[Neighbors] The AMA calls for enabling research into gun violence

Thu Jun 16 16:32:05 MDT 2016

https://everytownresearch.org/gun-violence-by-the-numbers/

Maybe these numbers are helpful? Guns claim about the same number of people as car crashes every year and over sixty percent are suicides.

I'm curious if anyone on this list has a specific story about why he or she needed a gun he or she owns. What do you do with them? Why are they important to you?

Guns seem to amplify the momentary passion into a mistake that ruins lives in ever rippling circles out from the wielder. Even the pre-school friends of the cousin of the family that is massacred deal with the shadows of an out of control gun moment. Why allow such a destructive machine into the hands of distraught teenagers, or anyone who is having a bad day?

As someone who has never owned a gun and never imagined I needed one, (even when I was being held up with one in San Francisco some twenty years ago) I find myself unable to understand the zeal with which gun owners defend their right to own them. And I am unable to fathom why restricting access to firearms is more controversial than restrictions on any other life threatening commercial product. I don't think the "right to arm militias" outlined in the second amendment to the Constitution is any more "god given" than the counting of black Americans as 3/5's of a person. Nor does the second amendment necessarily apply to private gun ownership, except in occasional interpretations by the Supreme Court, a hardly representative body only integrated in gender and race in the last 25 years.

We are required to pass a test, hold a license, register our cars, and carry insurance to drive a car. We are even regulated in our driving of cars as to speed and safety. Drunken driving is a felony crime, whether or not you hurt someone. (I do think the violence cars inflict every year is a bit high for a federally funded transportation method. Wars haven't had such a high death toll in generations, and yet we put our children in cars, legislate parking requirements for new construction, and resist taxation for other forms of public transportation. The 911 death toll happens roughly 10 times every year and yet there is no sense of resistance to car based development.)

I usually find this is a knee jerk argument. No amount of discussion results in changing minds on either side, but I thought I would offer a perspective in honor of those who died last Sunday morning, in honor of my college classmates' child who was killed at Newtown, in honor of my husband's student who killed himself because a gun was available on a bad day, in honor of the family wiped out a few years ago linked by friendship to ours, in honor of all the needless deaths and in honor of those who are working to change this situation.

In respect and affection,

Catherine

Catherine Page Harris, MLA, MFA
Asst. Prof. of Landscape Architecture
 and Art & Ecology
University of New Mexico

http://cargocollective.com/landwork/Catherine-Page-Harris
505 205 5165
________________________________
From: Neighbors_nobhill-nm <neighbors_nobhill-nm-bounces at mailman.swcp.com> on behalf of Susan Michie via Neighbors_nobhill-nm <neighbors_nobhill-nm at mailman.swcp.com>
Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2016 3:28:30 PM
To: Zachary Benz; Nob Hill
Subject: Re: [Neighbors] The AMA calls for enabling research into gun violence

Approximately 30,000 people die in fatal car crashes every year too. Down from 50,000 in the 70s-80s. We have somehow managed a ton of research that has helped us figure out how to make owning and operating a car safer without limiting how many cars a responsible, law abiding citizen can own and drive.

Why can't we do that with guns? Why is it that every time someone mentions gun control or reducing gun violence, someone else assumes that their right to own a gun will be taken away? It just doesn't make good sense.

Susan

________________________________
From: Zachary Benz via Neighbors_nobhill-nm <neighbors_nobhill-nm at mailman.swcp.com>
To: Nob Hill <neighbors at nobhill-nm.com>
Sent: Wednesday, June 15, 2016 6:54 PM
Subject: Re: [Neighbors] The AMA calls for enabling research into gun violence

Neighbors,

I can fully understand what would lead someone to consider arming themselves for self defense.  Below is a picture of a bullet I found on my roof just a few weeks ago.  I don’t pretend to think there is a simple answer to gun violence, but I do hope there is something we can do to better understand its nature and its causes.

