This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream media. Today's topic is gun violence. Sources include Mother Jones, Salon.com, the Daily Kos, and The Guardian.
Earlier this month, NRA-backed candidates won recall elections in Colorado against two state legislators who were instrumental in passing Colorado's tough new gun control law. On Monday, a deranged shooter, who was able to purchase a gun legally in the state of Virginia, killed 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard.
Take a look at the Mother Jones special report: "America Under the Gun: A Special Report on Gun Laws and the Rise of Mass Shootings." It is perhaps the finest piece of research journalism on the subject that I've seen. The report features "A Guide to Mass Shootings", a profile of the 62 mass shootings that occurred in the last 30 years ("Of the 143 guns possessed by the killers, more than three quarters were obtained legally."); "More Guns, More Mass Shootings—Coincidence?" ("In not a single case was the killing stopped by a civilian using a gun. And in other recent (but less lethal) rampages in which armed civilians attempted to intervene, those civilians not only failed to stop the shooter but also were gravely wounded or killed. Moreover, we found that the rate of mass shootings has increased in recent years—at a time when America has been flooded with millions of additional firearms and a barrage of new laws has made it easier than ever to carry them in public places, including bars, parks, and schools."); 151 Victims of Mass Shootings in 2012: Here Are Their Stories; The NRA Myth of Arming the Good Guys; Mass Shootings: Maybe What We Need Is a Better Mental-Health Policy . In addition, there are links to other relevant MoJo articles and the report is packed with information-rich graphics and data to rebut all of the fallacious arguments proposed by gun lobbyists.
On September 18, The Daily Kos had a short post reporting columnist Frank Rich's grim assessment: "After being asked if there is any way to end the gun violence, his answer: Essentially, no. Perhaps the best thing we can do is at least call out the problem for what it is: state-sponsored terrorism. The American people and their elected representatives allow our own homegrown equivalent of suicide bombers — suicide shooters — legal access to weapons with which they can mow down innocents almost anywhere they please." Rich goes on to say that guns are ingrained in American culture and stopping gun violence may take as long as it took to end slavery. The blogger concludes: "A grim assessment but I think Frank Rich might just have found the one argument that can move politicians back to reality "So you are saying that you are soft on domestic terrorism?"
Brian Beutler in his September 17 post "How to silence the NRA" on Salon.com writes of the "calculated strategy" by gun lobbyists used after mass shootings. "There’s one time, and only one time, you can count on the NRA to be more subdued than your average gun obsessive, and it’s the 24 to 48 hours after a mass shooting....Two entwined calculations motivate the temporary silence. The first is simple self-preservation. The gun lobby is at its weakest when crazy people use the weapons it has made so easily obtainable to slaughter innocents in public places. The second is more oblique. Mass shootings breathe new life into arguments for gun control, and one way to suffocate them is to feign propriety and indignation — to shame adherents into saying nothing until the public has moved on." Beutler concludes his post with a comparison between two relatively rare events - mass shootings and airline accidents. " If fatal airline accidents became much more common in the U.S. than they are right now...it would be bizarre for a political movement to rise up after each tragedy to shout down anyone demanding tougher FAA safety inspections. But that’s about where gun obsessives in this country are right now."
The Guardian featured an emotional appeal from the chief medical officer at a Washington, D.C., hospital that treated victims of the Washington navy yard shooting. Janis Orlowski "has become a rallying point for gun campaigners, calling on Americans to eradicate the 'evil in our society' that led to the tragedy. 'I would like you to put my trauma center out of business,' Janis Orlowski, chief medical officer at MedStar Washington Hospital Center, told reporters in the aftermath of the massacre. 'I would like to not be an expert on gunshots. Let's get rid of this. This is not America."
In an emotional address to the cameras, she added: "We just cannot have, you know, one more shooting with, you know, so many people killed. We've got to figure this out. We've got to be able to help each other.' The Guardian September 17 post has a video of Orlowski's comments.
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