courtesy NBCNews.com

December 14 is the sixth anniversary of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School; this slaughter of six year olds was the event that a mourning nation hoped/believed would be the path towards a conversation on sensible gun reform, not the repeal of the 2nd Amendment but a rational discussion on background checks, high capacity magazines and weapons of war.

Six years later there is no place in America where a child, teenager, young adult and adults are safe from mass murder.

Since the Texas Tower Massacre in August 1966, 1387 people have been slaughtered in mass killings; this number includes 162 children, the youngest being eight months old and two unborn children. For a country not at war, America is the most violent nation on earth, an average of 342 people are shot per day, 96 of those people die, on average 17,207 children and teens are shot per year, 2,737 die. If a disease killed this many people, the outcry and demand for a cure would be overwhelming. – Letter to the Editor at AZDailySun.com, Gun Control Reform Still Needed Six Years Later

80 COMMENTS

      • ALL GUN CONTROL LEGISLATION IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL. Yet, you’ve arrived at the ONLY legitimate path towards change. If those that want to restrict or ban the right to keep and bear arms, there’s only one legitimate way. And that’s clearly proscribed through the Constitutional amendment process. They can have at it. Anything else is illegitimate tyranny.

        • Beware the echo chamber. I like it when the antis post here. It gives texture to the conversations. Besides, MSNBC and CNN have a highly controlled comments section, assuming they have comments open, which, more often than not, they don’t.

      • It would appear you need a little education on what the history of the first ten amendments(AKA “The Bill of Rights”) actually WAS, as opposed to what you were told it was by CNN and MSNBC.

    • Don’t cut this off too quickly, I want to hear more about the “sensible gun control” which would have prevented Sandy Hook. I mean, the kid murdered his MOTHER, in her sleep, in order to obtain the firearms used, tell me the specifics of a sensible law which would prevent that, in anyone’s wildest dreams. What was mentioned at the time by the moron in the oval office was universal background checks, to get you started. Exactly HOW would that have changed a damn thing? The only “sensible gun law” which could have stopped that event would be requiring all school employees to be armed. Let me explain how that would have changed things; When the principal and counselor went to the front to confront the armed man they saw coming on closed circuit, one would have carried a pump 12-guage and the other an AR. When he shot his way through the (brilliant defense) glass wall beside the door, they would have converted him to hamburger before he got his foot in the door. Now, you go ahead and tell me how that UBC would have worked.

  1. Proposed 25 September 1789
    Ratified 15 December 1791

    No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

  2. …and tens of *thousands* die annually in vehicle crashes. Countless *billions* of dollarS have been spent trying to make vehicles safer, and they still continue to slaughter children.

    WHEN WE WILL WE FINALLY COME TO OUR SENSES AND STOP THIS MADNESS???

    Ban motor vehicles, NOW!

    • Thanks Geoff. Don’t forget smoking, alcohol, heart disease, cancer, diabeeetus, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

      To be sure, a terrible tradegy. But, it’s barely a statistical blip. It’s truly sad that many people are unable to see it for what it is – something that almost never happens.

    • Mr Fraser, here are some terms to become familiar with. They are called statistics and probability. In terms of violent deaths per 100,000 of population, the USA is not even in the top 20 or 30. For truly violent societies you do not have to leave the continent. Mexico, Guatemala, and Venezuela (yes, the people’s socialist democratic republic of Venezuela) have much, much, much higher violent crime rates than the USA. And so do other countries such as obvious ones including South Africa, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and even many European countries including France, Germany, Ireland, and ye olde marry England.

      In probabilities in a country with 350 million people even an event that has a daily risk of 0.0001 % could occur up to 350 times per day.

      My apologies if the concepts and maths confuse you.

  3. They um actually aren’t immune from mass murder anywhere in the world. That includes many places with super strict gun control. In some cases especially in places with super strict gun control.

    • You mean like actually “Authoritarian/Totalitarian countries”. The same direction in which the PEOPLE of “Reasonable gun safety talks” wants the USA to become…A Freedomless, orwellian police state in the name of public safety…For the children….

      • Something like that. Perhaps along the lines of how it’s illegal to list starvation as the cause of death for a child in Venezuela now.

        • Or malnutrition? Just watch the medical journals for an upswing in deaths from very weird conditions.

