Author: Zero Ponsdorf

Who would have thought it?

U.S. Murder Toll From Guns Highest in Big Cities: CDC

Large metropolitan areas suffer about two-thirds of all firearm homicides in the United States, with inner cities most affected, according to a new report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”The central cities really bear the burden of firearm homicides,” said Linda L. Dahlberg, the associate director for science in CDC’s Division of Violence Prevention, noting that the gun murder rate was highest among male children and teens.

These findings “speak to the importance of addressing youth if we really want to do something about the gun violence problem,” Dahlberg said.

According to the CDC, 25,423 murders by gunfire took place in the United States in 2006 through 2007 — the years of the most recent available statistics.

Among these deaths, the rate of firearm homicides was higher in inner cities than in other parts of cities and higher than the murder rate of the country as a whole, Dahlberg said. People living in 50 of the largest cities, in fact, accounted for 67% of all firearm homicides.

Now I’m not making light of the plight of folks in big cities… only the  notion that this new or news.  There have been many studies over the years with rats and monkeys (et. al.) that have demonstrated what can happen in overcrowded environments.

The first step in problem solving is to correctly identifying the problem one is trying to solve.  Yet again pointing at guns would seem to be missing that mark by a large margin.

To be fair this article does offer some common sense towards the end:

Gary Kleck, the David J. Bordua Professor of Criminology at Florida State University in Tallahassee, has another take on how to reduce inner-city gun violence.

The evidence suggests that better gun control doesn’t necessarily reduce violence, but a broad-based approach tends to reduce homicide in general, he said.

For one thing, “locking up more criminals reduces violence; it’s not gun specific,” he said.

More from Gary Kleck below the fold.

(more…)

Worth noting just because… of This

Jose Guerena, 26,survived two tours of duty in Iraq as a marine, only to be gunned down in a hail of 71 bullets in his own Tucson, Arizona home, while his wife and four-year old son hid in a nearby closet.

TAH has been on top of this, but now it has gone international.

The  dancing WILL get faster.

Thanks folks.

That term has many meanings, but this coming Monday it means something special.

A pal of mine, and freind to many will be laid to rest near Broken Arrow in Oklahoma on Monday.

I posted about this earlier.

She IS a Broken Arrow, I just didn’t catch the irony sooner. Not WAS a Broken Arrow, mind you.

The PGR will be there, and it looks as though there will be a Rose Granite monument later as well.

I can’t make it, but I did ask Larry Bailey to offer a single rose on my behalf.

No, not OBL… The real deal.

In solemn ritual, sailors commit fallen to the deep

In the middle of a busy day training off the Virginia coast, about two dozen sailors stop what they’re doing, change into their dress whites and gather in the well deck – a cavernous space at the rear of their ship that opens to the sea and the sunlit sky.

Five small metal containers sit on a table, holding the ashes of four men and a woman. The sailors know nothing about them except their name and rank. They’ve gathered in response to a simple command: “All hands, bury the dead.”

I’ve never heard that call over the 1MC; I’ve heard “General Quarters, General Quarters, THIS IS NO DRILL!” and other calls, but “All hands, bury the dead.” gives me cold chills.

Seven sailors raised their rifles at Harper’s command, then fired three shots. The shells clattered to the steel deck.

Through it all, Yee, Meier and the chaplain held their salutes. Taps sounded over two loudspeakers. After the last note played, the ship’s second-in-command, Lt. Cmdr. Shawn Bohrer, said, “This concludes the committal of SHC Marion Tisdom. At ease.”

For all its ceremony, the service took no more than about 10 minutes.

BZ