Dear Editor:
I am aware that gun violence is a highly debatable issue and the talking points about gun violence don't square with the facts. Just for the record, states with the strictest gun laws have the highest number of gun violence.
The far left refuses to confirm the existence of black-on-black shooting or violent criminal illegals as part of gun violence in America.
Police cite the fleet of illegal firearms into the streets and gang disputes that erupt over social media platforms. Yet there are deep social problems at play as well, including long histories of poverty, joblessness, segregation and neglect.
Most people with mental illness don't harm others. Discrimination and prejudice keep people with mental illness from seeking treatment so they can get better and function in society.
The point is: There is no universal accepted definition of mass shooting.
The United States Congressional Research Service acknowledges that there is not a broadly accepted definition, and defines a "public mass shooting" as one in which four or more people selected indiscriminately, not including the perpetrator, are killed, echoing the FBI definition of the "mass murder." Another unofficial definition of a mass shooting is an event involving the shooting (not necessarily in death) of four or more people with no cooling-off period. Related terms include school shooting and massacre. (Wikipedia)
Mass shootings account for a tiny proportion of all deaths. Of the total 33,594 who died in shootings in 2014 there were21,386 suicides; 11,008 homicides of which 14 died in mass shootings; 1,200 other includes accidental deaths and war casualties. Source: CDC/Mother Earth. All figures 2014.
Chicago continues to be the runaway leader in sheer volume of killings and shootings. Chicago had 50 more homicides than New York and Los Angeles combined through mid-June, even though it is far less populous than both. By Jeremy Gorner Chicago Tribune June 30, 2017.
Others contend that mass shootings should not be the main focus in the gun law reform debate because these shootings account for less than 1 percent of the U.S. homicide rate and believe that shootings are hard to stop. They often argue that civilians with concealed guns will be able to stop shootings. Mass Shooting-Wikipedia.
"Public opinion is a compound of folly, weakness, prejudice, wrong feeling, right feeling, obstinacy and newspaper paragraphs," Robert Peel