As has been correctly pointed out, anything to do with federal funding for research is going to have to happen at the federal level.  I wonder, though, if we couldn’t leverage the resources in our own community (e.g. UNM, APD, BCSO) to contribute to a deeper shared understanding of the problem by collecting and analyzing data from Albuquerque.  This may well already be happening in some form, but if so, I’m not aware of it.

Best regards,
-Zach

[X]

On Jun 15, 2016, at 2:45 PM, Anderson Robert <citizen at comcast.net<mailto:citizen at comcast.net>> wrote:

To bring this home to Coal Ave I saw a group of motorcycle riders roar past my house one day some with guns high on their hips.

IMO the problem is not regulations on guns but the break down of our society due to many causes like changes in technology, identity, foreign policy all of which get reflected in the behavior and survival needs of individuals.  Until we address that it will not do much.  But we should try.

I hear gun shots in the night all the time around here.  Not very comforting.

Bob

On Jun 15, 2016, at 10:29 AM, Sally Beers via Neighbors_nobhill-nm <neighbors_nobhill-nm at mailman.swcp.com<mailto:neighbors_nobhill-nm at mailman.swcp.com>> wrote:

Jack,
I tend to disagree with you.

Albuquerque has gun violence problems and we should be open to new ways of curbing them.

I am thankful for Zach's post and feel his input is exactly the kind of issue I want to hear from my neighbors.

Respectfully,
Sally Beers

--------------------------------------------
On Wed, 6/15/16, Allyn via Neighbors_nobhill-nm <neighbors_nobhill-nm at mailman.swcp.com<mailto:neighbors_nobhill-nm at mailman.swcp.com>> wrote:

Subject: Re: [Neighbors] The AMA calls for enabling research into gun violence
To: "Zachary Benz" <zbenz at me.com<mailto:zbenz at me.com>>
Cc: "Hill, Nob" <neighbors at nobhill-nm.com<mailto:neighbors at nobhill-nm.com>>
Date: Wednesday, June 15, 2016, 6:18 AM

President
Obama's Surgeon General is using the AMA as a back door
means to grab guns.  There is no need to bring this
political issue into our neighborhood e-mail nor bother Pat
Davis with this.  I'm not sure what the point of this
e-mail is.
Thanks,Jack
From:
"Zachary Benz via Neighbors_nobhill-nm"
<neighbors_nobhill-nm at mailman.swcp.com<mailto:neighbors_nobhill-nm at mailman.swcp.com>>
To: "Pat Davis"
<patdavis at cabq.gov<mailto:patdavis at cabq.gov>>, neighbors at nobhill-nm.com<mailto:neighbors at nobhill-nm.com>
Sent: Tuesday, June 14, 2016 8:43:41
PM
Subject: [Neighbors] The AMA calls
for enabling research into gun violence

Pat, Neighbors,

I can appreciate
that there are many opinions out there on gun rights and on
the causes of gun violence.  It would seem to me that the
American Medical Association's call for allowing
government researchers to be allowed to study the causes of
gun violence is highly sensible, and could be supported by
many across the political spectrum. Currently the federal
government is forbidden from funding research into gun
violence, leaving us all to lean on anecdote and our own
necessarily limited individual experiences rather than
shared deep insight.

The AMA put out the following statement
today:

"With approximately 30,000 men,
women and children dying each year at the barrel of a gun in
elementary schools, movie theaters, workplaces, houses of
worship and on live television, the United States faces a
public health crisis of gun violence. Even as America faces
a crisis unrivaled in any other developed country, the
Congress prohibits the CDC from conducting the very research
that would help us understand the problems associated with
gun violence and determine how to reduce the high rate of
firearm-related deaths and injuries. An epidemiological
analysis of gun violence is vital so physicians and other
health providers, law enforcement, and society at large may
be able to prevent injury, death and other harms to society
resulting from firearms."

Best regards,
Zach
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