          In the former Soviet Union doctors, and especially military doctors, were forbidden to record deaths or illnesses from radiation exposure, so there were lots of reports of people suffering from jaundice. Hence the old joke about how to find Nothern Fleet sailors. Turn out the lights because they glow in the dark.

  4. Okay that entire story is full of misleading information and outright lies. Our country is not the most violent country in the world it’s not even close we’re ranked like 25th. And we have not been this safe from any type of violence since 1961 we are actually safer than we were back in the late 50s early 60s. People that get killed murdered or assaulted with Firearms every year let’s give it a high number War even include suicides let’s give them 35,000 people. President Obama paid millions of dollars to the Center for Disease Control to find out all about deaths related to firearms and at the same time the CDC investigated how many lives are saved every year buy firearms or by the using of a firearm. This number at the low end was a half a million live saved every year and that went all the way up to over three million lives saved by the use of firearms. So clearly Firearms save more lives every year then they take. These types of Statistics that weren’t even done by a Republican president but by an organization in tracking deaths and causes. Sponsored by President Obama and then politely tucked away when the real evidence showed the light of day that Firearms are not the evil tool of crazy lunatic gun owners but a life-saving tool that’s used every day in America to prevent rape homicide and assault. Whoever wrote that article was clearly not educated at all.

  5. Uh… how about in the countryside? If you’re all by yourself you’re 100% safe from mass murder.

      • Anyone who doesn’t care if they’re murdered as long as it’s not part of a ‘mass murder’.

        • I would! In a minute…If I won the lottery! I would then definitely bale out of this Socialist-Marxist $#!Thole state, STASI police-state Gun Control, Illegal 🚫 Aliens πŸ‘½, political corruption, etc…..Private property with very large backyard in the middle of nowhere…My own private shooting range, lots of backwoods to do some SUV /Truck mud running with my brother, made a medium sized private pond with decent game fish…And of course, all the modern conveniences in house….Sounds nice!

  6. This sad commentary is entirely the fault of weak-kneed deamonrats and chicken s..t RINOs. The article yesterday re. school shooter ed. is the proper response, armed teachers. the end to GFZs is a must. Question TTAG; are these killings broken down firearm type? Long gun/pistole?

  7. There are two explanations why TTAG starts off with a letter to the editor by a nobody to what is basically a neighborhood newspaper.

    (1) They have nothing to write about
    (2) Clickbate to keep traffic up so they can sell more advertising

    What’s next? Combing through Daily Kos comments section for juicey material?

    I can understand opening with an OPED in the NYT or a statement by somebody who matters but the constant publishing of what amounts to be comments by the mirror image of us is a waste of electrons.

    I have a suggestion. Why not start with the Daily Digest and give us both our positive and negative daily fluff?

    The annual carnage of gangbangers in Chicago, DC and Baltimore exceeds the 50+ year total of mass shootings.

    • “I have a suggestion. Why not start with the Daily Digest and give us both our positive and negative daily fluff?”

      TD, the ‘Daily Digest’ is missing and presumed dead.

      I, however, have been posting occasional ‘Fluff’, here and there, like this one, last night :

      …an update for the now-presumed-dead β€˜Daily Digest’,

      β€˜Christmas Cheer, with guns!’ Edition :

      β€œPolice: Man shoves Christmas tree, fires gun at roommates”

      β€œFRANCIS, Utah (AP) – A Utah man is facing charges after police say he drunkenly knocked over a roommate’s Christmas tree and then fired about 15 shots from a handgun at two people.”

      https://www.localnews8.com/news/regional-news/police-man-shoves-christmas-tree-fires-gun-at-roommates/923925171

      (I’m just shocked I didn’t see the the term β€œFlorida Man” in that one.)

      Fluffy enough, for ya? πŸ˜‰

    • This ‘letter to editor’ is another drop in stream of brain washing anti human rights propaganda. Goebbels knew that million times repeated lie becomes not only truth, but common knowledge.

      I believe that TTAG posts examples like this to illustrate gun grabber’s thinking and mind tricks.

      • Scoutino,

        Got it in one. Quote of the day posts like this are meant to educate readers on how the opposition thinks. It’s good to know what’s going on rather than to live in an echo chamber.

