Sunday, February 17th, 2019
Stephan: There was another mass killing yesterday in Auora, Illinois. Five people died, five police officers were wounded. I am so sick and tired of the entire country being in fear for themselves and their children because a tiny group of people with gun psychosis mental illness dominate the country's politics, funded by industries for whom death and violence are a happy business environment.
Consider the following from this report, "A recent
Washington Post report estimated that more than 221,000 students have been exposed to gun violence at school since the Columbine massacre in 1999." How sick do you have to be to find that acceptable?
All these gun sickos keep citing the 2nd Amendment. I assure you if the Founders knew how this amendment would be distorted today they would never have a passed it in the first place. The 2nd Amendment was created for three reasons: 1) Because the Founders established a standing Navy in the Constitution but deliberately did not establish a standing army. They feared a standing army because of their experiences with the British Army during the colonial era, and they saw national defense as a series of state self-armed militas coming together, as happened in the Revolution under Washington. 2) The Western states wanted to be sure they could arm themselves against the Indians whose lands they were stealing. 3) The Southern states wanted the amendment so the slave patrols going after runaway slaves could be armed no matter which state they were in. None of that is relevant today.
Nearly 40,000 people died from gun fire in the United States in 2018, the highest level in 20 years. When is enough, enough?
Fourth grade students in Washington, Ohio being taught how to respond to gun violence in their school.
Credit: AP Photo/Craig Ruttle.
As the nation marks the one-year anniversary of the Parkland mass shooting, hundreds of psychologists and other experts in child development have signed an open letter calling for major policy action on gun violence. The group, which includes child psychologist and bestselling author Alison Gopnik, said it was sounding the alarm about the negative effects that the “constant threat of violence is having on the children of our nation.” They cited connections between gun violence exposure and long-term stress and issues like depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Celeste Kidd, one of the University of California-Berkeley psychology professors who wrote the letter, notes that the wider impact of gun violence on children is lesser known outside the psychology community.
“I hope this is the first step in a larger discussion about ways in which we might be able to help advocate for better protections for our kids,” Kidd says.
A recent Washington Post report estimated that more than 221,000 […]
