ABSTRACT
An American gun show
Credit: Jim Lo Scalzo/European Pressphoto Agency
Background: Research suggests that access to firearms in the home increases the risk for violent death.
Purpose: To understand current estimates of the association between firearm availability and suicide or homicide.
Data Sources: PubMed, EMBASE, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, and Web of Science were searched without limitations and a gray-literature search was performed on 23 August 2013.
Study Selection: All study types that assessed firearm access and outcomes between participants with and without firearm access. There were no restrictions on age, sex, or country.
Data Extraction: Two authors independently extracted data into a standardized, prepiloted data extraction form.
Data Synthesis: Odds ratios (ORs) and 95% CIs were calculated, although published adjusted estimates were preferentially used. Summary effects were estimated using random- and fixed-effects models. Potential methodological reasons for differences in effects through subgroup analyses were explored. Data were pooled from 16 observational studies that assessed the odds of suicide […]
1 Comment
Wednesday, August 12th, 2015
Sean Nevins, - Mint Press News
Stephan: Why is it do you think that in Norway although police have access to guns they often go unarmed, and no one has been killed by a policeman using a gun since 2006? Why aren't we debating this question in the Presidential debates? Why is the media so complacent on this issue?
Annual average number of deaths by police shooting per million inhabitants (1996–2006)
Credit: Knutssonand Nore´e
WASHINGTON — Matthew Ajibade, Roberto Ornelas, and Garrett Gagne: These were the first three people killed by American police this year. Since their deaths at the hands of police on Jan. 1, police have killed another 687 people, averaging three daily, according to The Guardian’s “The Counted,” currently the most comprehensive database of killings by U.S. police.
This stands in sharp contrast to police in Norway. They fired guns twice last year. And Norwegian police haven’t killed anyone since 2006, and that police-related fatality was the only one that year.
Of the 34 countries belonging to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, an economic organization committed to democracy and a market economy, Norway is one of just four countries which routinely deploy unarmed police. Norwegian police have access to firearms, which are locked in patrol cars, but they […]
1 Comment
Wednesday, August 12th, 2015
Joe Romm, - Think Progress
Stephan: Yet another report concerning the inevitability of climate change, and the massive disruption and change it represents. It is fascinating in a macabre sort of way that if you turn on cable news you see almost nothing but discussions about Donald Trump. Nothing else seems to matter to American corporate media, certainly not something like climate change. It is a perfect illustration of the cliché: Arranging the deck chairs on Titanic.
Credit: Shutterstock
A new study finds there is no “deus ex machina” way to prevent a catastrophic collapse of ocean life for centuries if not millennia — if we don’t start slashing carbon pollution ASAP.
The Nature Climate Change study examined what would happen if we continue current CO2 emissions trends through 2050 and then try to remove huge volumes of CO2 from the air after the fact with some techno-fix. The result, as co-author John Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, put it, is “we will not be able to preserve ocean life as we know it.” (emphasis added)
A “Deus ex machina” — literally “God from the machine” — originated in Greek tragedy (and comedy) where a machine (like a crane) delivers actors who play gods to the stage to magically resolve all of the dramatic problems. Today it means, “a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem is suddenly and abruptly resolved by the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, […]
2 Comments
Wednesday, August 12th, 2015
Mary O'Hara, - Alternet (U.S.)/Salon
Stephan: Here is the sad and awful truth about Austerity Economics in the U.K. The same story is playing out everywhere, including the U.S., this economic theory is applied through policy. I have come to believe that the real function of Austerity Economics is to drain wealth from the poor and middle class and transfer it upwards in order to make the rich richer. The arguments used to advance this model are sophistical and bogus and, if we had a real media anymore, stories would abound proving this point.
Citation:
Austerity Bites: A Journey to the Sharp End of Cuts in the UK, by Mary O’Hara, © 2015 Policy Press at the University of Bristol. 
A poor child in the U.K.
Credit: www.gcgi.info
Austerity pushes people to the edge.
“This government will not cut [the] deficit in a way that hurts those we most need to help, that divides the country, or that undermines the spirit and ethos of our public services” —David Cameron, in a speech in June 2010.
“If austerity were tested like a medication in a clinical trial, it would have been stopped long ago, given its deadly side effects…. One need not be an economic ideologue – we certainly aren’t – to recognize that the price of austerity can be calculated in human lives.” —David Stuckler and physician Sanjay Basu, authors of “The body economic: Why austerity kills,” 2013.
The mental strain unleashed by cuts:
Helpline caller number 1: ‘David’ is getting more anxious and more agitated the more calls he makes to the suicide helpline. He has mental health problems. He tells the volunteer manning the phone that he is finding it difficult to cope. He is terrified. His benefits […]
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