  8. The two unborn children don’t count as they were potential candidates for abortion anyway. This guy needs to be better informed about his party’s platform.

    • I thought there was no such thing as unborn children. I think they meant two clumps of cells. The party of science doesn’t believe that life exists inside the womb. That would put a major damper on abortion.

  9. Two-thirds of US gun deaths are suicides. Eliminating guns will NOT change the number of people killed, other means will be used to kill.

    Gun-free Japan has an Intentional Death Rate (homicides + suicides) that is 40% HIGHER than the Intentional Death Rate in the US. Culture and mental state are the major factors in killings, not firearms possession.

    Meanwhile, 1,000 people are killed every day in the USA by medical incompetence. Those are deaths caused by mistakes, not the deaths of folks dying of disease or old age.

    Earth is a dangerous place. Always has been, always will be.

  10. I am NOT a Newtown denier but has anyone seen any definitive proof the lunatic Lanza boy acted alone?!? Anyone?

    • He didn’t act alone. He was enabled by his mother, the court system and the school system. Everybody knows it and nobody in a position of authority has the stones to say it.

      • Besides, like Rahm Emanuel, long time Democrat activist, Mayor of one of America’s most violent and corrupt city governments, Obama and Clinton crime organization general, once said, “You never let a serious crisis go to waste.”

    • To be fair, there were a lot of survivors, they would have probably mentioned it if there was a second shooter.

  11. What do you mean we haven’t had a “conversation”? We have been talking about this for 6 years and beyond. They just can’t admit they have lost the conver. Having a “conversation” doesn’t mean passing anything, compromising on anything or even getting your way. Conversations are just that. We have had it and a majority don’t want change. Get over it. Us pro-gun people and the 2A won.

  12. Who is safe from ANYTHING ANYWHERE? Never have been, never will be on this earth.

    Stupid headline and gloom and doom thinking. How about all the millions of children in America who WON’T be killed by mass murder?

  13. Six years later there is no place in “THE WORLD” where a child, teenager, young adult and adults are safe from mass murder.

    Fixed it for ya.

  14. “If a disease killed this many people, the outcry and demand for a cure would be overwhelming”

    Yet there are tons of diseases that kill many times this number of people per year and I have yet to hear an “overwhelming outcry and demand” for a cure to the flu, diabetes, heart disease, COPD, Alzheimer’s, cancer or even a whimper about a lot of other diseases claiming 20K+ lives a year in the United States.

    Cold as it sounds, statistically “gun violence” just isn’t a huge problem in a country of 325 million or so people. For example, according to Wikipedia (yes I know I shouldn’t use that as a primary source), excluding suicide, 13,286 were killed with guns in the US last year. Meanwhile 51,537, 3.8 times more people, died from the flu.

    • You are correct, gunshot wound’s are not a significant cause of death in the U.S. – even as a percentage of actual deaths. Even including suicide, gunshot deaths account for about 1.3% of the deaths in the U.S. (35,000/2,700,000) Exclude the suicides and we are talking about 0.4% of *the people who die*.

      The article highlights the comparison between injury and illness as causes of specifically youth death because it is intended to be emotionally charged. They avoid mentioning, of course, that this has been true in one form or another for centuries. Young people, who survive birth, don’t mainly die from disease, they die from injury. Old people, who have survived or avoided injury, die from disease. Leading causes of death for people older than 1 or 2 and under 40 are typically injury based and for people over 40, disease based.

      Looking across all age groups, the CDC category of “unintentional injury” accounts for about 6% of the deaths each year in the U.S. (160,000/2,700,000) Most years, about 7% of that 6% is from gunshot wounds.

    • Yeah, especially seeing the medical community gets a lot of income $$$$$$$$$$ for NOT curing anything! Just smoke 🚬 and mirrors from THEM…Lots of cash rich patient money to prolong an illness to the end…Lots of money to bankrupt the common folks families for extended patient care….Why cure cancer, or other deadly illnesses…When a For-Profit Hospital can charge ridiculous medical bills $$$K !

  15. The “lunatic Lanza boy” did not act alone.

    He was abetted for years by people who neither limited his reach, nor helped his health, nor again adjusted his environment to aid him, or address his presence.

