orichalcum: (Pre-Rafe)
orichalcum ([personal profile] orichalcum) wrote2007-04-20 02:35 pm
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A little in shock

I was reading an editorial by Bob Herbert today (locked, unfortunately) which mentioned that the U.S., every year, has 30,000 gun deaths.

To put that in perspective:
649 accidental deaths
88 children expelled _per week_ for bringing a gun to school (All stats are from http://www.bradycampaign.org)
1200 teenage suicides each year
16,000 adult suicides
11, 624 murdered by guns each year.
8 children and teenagers killed by guns in the U.S. every day.
Firearm homicide is the leading cause of death for black males aged 15-34.
In 2004, 56 people were murdered by firearms in Australia, 184 in Canada, 73 in England, 5 in New Zealand, 37 people in Sweden.

I know this is an area where I disagree on some points with a lot of folks. But I found these statistics chilling - and surely we can all agree that any system where 1000s of kids can put firearms in their backpack and bring them to school is deeply messed?

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