American Murder and Mayhem

http://www.santafenewmexican.com/Local%20News/122112guns#.UNSZ0eQ72So

There is a common thread tying together the mass murder Connecticut and the gun violence in the Black community. 

That thread is the denial that lax gun laws have had a disastrous influence on the entire country at all social strata. 

From Role/Reboot 

Why Most Mass Murderers are Privileged White Men
By Hugo Schwyer 
http://www.rolereboot.org/culture-and-politics/details/2012-07-why-most-mass-murderers-are-privileged-white-men?fb_action_ids=4270127115308&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=288381481237582

"White men from prosperous families grow up with the expectation that our voices will be heard. We expect politicians and professors to listen to us and respond to our concerns. We expect public solutions to our problems. And when we’re hurting, the discrepancy between what we've been led to believe is our birthright and what we feel we’re receiving in terms of attention can be bewildering and infuriating. Every killer makes his pain another’s problem. But only those who've marinated in privilege can conclude that their private pain is the entire world’s problem with which to deal. This is why, while men of all races and classes murder their intimate partners, it is privileged young white dudes who are by far the likeliest to shoot up schools and movie theaters."

From: U.S. Department of Justice
Office of Justice Programs
Bureau of Justice Statistics

Trends by race
Blacks were disproportionately represented among homicide 
victims and offenders 
 In 2008, the homicide victimization rate for blacks (19.6
homicides per 100,000) was 6 times higher than the rate for
whites (3.3 homicides per 100,000).
 Th e victimization rate for blacks peaked in the early 1990s,
reaching a high of 39.4 homicides per 100,000 in 1991.
 Aft er 1991, the victimization rate for blacks fell until 1999, when
it stabilized near 20 homicides per 100,000.
 In 2008, the off ending rate for blacks (24.7 off enders per
100,000) was 7 times higher than the rate for whites (3.4
offenders per 100,000)
 The offending rate for blacks showed a similar pattern to the
victimization rate, peaking in the early 1990s at a high of 51.1
offenders per 100,000 in 1991.
 Aft er 1991, the off ending rate for blacks declined until it reached
24 per 100,000 in 2004. Th e rate has since fluctuated, increasing
to 28.4 offenders per 100,000 in 2006 before falling again to 24.7
offenders per 100,000 in 2008.



From: Forbes Magazine

Gun Violence: How Research on an American Health Crisis Has Been Suppressed

http://www.forbes.com/sites/robwaters/2012/12/17/gun-violence-americas-secret-health-crisis/

The effort to kill the Prevention Center failed but Congress cut the CDC’s budget by $2.6 million—the amount thought to be spent on the offending publication—and passed language declaring: “None of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control.”

With that act, the nation’s leading public health agency was effectively barred from making recommendations on a public health problem that constitutes one of the leading causes of death of Americans. The law remains in effect, and it’s had a chilling effect on research, says David Hemenway, professor of health policy at the Harvard School of Public Health and director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center.

• Children age 5 to 14 living in states with high rates of gun ownership and weak gun laws were more likely to die in homicides, suicides or accidental shootings in their home, according to a 2002study. In the five states with the highest rates of gun ownership, kids were 3.3 times more likely to die in a gun homicide, 6.7 times more likely to die in a gun suicide and 16 times more likely to die of an unintended gunshot, compared with kids in the five states with the lowest rates of gun ownership.

• Firearm homicide rates in the U.S. in 2003 were 20 times greater than in 22 other high-income countries, according to a studypublished last year. Among 15-to-24-year-olds, the homicide-by-gun rate was 43 times greater. While the other countries had a total population of 564 million compared with 291 million in the U.S., 80 percent of gun deaths occurred here.

• A 1997 study looking at the largely employed members of a health maintenance organization around Seattle found that if anyone in a family had purchased a gun, the odds of a homicide occurring in their home were twice as high as in the homes of health-plan members of the same age, sex and neighborhood who hadn’t bought guns.

• In homes where a gun was kept, there was a 2.7 times greater risk of a homicide taking place compared to homes without guns, according to a 1993study conducted in the counties including Memphis, Seattle and Cleveland.