How many more have to die
from gun violence? Virginia Beach, El Paso, Dayton, and now Odessa, Texas—the
bodies pile up.
In Virginia, the legislature
will not discuss ways to curb the bloodshed. Governor Northam convened the
legislature following the Virginia Beach rampage, but the session lasted an
hour and a half, thanks to the shenanigans of politicians like Margaret Ransone
and Ryan McDougle.
Virginia is ripe for another
mass shooting, but Ransone and McDougle packed up and left Richmond without a
peep. A fitting tribute to the memory of those gunned down on May 31st
would have been a dialog about how to prevent this bloodshed.
When parents are forced to
buy bulletproof backpacks for their children; when innocent people are mowed
down in theaters, shopping malls, concerts or any place of public gathering, we
have a crisis.
The statistics from Michael
Bloomberg’s everytownresearch.org., (updated
on April 4, 2019) are shocking. Every day, guns kill an average of 100 Americans;
the average gun deaths per year are 36,383, the average number of injuries in
this country from guns, per year, is 100,120.
Access to guns increases the
risk of death by suicide three times. The U.S. gun homicide rate is 25 times
greater than other high-income countries.
Firearms are the second
leading cause of death for American children and teens—only exceeded by motor
vehicle accidents.
Guns play a huge role in
domestic abuse. Every month, on average, domestic partners gun down 52 women;
nearly one million women alive today have been shot by a domestic partner; and
access to a gun makes it five times more likely a women will be killed.
