Originally Posted By TomSawyer I love how people discount the number of deaths from DUIs, making jokes of it, while at the same time demanding something be done against guns, when more people die from alcohol reasons than guns daily in the U.S. The number of people who die every year from DUIs in the US is about 1/3 the number of people who die from guns. 11,000 vs 30,000. That number has gone down every year since it became a public health issue. According to the CDC, the number of deaths due to alcohol consumption, not including accidents and homicide, was about 26,000. There is far more regular use of alcohol in this country than there is regular handling of firearms. The rate of death per exposure is far less.
Originally Posted By TomSawyer CDC data on alcohol: <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/alcohol.htm" target="_blank">http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastat...ohol.htm</a>
Originally Posted By gurgitoy2 I just don't get the disconnect here. Ok, lots of DUI's, we get it. But, like many have pointed out, they have dramatically decreased in the last 20 years because of stricter regulations. They obviously didn't disappear, but they decreased. So, how is it bad to want gun deaths to decrease by enacting stricter regulations? Would your response to the amount of DUI's every year be to open the floodgates and basically say "more alcohol" everywhere, including schools? Install beer vending machines in the lunchrooms? Eliminate the legal drinking age completely? What??? So, considering how unreasonable that would be, why is it ok to look at gun violence that way? No restrictions at all, instead just add more guns into the mix? That's the answer?
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>Would your response to the amount of DUI's every year be to open the floodgates and basically say "more alcohol" everywhere, including schools?<< If the alcohol industry had a guy like Wayne LaPierre running the show, their response would be an emphatic YES! Because the true goal of the NRA is to generate more gun sales and nothing else. Their advice to someone choking would be to eat more food to shove down the bit you're choking on. No point listening to the NRA on the matter until they decide to rejoin the world of the rational. The early posts in this thread were pointing sarcastically at Troll Donny's usual response about how alcohol is worse than guns and that's legal and stuff and so there. Or whatever nonsense he spouts, looking to stir up crap and distract from the very real problem of gun violence this country suffers from. I'm kind of surprised that needs to be explained at all really.
Originally Posted By ecdc You guys clearly just don't remember all those times someone walked into a school with a bottle of whiskey and killed all those kids with it.
Originally Posted By TomSawyer Or how often someone's kid is killed when someone is cleaning a bottle of beer and it accidentally goes off.
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Originally Posted By DDMAN26 Don't they always shoot each other in places like Compton, Crenshaw and South Central. This really is nothing new to California
Originally Posted By mawnck >>This really is nothing new to California<< And you would know about this, how? And anyway, this happened in my neighborhood, nowhere near the LA County locations you mention. Believe me, it's something new to us. I'm sure Orange and San Bernardino counties appreciate your constantly confusing us with LA County (see also: the whole Chris Dorner thing), but it's really just one more example of how adept Conservatives have become in ignoring every conceivable fact that doesn't suit them - even basic textbook geography. The perp was not a gang member, nor did he have a criminal record. He was a nut who somehow managed to get his mitts on a gun. Since every nut in the country can get his mitts on practically any gun he wants, regardless of where he lives (thanks, NRA!), this has nothing in particular to do with California.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder No, this latest tragedy is much different than bangers shooting each other and doing drive-bys. This latest one had some 20 year old kid ripping off shotgun shots at random people on the freeway after killing a girl at his house. He stopped people, demanded their cars, executed them, then moved on to the next one. A completely, senseless, random path of ultra-violence.
Originally Posted By ecdc Just like that time that guy walked into the mall and murdered all those people with that swimming pool. (Feel free to swap out swimming pool with the red herring of your choice.)
Originally Posted By DDMAN26 Again I'm just wondering there have been shootings in this country for years. There are neighborhoods where kids couldn't even go outside because there would be sounds of gun fire. But I guess because some of this is creeping into more affluent communities suddenly people care.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder "Again I'm just wondering there have been shootings in this country for years. There are neighborhoods where kids couldn't even go outside because there would be sounds of gun fire. But I guess because some of this is creeping into more affluent communities suddenly people care." Seriously? I really try to give you a pass on many things you write, and so I don't join in the chorus that slams you time and again. But I'm really beginning to think you just simply lack the ability to think analytically about anything more complicated than what's for dinner. Yes, there's gang violence, primarily in urban, less affluent areas. But WHERE this latest rampage happened isn't as nearly significant as WHAT happened, unless you're mawnck, because it apparently occurred right outside his window. This guy shot someone in his house, an unfortunately too common occurence. However, he took it the extra mile or two by then getting in a vehicle and going on a killing spree. He confronted a 69 year old man at gunpoint who was stopped at an intersection. The man obediently got out of his car, was led over to the curb, and then he was executed, in front of people, all for no reason other than to take his car. That could have been ANYBODY, including you. The man did everything he was supposed to and still took several shots to his chest. This kid also rode the freeway randomly shooting at people, hitting many, and took other cars as well, shooting those people. It was the kind of a rampage that is made from the stuff of your worst nightmare, NONE of it having to do with the neighborhood it was in. Process THAT, and if you don't get it, process it again and again. It comes on the heels of several tragic shootings across the country, gang related or not, and DEMANDS an answer other than anything from Wayne La Pierre or "guns don't kill people, people kill", or some equally senseless retort of "what about all the DUIs". Our country has made it far too easy to kill each other because of our fascination with guns, and this episode cements the notion that any one of us could be next. We need to do something as a country to stop it. Not doing anything is the coward's way.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 Some people already cared, and still do, about the poor communities. But I don't think the new round of attention is just because recent events have happened in more affluent communities. I think it's just that there was an event that shocked everybody, and then some long pent-up opinions that many people already had about gun violence found expression. Plus, the NRA went from being this scary thing that no one dare cross to being their own worst enemy, leading to (I hope) a tipping point number of people thinking "maybe we CAN get something done, finally."
Originally Posted By DDMAN26 There was never much to curb gun violence in mostly minority neighborhoods prior to this.
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt "But I guess because some of this is creeping into more affluent communities suddenly people care." There is some validity to this. As long as the violence is contained in minority neighborhoods it's business as usual. Now that there's been several decades of highly publicized mass shootings perpetrated by young white suburban males people are finally realizing that there is a violent crime problem in America.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <There was never much to curb gun violence in mostly minority neighborhoods prior to this.> Thank you, NRA, who keeps it from happening anywhere, by and large. And limiting gun restrictions to a city (like Chicago) doesn't do much good anyway, as long as the laws are lax as can be the minute you step outside the city limits.
