsylvania Philadelphia 3500 block of Fairmount Ave 0 4
24-May-22 Texas Uvalde 715 Old Carrizo Rd 22 17
Uvalde kids, ABC News, May 27, 2022