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America’s Gun Problem: How To Help Solve Our Mass Shooting Epidemic

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The United States has a gun problem, but can we do anything to fix it?

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you’ve most likely heard about the numerous shootings recently, including the shocking incident that occurred on live TV last month. We’ve decided it is time to have a serious conversation about gun violence – but first, here’s a little quiz.

Can you guess which product was considered so dangerous, the United States government changed the way it was sold? Here’s a description of the product. See if you can guess what it is.

This product has a federal regulation requiring the purchaser to present photo identification at the time of purchase, and stores are required to keep personal information about purchasers in a written or electronic “logbook” for at least two years. The log must identify the products by name, quantity sold, names and addresses of purchasers, and the dates and times of the sales. Regulated sellers must ensure that customers do not have direct access to this product before the sale is made, and there is a limit to how many an individual can purchase in a single day, and in a month.

Were you able to guess what the product was? The answer is pseudoephedrine, a decongestant found in cold and allergy medicines like Sudafed and Allegra. That’s right. There are more restrictions on the amount of medicine (which helps relieve pain) a person can buy, than there are for the amount of bullets (which are used to harm people) a person can buy. Maybe that’s part of the problem with America’s mass shooting epidemic. See the FDA’s allergy medicine regulation here.

According to the New York Times, more Americans have died from guns in the United States since 1968 than on battlefields of all the wars in American history. So why is it that the United States strongly resists implementing life saving regulations when it comes to gun and bullet sales?

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A crazed disgruntled employee made national headlines a few weeks ago when he gunned down a reporter and cameraman on live TV, but that’s not the only horrific gun incident that occurred recently. Here’s a sampling:

Christopher Starks, 22, died after being shot at Savannah State University on August 27. If gun shootings at college campuses aren’t enough to spark change, how about guns in elementary schools? A third grader brought a .380 semi-automatic handgun to school on August 25, and a bullet grazed the leg of a little girl after the gun went off in class! To top things off, Chicago had their deadliest day in more than a decade when nine people were killed and twelve others were wounded in shootings across the city on September 2. 

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Columbine, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, the Aurora, Colorado movie theater, South Carolina’s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. What’s it going to take America? 

Let’s be clear about one thing. Gun control does not mean banning guns. It means controlling and regulating them. It means implementing practices like mandatory background checks, increasing access to some mental health records, limiting the monthly and daily sales quantities of guns and bullets to individuals, requiring pins on guns before they can be used (similar to how you access your smart phone), and gun locks, to name a few options. There are numerous ways to pass gun safety laws without taking away a person’s right to own a gun.

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Gun control opponents like to say that many people die from auto accidents each year, so why don’t we ban cars? Nicholas Kristof from the New York Times explains how we should use car laws as an example for how we should treat gun laws.

Cars are actually the best example of the public health approach that we should apply to guns. Over the decades, we have systematically taken steps to make cars safer: We adopted seatbelts and airbags, limited licenses for teenage drivers, cracked down on drunken driving and established roundabouts and better crosswalks, auto safety inspections and rules about texting while driving.

This approach has been stunningly successful. By my calculations, if we had the same auto fatality rate as in 1921, we would have 715,000 Americans dying annually from cars. We have reduced the fatality rate by more than 95 percent.

The number one thing you can do to inflict change is to contact your Congressman and your Senator and demand they take appropriate action to advance gun control. Last, but not least, make sure you know where candidates stand on gun control laws during the next election. 

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Do you have ideas on how we can lower gun violence in our country? If so, let us know in the comments section below.

 

Images: March On Washington For Gun Control 26 January 2013. Photos by Elvert Barnes via Flickr and a CC license

 


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Trump: ‘We’re Bringing Back God’

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President Donald Trump delivered a forceful message to attendees at the March for Life rally in Washington, D.C.

In pre-recorded remarks, the president told the anti-abortion gathering, “under the Trump administration, we’re strongly defending religious liberty, we’re bringing back faith in America.”

“We bringing back God,” Trump declared.

Having praised the end of the constitutional right to abortion, Trump said, “the work to rebuild a culture that supports life continues in every state, every community, and every part of our beautiful land.”

“This is a battle that must be fought, must be won, not only in the corridors of power, but, above all, in the hearts and souls of the people,” he continued, suggesting a desire to end all abortion in the United States.

“We have stopped forced taxpayer funding of abortion at home and abroad, we’re championing faith-based adoption and foster care, and supporting our parents by investing $1,000 into an account that will grow over time for every newborn baby.”

READ MORE: ‘Good Chance’ Trump Will Be Electorally ‘Humiliated’ in November: Carville

Vice President JD Vance told attendees, “let the record show you have a vice president who practices what he preaches,” before announcing that he and his wife Usha are expecting their fourth child, as Fox News reported. “And it will be our third baby boy. So, we’ll take whatever prayers you can give. We certainly need them.”

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson also spoke at the rally, declaring that Republican policies “support” American families.

“Republicans are working hard to deliver on the mandate you gave us in the last election, to make it easier than ever before, to raise a family in this great country of ours. And because we know that support for American families doesn’t end at birth, our policies reflect this.”

Critics challenged Johnson’s claim.

