Let’s do a little math.
1999, Littleton Colorado, 36 people shot at a school (School
#1); 25 killed at an incident in Atlanta that same year (three with a hammer
and the rest with a gun), and 15 more at a Christian rock concert in Texas.
2003, 14 shot, most of them black, in an incident in Mississippi.
2005, 14 shot at a religious meeting in Wisconsin, and 17
shot in a high school incident (School #2) in Red Lake.
The following year, 9 shot in Seattle and then 12 shot in an
Amish schoolhouse (#3) in Pennsylvania.
2007, 14 shot in Nebraska by a teenager, and 56 at Virginia
Tech (#4).
2008, 9 shot in Missouri, and 28 shot at Northern Illinois
University (#5).
2009, 8 shot in North Carolina, 18 in Binghamton New York,
42 at Fort Hood in Texas.
2010, 11 shot in Connecticut.
2011, a Democratic congresswoman and 18 others shot in
Arizona; 12 shot in Nevada including three members of the National Guard; 8
more at a hair salon in California.
That’s 335 people shot.
And now 2012.
7 at a school (#6) in California.
5 black men in Oklahoma.
6 shot in Washington.
60 in Aurora Colorado (#7).
11 at the Sikh temple in Wisconsin.
9 shot in Minnesota.
3 on December 11, in Oregon.
And now how many in Connecticut? 20? 30? That’s School #8. This
is a town that will never, ever recover from this.
128 more shot, bringing the total in these incidents up to 463.
And a number of these shootings that did not happen at schools, were either
perpetrated by teenagers, or injured children. Kids, kids, kids. Forty years
ago, four students were killed at Kent State, and the nation was changed
forever – they wrote songs about it. For four kids killed. Today, we do…what?
Go to the funerals and just get ready for the next shooting?
Mother Jones reports that, in all, there have been 62 mass
murders with guns in 30 years. Almost all the guns were legal. Hundreds of
people shot. What if it had been al-Qa’ida that had done this? 62 armed
attacks, hundreds of people shot, all those dead children? The right wing would
have declared martial law all across the country. And that’s not including the
more mundane shootings, the under-achievers who only manage to shoot one or two
at a time, like that abortion doctor shot in church in Kansas. This afternoon
the White House said this is not the day to talk gun control. If not
today…when? Can you think of a better day for it?
But don’t worry, help is on the way! The lame-duck Michigan
legislature, the same one which is destroying union rights and abortion rights
because they think no one is paying attention at Christmastime, just passed a
law allowing guns in classrooms yesterday. Just what we need! We now await the
decision of Michigan’s addle-brained Republican governor. Will he seriously
consider signing this bill, while CNN is running pictures of the Sandy Hook
school in the background?
In all, more than a million kids live in homes with loaded,
unlocked guns, and 3000 children die each year because of guns. I wonder what
the numbers will be like in Michigan next year?
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