An Accounting of Daily Gun Deaths (NY Times)

4/7/13 – 18th Annual CAGV Luncheon featuring Julie Leftwich

On Sunday, April 7th, CAGV will present its special guest speaker Julie Leftwich for its 18th Anniversary Celebration. Ms. Leftwich, Legal Director of the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence in San Francisco, will discuss: “Regulating Guns in America: How Strong Gun Laws Can Make Our Communities Safer.” An elegant luncheon to celebrate the occasion will be served at the Santa Barbara Club, 1105 Chapala Street. For reservations and information, please call 805.564.6803.

The tragedy of children lost to their families forever has overwhelmed the souls of people nationally and internationally with near wordless grief.  With the loss of a child, grief does not abate or come to closure.  Many families have turned grief into action.  We know from past massacres that thoughts and prayers are not enough. We demand action!

We send those closest to our hearts, our precious innocent children to where we think is a safe place –our neighborhood schools.  But in the land of the free, our hearts are filled with fear because there is no safe place in a country where 300,000,000 firearms are easily accessible.  The reality is that only one-third of Americans own firearms, and 300,000,000 firearms have not created a safer America. Whether these weapons are legally owned or not, does not matter.  A legal upstanding gun owner is one argument or one crisis away from violence.  These dangerous killing weapons are in homes, presumably protecting the family from harm.

No other country in the Western world has this kind of violence attributable to firearms.  America’s culture of violence provides a crucible for permissible murderous acts. Let us not play politics with death and sorrow. Let us consider conflict resolution and what all sides can agree upon.

WE CAN AGREE ON THESE FACTS:

• There are too many gun deaths in America:  32 each day, 30,000 each year.
•  Guns are here to stay.  No one’s going to take your gun away. It’s a fear tactic used by the gun lobby. Gun control advocates and organizations don’t talk about banning all guns.  They talk about REASONABLE GUN POLICIES and work closely with law enforcement.
• America has a culture of violence.  Media violence does have an effect on people and children. Why did the killer in Aurora wear a Joker costume? Life imitates art.
• Mentally unstable people are a long way from receiving adequate care and therapy.  Yet they are jailed or become homeless and as a consequence there are millions of suffering people who are living on the edge. States do not share information regarding persons who have had a history of hospitalization due to mental illness.  A perfect local example was the Goleta Post Office shooting on January 31, 2006.  The shooter got her gun in New Mexico, not California where we have laws that would not have permitted her purchase.
• Domestic violence is prevalent, and millions of women are shot by their partners or constantly threatened with the use of a gun. There is a murder suicide or annihilation killing of a family resulting in 1000 to 1500 deaths per year, 90% with a firearm.
• The new activist interpretation of the Second Amendment whereby the Supreme Court rejected the gun lobby’s mantra: any gun, anywhere, anytime by stating: the individual right to possess guns in the home for self-defense does not prevent the enacting of common-sense gun laws.

We must agree to take action:

• Require a background check for every gun sale (40% of gun sales in our nation have no background check; 92% of Americans favor passing this law.)
• Ban Assault Weapons and any gun or rifle that can be converted to hold a high capacity magazine over 10 rounds.
• Ban large capacity magazines.

More than 20 family members and victims of mass shootings met in Washington, DC with leaders in Congress and the White House calling on them to seriously address gun violence in this nation.  The group released the following letter asking leaders and the American public for a meaningful dialogue and swift action:

“We are Republicans and Democrats, from “blue states” and “red states.” We live in cities, suburbs and rural areas.   We are from many different walks of life.  Some of us own guns.  Some of us don’t. “We know that the overwhelming majority of Americans support sensible solutions that would have prevented many of our tragedies, and can prevent many more every day.”

The full text of the letter can be read and signed at http://wearebetterthanthis.org/

The Declaration of Independence states the inalienable rights of the people to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness; and that a government is necessary to ensure our Safety and Happiness.  The first duty of all elected officials is the safety of the public.

We are not safe. We demand action!

Toni Wellen, Chair
Coalition Against Gun Violence
Working to educate the community since 1994
(805) 564-6803  www.sbcoalition.org

SIGN - Sign the letter and join 32 victims, survivors, and families of gun tragedies by adding your voice to the national conversation about gun violence. (http://wearebetterthanthis.org/)

CALL - Urge your U.S. Representative to take action to reduce gun deaths and injuries in our country. (http://www.bradynetwork.org/site/PageServer?pagename=BCPlookup)

Call the White House hotline to thank President Obama for voicing his support for reforms to our nation's gun laws. Call (202) 456-1111.

Call your Members of Congress on the U.S. Capitol hotline at (202) 224-3121

EMAIL - Our President has shown he is willing to lead on this issue. Thank him for supporting meaningful solutions to gun violence. (http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments)

AB 1527 THE LONG GUN OPEN CARRY BAN - Portantino, (44th Assembly District, La Canada-Flintridge)
This legislation would prohibit individuals from openly carrying unloaded rifles and shotguns in public.

SB 1366 PREVENT ILLEGAL GUNS ACT - Lost and Stolen – DeSaulnier, (D-7th State Senate District)
This bill would require that, beginning January 1, 2013, every person whose firearm is lost or stolen must notify local law enforcement within 48 hours of the time the person knew or reasonably should have known that the firearm had been lost or stolen. Under existing law, local law enforcement must enter reports of lost or stolen firearms into the state’s Automated Firearms System database.

