SELECTIVE POLLING

Have you noticed that political parties only pay attention to polls that agree with their views?  For example, Republicans accept the polls that show that 52% of the people don't like Obamacare (even though in this number are those who don't like it because it doesn't go far enough), but reject polls that show that about 83% of the people,* including a majority of the members of the NRA, are for background checks on gun purchases.  Recent polling also shows 66% of those polled favor an increase in the minimum wage to an average of $10.25/hr.*  It remains to be seen what the House of Representatives will do about that.  President Obama has proposed $10.10/hr.

Note too that Republicans say that it would be better to adopt a piece of medical reform at a time.**  I actually agree with this approach, but, when a piece at a time is proposed on gun control, they reject it.  The polling numbers on mental health with regard to guns has similar acceptance numbers to background checks, i.e. 79% of the responders voted in favor of increasing government spending on mental  health programs for young people as of late April 2013.*

* http://www.gallup.com/poll/1645/guns.aspx#2
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/12/most-back-minimum-wage-hike-policies-to-address-the-wealth-gap/
** The first thing I would do is tort reform which Democrats refuse to do.  I'm told that this would save "only" 3% of the Medicare expenses, though I suspect that defensive medicine costs much more.

WHAT ABOUT THE 8,000+ OTHERS?

Events like the latest multi-homicide deaths of at least 12 in Aurora, CO, capture our attention, but what about the other 8,000+ gun related deaths that occur in America per year ?*  Those that are injured but not fatally, of course, are much more.  So the Aurora incident will capture the news media for a while.  Then things will quiet down while we wait for the next multi-homicide event.  Wait for the next event?  Sure there will be another.  We have a population of over 300 million people, and these people can buy all the guns they want.  James Holmes of the Aurora massacre had four: two Glock 40 caliber pistols, a shotgun, and an assault rifle plus thousands of rounds of ammunition that he had bought online.

For a while after the Reagan assassination attempt that turned his press secretary - Brady - into a vegetable, we had a ban on the sale of assault weapons, but even that was considered too much gun control in this country so it was overturned.  We live in an armed camp, and we still fancy we live in the "Wild West" of yore.  In fact California is the leader in the number of firearm murders per year.

So far there has been almost no talk about gun control after the Aurora incident.  There may be something more in the days to come but nothing will be done with it just as nothing was done after the Columbine, CO, incident (1999), Virginia Tech (2007), and the Giffords massacre in Tucson, Arizona (2011).**  There also are less famous ones. Who even remembers the San Ysidro McDonalds massacre in which 21 were killed (1984), San Diego, CA, or the Luby's massacre in Killean, TX, in which 22 (1991) were killed or the Capitol Hill Massacre in Washington State (2006) where 6 were killed.**

We get used to such things as thousands being killed every year by guns just as we have gotten used to around 30,000+ killed every year in automobile accidents in spite of attempts to protect people against themselves with seat belts, air bags etc.  I especially grieve at those murder incidents by people who commit suicide but who first must take down others with them.***

These multi-homicide events attract attention for a while, but who thinks about the thousands of others every year who are murdered anonymously as we wait for the next massacre?

Note added July 23, 2012:  Why do so many fight to allow individuals to own assault weapons?  I think the answer is in the occasional e-mail I get about the possibly need of the citizenry protecting itself against the dictatorial government.  These people also stock pile thousands of rounds of ammunition.

Note added July24, 2012:  Eugene Robinson expresses views very similar to this post about guns and massacres. http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/eugene-robinson-mass-shootings-are-a-tragedy-we-dont-want-to-avert/2012/07/23/gJQAghsI5W_story.html


* http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/jan/10/gun-crime-us-state
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States
** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_events_named_massacres
*** http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2012/06/suicide.html

SUICIDE

I don't have any prohibition against suicide and feel that physician assisted suicide should be available to the elderly and terminally ill that want it.

There is a danger that the family and perhaps some others might try to hasten a person's decision for suicide so they could get at the inheritance. I think this should be made a crime.

Suicide among the young, however, is a tragedy in that some tend to see the future as being so black and don't understand the ups and downs of life and that there probably are opportunities for better things awaiting. Even someone like John Hinckley, who almost killed a president of the United States and turned his press secretary - Brady - into a vegetable, is spending about a third of his time out of confinement and even has a drivers license (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hinckley,_Jr.). I disagree with this, but it does show that even what should be the blackest of futures may not be.

What I am devastated over, however, is those committing suicide first taking the lives of many others before killing themselves. We all recall the massacres at Columbine High School, CO, in 1999* and Virginia Tech, VA, in 2007.** A recent case is that of Jason Todd in Gilbert, AZ on May 3, 2012: http://phoenixcriminallawnews.com/2012/05/police-gilbert-shooting-that-left-5-dead-was-murder-suicide.html. A greater alertness to the potentials of certain mentally unstable people might help prevent such things, but making guns more difficult for such people would help. Unfortunately, gun control of any sort in the U.S. is vigorously opposed.*** As for individuals, wouldn't physician assisted suicides be preferable to the more than 15,000 gun related suicides per year in the U.S.?

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbine_High_School_massacre

**http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Tech_massacre

*** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States