    He was abetted, perhaps aided, by the systematic incompetence and denial emplaced around him for years. Policies, personnel, programs in the school, law enforcement, govt services, and oversight, at least.

    He was aided in his infamous violent moments by people who cooperated with his mass murder scenario: bunch up, don’t flee; remain outside, don’t enter; no response until the bosses have the situation wired, optimize for optics.

    So, the solution is banning guns that he didn’t use, from people who have done nothing wrong, with enforcement that can’t work landing on peaceful, legal activities, not mayhem.

    We’ve known since Columbine what responses help, when the finally manifests. If ya wanna help his like less, guns are the last place to try. Apparently even dozens of dead children is not enough to drive the people who failed to look at what’s really going on: to do what might really help.

  16. Primary source of violent crime? Low income urban minorities.

    Democrat solution? Target legal firearms popular with middle class whites.

    If just ONCE they addressed something honestly, I might listen to them. But their only goal is to piss off people they hate.

  17. No, your kids aren’t safe, and they never were. They never will be, either, and that’s why they require protection. Their only protection (which is different than ‘safety’) comes from adults, until such time they can be trusted to protect themselves. Obviously after several generations of kids raised by single mothers and absentee fathers, relying on strangers to provide protection, this concept is becoming increasingly foreign and ‘archaic’ to many.

    Also, “most violent nation on Earth?” Where do these idiots get this stuff?

    • England, a shining example of gun sense! No danger here, they just…. Uh, wait, got blown up attending a pop concert by, um wait… France, yep, safe! No danger here, they… Ugh got mowed down by more of those guys, uh, Norway, youth are safe… Wait, no, slaughtered by the dozens, Canada, no just had a shooting in Toronto and wait was that crazy bus guy… Australia, yes they reformed all their guns! Argh, that Sydney hostage chocolate shop…

      Well I am sure all of those were America’s fault anyway! We made the terrorists, I mean, freedom fighters, uh, the Resistance feel sad and because as love guns it rubbed off on them and that is why they killed in these other countries!

  18. Still counting 19 year old gang-bangers as “children” are we?

    The Everytown numbers are horse-hockey.

    Proposition: every 30 minutes a child is killed or injured by a gun.

    Math: that’s 2 children per hour or 48 a day x 365 days in a year = 17520 a year.

    Newsweek: actually it’s less than 7000.

    CNN: guns kill 1300 children a year.

    Statisticians and scholars: Children under the age of 15 have the lowest fatal firearm injury rates (0.6 per 100,000).

    So… not even 1 in 100000. When you count actual minors who don’t have a drivers’ license yet. But that’s not what normal people think of when they think of “children.” But this is how people get played by Everytown.

    The numbers touted by Everytown are complete manure. But unless they grossly inflate the numbers they can’t complain that there is an actual problem.

    • “Still counting 19 year old gang-bangers as β€œchildren” are we?”

      Caderyn, the ‘(Un)Affordable Care Act’ considers up to age *26* to be ‘childhood’…

  19. d-rats commit almost all crime. for starters, sensible “gun reform” would entail the permanent exclusion of d-rats from all appointed/elected political offices.

  20. The writer’s Opinion Piece is dishonest. I refuse to refute such a blatantly, grossly untrue propaganda pieces point by point, but I grow tired of the leftist media repeating lie after lie. A few points make the lies stand out.

    “on average 17,207 children and teens are shot per year, 2,737 die.” The propagandist can reach that number ONLY by including gang shootings done by drug thugs. The numbers of kids under 15, and NOT in an urban gang, are more like 100 or so killed by someone who used a firearm.

    “Since . . . August 1966, 1387 people have been slaughtered in mass slayings.” That averages to less than 27 people a year. Interestingly, more people die in accidental drownings in swimming pools EVERY year. More people are murdered by fists every year. More people are killed with baseball bats each year. More people choke to death on their dinner each year. In a country of over 300 million people – 26 is a tiny number.

    The premise of the writer is that because people are allowed to have guns, children are murdered in mass. That too, is dishonest. Published statistics clearly establish that schools in the USA are safer than they have ever been. The real record shows that there are fewer assaults, fewer rapes, fewer injuries of all kinds, and notably – fewer murders, fewer incidences of firearm use, and fewer murders now, than ever before. Further, evidence shows that assailants who encounter ARMED response on entry to schools seldom kill anyone but themselves.