Both bills passed the legislature and were sent to the Governor’s desk with mixed results. Governor Brown signed AB 1527 into law September 28th, but vetoed SB 1366, saying he did not think it would make a difference as responsible people would report a stolen gun. Brown did not fully comprehend the force of this bill. This is a major disappointment for law enforcement state-wide and all the thousands of supporters who worked tirelessly on this reasonable gun legislation. Thank you for your efforts.

How did Florida’s gun death rate suddenly become almost 50% higher than California’s? The question is particularly relevant to the 2012 election. After 1999, when Republicans won control of Florida’s Legislature and the Governor’s office, they passed 38 gun-friendly laws, culminating in Stand Your Ground (SYG). This notorious 2005 law allows people to use lethal force in self-defense in public places even when they could avoid it. After SYG, between 2005 and 2009 (the latest CDC data) Florida’s firearm homicide rate shot up 21%.

In contrast, California—a Democratic state—had been strengthening its gun laws since the early 1990’s. As the regulations took effect its gun homicide rate declined dramatically—by 53% from the 1993 California (and national) peak, far more than the decline in the rest of the nation.

Since the 2005 SYG law, remarkably, Florida’s firearm homicide rate soared higher than California’s, even though California is a more urban state with greater inner-city gang and gun violence problems.After SYG more Floridians brought guns into their homes. Not coincidentally, from 2005 to 2009 Florida’s gun suicide rate jumped 20%, driving its total suicide rate up 16%. (Suicide attempts with firearms are much more likely to be lethal than are attempts by other means.)

Florida’s total firearm mortality rate also increased—by 20% from 2005 to 2009. (In 2005, 1,824 Floridians died by gunfire; in 2009, 2,306 died.) By 2009 Florida’s firearm mortality rate was almost 50% higher than California’s, because that state’s firearm mortality rate had continued to drop. California’s gun policies helped cut gun deaths without infringing on Constitutional rights.

1. I will help my family find ways to resolve conflict without anger or violence.
2. I will monitor my children’s media viewing to limit their exposure to violence.
3. Before my children go to the home of friends or family, I will ask parents whether they have a gun and how it is stored.
4. If I choose to have a firearm in my home, I will store it unloaded, securely locked and separate from the ammunition.
5. I will be a member on CAGV’s email action alert regarding gun issues.
6. I will call, email or fax my legislators about gun issues that concern me.

Any Donation Helps!

(The following is excerpted from a message to health professionals in observance of Suicide Prevention Week, Sept. 9–15 by Linda Rosenberg, MSW, President and CEO, National Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare.)

Before this year comes to an end, another one million people around the world will die by suicide. We have all heard what drives people to take their own lives … But there’s another risk factor that’s rarely mentioned, even though it accounts for more than half of the suicide deaths in the U.S. each year. That culprit is guns.

Some may argue that guns are merely the methods used for suicide, like drowning or suffocation. However, a review of statistics and scientific studies finds that guns are not only a popular means of suicide, but that access to firearms is strongly associated with the increased risk of suicide.

A study in 2007 by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health found that people who live in areas with high concentrations of guns are more likely to die by suicide. The study, which accounted for factors like poverty, substance use, and mental illness, looked at the 15 states with the highest firearm ownership and found that twice as many people committed suicide compared to those in the six states with the lowest firearm ownership. Published in “The Journal of Trauma,” the study concluded, “The ready availability of firearms is likely to have the greatest effect on suicide rates in groups characterized by more impulsive behavior.”

That “impulsive behavior” the researchers referred to is what makes guns a death sentence for people intent on killing themselves… A 2002 study in the “Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health” found that attempts involving firearms were 2.5 times more lethal than those involving suffocation — the second most lethal form of suicide.

Guns leave little hope for the thousands of people who survive suicide attempts every year and manage to turn around their lives. People who swallow pills, inhale fumes, or slash their wrists have some time to reconsider their desperate actions. Even if they are not rescued, these methods often fail, leaving open the hope that they will seek treatment. But with a firearm, once the trigger is pulled, there’s no turning back.

You don’t often see “suicide” and “gun control” in the same sentence, but the facts are too overwhelming to ignore. Not only is death by firearms now the fastest growing method of suicide, but guns are even used more in suicides than homicides.

There’s no doubt in my mind that people who have less access to guns are less likely to commit suicide. While gun owners reportedly keep a firearm in their home for “protection” or “self-defense,” 83% of gun-related deaths in these homes are the result of a suicide, often by someone other than the gun owner.

I encourage you to speak up about guns and suicide. Contact your legislators [and bring this issue into the 2012 election debate.] Now is indeed the time to bring gun control into our conversations on suicide. Those served by National Council member organizations are often the most likely people to consider suicide and to take their own lives and they are looking to us for leadership, and counting on us to take action.

— Linda Rosenberg, MSW, President & CEO, National Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare

Our Latest Newsletter:

Vol #19, #1 - Spring 2013 (6.06 MB) High Costs of Gun Violence, 18 Years of CAGV, Gun Violence is a Public Health Issue

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