Health care activist Melanie D’Arrigo remarked that Republicans offer no universal health care, paid family leave, universal childcare, a living wage as a minimum wage, affordable housing, or tuition-free public college, but, she said, they have rolled back labor laws, gutted food assistance, and deregulated food safety.

READ MORE: Trump Promotes His Triumphal Arch as Millions Face Massive Storm

 

Image via Reuters 

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Trump Promotes His Triumphal Arch as Millions Face Massive Storm

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Americans in more than half the country are bracing for “hazardous ice, heavy snow and brutal cold” from a storm that a National Weather Service forecaster has predicted will be “crippling.” A potentially “catastrophic” ice storm is headed for the Southeast, and at least 14 states across the country have already declared a state of emergency.

The “potentially historic, massive winter storm will slam more than half of the United States today, moving east as it brings heavy snow, widespread ice accumulation and dangerous cold,” NBC News reported. “Up to a foot of snow is likely on the northern side of the system from Oklahoma to Massachusetts, according to the National Weather Service.”

About 1,300 flights have already been canceled ahead of the storm that is expected to hit 40 states across the nation.

Business Insider reported, “Americans strip store shelves bare as millions brace for a potentially historic storm.”

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump on Friday morning took the opportunity to mock what he called “Environmental Insurrectionists,” as he asked, “whatever happened to global warming???”

READ MORE: ‘Blitzkrieg Against Public Opinion’: Columnist Calls Trump’s Agenda a ‘Cry for Help’

Hours later, Trump posted to Truth Social artist’s renderings of his Triumphal Arch, which he wants built in Washington, D.C, near the Lincoln Memorial — with a start date of sometime in February. He wants it completed by Independence Day for the nation’s 250th anniversary celebration.

“It hasn’t started yet. It starts sometime in the next two months. It’ll be great. Everyone loves it,” Trump told Politico in December. “They love the ballroom too. But they love the Triumphal Arch.”

Last month, President Trump revealed what the White House’s top domestic policy goal is. The president shared with attendees at a Sunday holiday party that the “primary thing” for the head of his Domestic Policy Council, Vince Haley, is building Trump’s dream arch in Washington, D.C.

“Vince is unbelievable on policy. And we have a policy thing that’s going to be unbelievable happening,” Trump said of the proposed arch, as The Daily Beast reported.

READ MORE: ‘Good Chance’ Trump Will Be Electorally ‘Humiliated’ in November: Carville

“It’s something that is so special. Uh, it will be like the one in, in Paris, but to be honest with you, it blows it away. Blows it away in every way,” Trump said. “And Vince came in one day and his eyes were teeming. I mean, he couldn’t believe how beautiful it was. He saw it and he wanted to do that. That’s your primary thing.”

Critics slammed the president for focusing on his arch while ordinary Americans are struggling.

Patriot Takes, a social media account with nearly half a million followers, blasted the president, sarcastically saying he “is laser focused on things that matter to the American people.”

READ MORE: Sean Duffy’s DC IndyCar Grand Prix Dream Is Stalling
Image via Reuters 

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‘Blitzkrieg Against Public Opinion’: Columnist Calls Trump’s Agenda a ‘Cry for Help’

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President Donald Trump’s coalition is “falling apart,” according to columnist Matt K. Lewis, who writes at The Hill that Trump’s list of accomplishments seems more like “a cry for help.”

Pointing to Trump’s rapid subject-changing, Lewis noted that the president kicked off the new year by invading Venezuela and capturing Nicolás Maduro.

“From there, things escalated briskly,” he wrote. “He defended an ICE agent who shot and killed a protester in Minneapolis named Renee Good. He threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act. He threatened to take Greenland — possibly by force. He threatened to slap tariffs on European allies over Greenland. He suggested his failure to win the Nobel Peace Prize justified taking Greenland. And he almost failed to issue any acknowledgment of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, waiting until bedtime to do so.”

Lewis says that while somewhere there is a “constituency” for each of these individual actions, “taken together, they resemble a blitzkrieg against public opinion.”

READ MORE: Sean Duffy’s DC IndyCar Grand Prix Dream Is Stalling

He summed up Trump’s low poll numbers and concluded, “America has seen this movie before, has been reminded of how it ends, and is already edging toward the exit.”

So, if the 2024 election held today, it’s “not at all clear” that Trump would win. he said, in part because “Trump’s winning coalition was so sprawling and incoherent that pleasing one group would automatically enrage another.”

So what’s happened in the past year?

“Trump is very good at campaigning and very bad at governing. This explains almost everything that has happened since he took office one year ago this week, including the nation’s rising consumption of Rolaids.”

Disappointment from the “newer members of his coalition” came from “the ultimate realization that Trump’s most electorally appealing promises — such as lowering grocery prices on day one — are never actually going to happen. Indeed, Trump’s policies — tariffs, for example — were almost custom-made to increase grocery prices, which is generally frowned upon by people who eat.”

As it turns out, “Trump’s true superpower … only works when he is not actually in charge.”

READ MORE: ‘Good Chance’ Trump Will Be Electorally ‘Humiliated’ in November: Carville

 

Image via Reuters 

 

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