    On the list of countries where mass murders of children occur in schools, the USA does not even rank in the top 25 and almost all of the top 25 severely restrict firearms and explosives.

    “most violent” ? ? Actually – if you exclude the murders and assaults by young black males in urban drug gangs and young illegal aliens in urban drug gangs – the USA would rank in the top 20 safest countries in the world.

  21. Theres this one disease found in hospitals that kill way more than guns. I believe it’s called doctor…πŸ€£πŸ˜‚πŸ€£πŸ˜‚πŸ€£πŸ˜‚πŸ€£πŸ˜‚πŸ€£. My doctors are great though!

  22. Looks like the letter-writer had the numbers all pre-determined for him/her, and just had to fill in the blanks in the form letter he/she sent in to express the outrage, OUTRAGE I say, that he/she allegedly felt. That is, if the letter-writer was not a member of the Brady group, Moms, or some other anti-gun group.

  23. Been seeing that the left is highly oposed to teachers carrying guns to protect student , the excuse I hear most is racist white teachers lmfao would single out minority students and we would have hundreds of unjust killings by scared teachers I say if that’s what your worried about give the teachers access to non lethal ammunition or taser guns it doesn’t have to be about killing anyone to protect the kids so long as it works , guns are tools and there are many ways to use them I promise you will take someone down quick enough to detain them or escape with you and your students lives using rubber ammo or bean bags from shotguns unless and nother have as much of a concern of shooting innocent kids by pass through or misses but that would make way too much sense right?

  24. OK boys and girls please leave the room and let the adults have a real “ADULT” conversation. Let’s start with are any of the steps being taken for gun control effective in taking guns away from CRIMINALS, a real adult would say “HELL NO”, remember are real adult looks at facts not feelings! Are there places where getting gun into by some Joe Smoe walking in off the street, YES, yes there are all major government buildings and airports. How do they do this by Layers of security! Someone looking at facts would see any moderate security system i.e. simple metal detectors, controlled entrances and security at the doors.

    Let’s be honest taking guns from CRIMINALS, WILL NOT EVER HAPPEN! Like the truth or not that is a fact! So let’s work on really protecting children and stop nonsense that does nothing but further lies to the public!

  25. 1300 killed in mass shootings since 1966. That sounds like pretty good numbers. That is almost nothing. Really if you are not poor and don’t live in a poor area, you have little reason to worry about being shot. Obviously crime can strike anywhere but your odds are significantly better of living a long life if you are middle class or live in a rural area.

  26. “America is the most violent nation on earth” – Remind me, again, why that caravan of refugees are looking for safety here.

  27. Apparently people aren’t safe in French Christmas markets nor Brazillian Catholic cathedrals either.

    One doesn’t want to be smug and cynical in the face of tragedy, but when both the other countries and our own self appointed guardians of wisdom and culture constantly lecture us on how only in America do people die in “gun violence,” because of our abhorrent gun culture and inability to submit to their totalitarian demands…. Well you see news like today and want to rub it back in their faces.

  28. Looks like the communists are putting AZ in the cross hairs. Bring in on, we welcome being the site of your first decisive, financial and ideological defeat. The actual defeat won’t take much longer. Shall Not Be Infrindged. No Compromise, No Retreat, No Surrender. -30-

  29. America is the most violent nation on earth…

    Apparently someone hasn’t been outside of the U.S.

    Even Canada’s “gun violence” is increasing and could easily become an all time high. That’s right, Canada is starting to have a big problem with males running around shooting people with handguns. There was an attempted mass killing with a handgun that killed two females before the shooter was killed. Handguns are highly controlled and there is no right to carry your gun around for self defense.

    • OTOH, I haven’t heard much recently from the Canada PM about his invitation to every one on the planet to come to Canada, we will welcome you. Curious?!

  30. And as yet The Truth About Guns has yet to report on the Strasbourg France mass shooting but it has time and space to report on a nonentity.

  31. “there is no place in the world where a child, teenager, young adult and adults are safe from mass murder.”

    FTFY.

    It can and does happen anywhere. Your government can’t and won’t protect you. Be vigilant and be prepared.

Comments are closed.