The New York Daily News cover on Va. shootings

So, this isn't really related to your point. This post just got my curious about the numbers.
All numbers for 2013:
There were 10,076 people killed in alcohol-impaired driving crashes. This number includes drunk drivers who were killed, to the best of my ability to tell. I tried to find out how many of the 10,076 were the drunk drivers themselves but couldn't find a number.
There were 11,208 firearm homicides. This number does not include murderers who turned the gun on themselves, fwiw.
I debated if the more apples-to-apples comparison would be drunk driving deaths with firearm deaths (homicide + suicide). I wasn't sure, honestly. If anyone was curious, that number was 32,383.
I also debated, if I was trying to make it apples-to-apples, if I should include accidental firearm deaths (like children who play with the parent's gun). I decided I didn't really know where that fit in the analogy, so decided to best leave it be. Or I got lazy. Whatever.
I was also curious about the total number of kids killed in each instance. The number I found for drunk drivers was age 0-14, so that's what I used for gun violence.
200 kids ages 0-14 are killed by drunk drivers each year. 409 kids ages 0-14 are killed by firearms each year.

I don't have any grand conclusions after looking at these numbers. As I mentioned, I'm not really trying to make a point. Just wondered about some numbers when I saw this post. If you, dear reader, have wondered, too, maybe I've saved you some work. Or maybe I've just wasted your time.

 

Read a column today that mentioned this cover by the New York Daily News. In 1928, a photographer snuck in a camera and took a photo of a woman named Ruth Snyder being executed. So this is really nothing new. Maybe we're all just a lot more sensitive now than we used to be.

 

Terrible page. Where are the additional entry points?

 

More TWU dipshittery.

First, anyone with discipline can drink one drink every night and never have a problem, other than the cost. I'm told this is even beneficial.

A gun is for one purpose -- killing or injury.

Say someone gets drunk. Unless this person plows a tour bus or takes out 15 cars on the freeway, the death count will be lower than in, say, Blacksburg. Or De Kalb. Or Newtown. Or (the list goes on ...)

Again, say someone gets drunk. Shit happens. The bar that sold those drinks can then be sued for an assload of money. I'm not sure that happens very often after, say, Blacksburg. Or De Kalb. Or Newtown. Or (the list goes on ...)

These comparisons of guns to cars or knives or vodka shots or billy clubs or 5-way chili bowls are always the shining pinnacle of unlimited stupidity.

 

Someone has their dictionary out tonight.

 

I'm coming from all the way back on the first page of this thread to ask, "What did?"

I ask this in all seriousness. I don't read the NY Daily News, and, although I know its reputation and tendencies, I'd have been genuinely interested in being a fly on the wall at that day's editors' meeting. I'm guessing there are discussions of things, and exceptions to many things, and I wonder, really, what factored into their decision-making regarding this.

I know people have brought up Lee Harvey Oswald's killing and Robert F. Kennedy's final moments as examples of people's deaths that were shown live, in real time (or nearly, anyway), but even those are different than this case. Oswald (allegedly) assassinated the president of the United States, and RFK was, well, RFK, and was a leading candidate to become president. In short, they and their deaths were definitely and obviously newsworthy enough for their violent deaths to be shown, almost live, on the front pages of every newspaper in America.

But Alison Parker and Adam Ward? I'm not sure yet how I feel about it -- I keep vacillating back and forth -- but I definitely would have thought long and hard before plastering running photos of their deaths on the front page of my newspaper. I just wonder how the NY Daily News' conversation about this might have gone.

And if I were Parker's parents and family, I think I might be trying to sue the NY Daily News right now. I might not succeed, of course, but I think I'd be that upset, outraged, distraught and disbelieving, and would be making the attempt.

 

6.

 

The argument against the NYDN front page?

"What if the schoolchildren see!

Yeah, what if? What if children (and their parents) are forced to confront the fact that guns are a horrible force of destruction, killing, fear, and mayhem? What if everyone sees an image that makes them uncomfortable and upset because the world is uncomfortable and upsetting? We should be uncomfortable! Be upset! Feel like shit this week!"

That counterpoint comes from a Gawker piece that I agree with. Yes, that front page is insensitive, outrageous and upsetting, which is exactly the way we should feel when this kind of thing happens in our country. There have been at least 887 mass shootings since Sandy Hook, according to Vox, and yet nothing has changed. How many of those were you truly outraged for? How many do you even remember? This is an epidemic and it needs to be in your face and in mine for anything to be done.

This Is a Good Newspaper Front Page

 

As a delivery system, the modern firearm is particularly brutal in its efficiency. The weapon Flanagan wielded delivered 8 shots in a manner of seconds. You'd be hard pressed to produce that much carnage in the same span with a knife, a hammer, a screwdriver or any of the other objects I've seen mentioned by gun rights supporters over the past two days.

But regardless of the weapon used, and the diligence of our efforts to keep said weapons out of the hands of criminals and/or the mentally unstable, I don't see us getting anywhere until we address the root cause of all this killing: our society's utterly callous disregard for the sanctity of life.

The NYDN cover illustrates that phenomenon perfectly, and for that reason alone it has value.

We've had guns for a long time. We've had crazy people for even longer. Still, with absolutely zero statistics to back up my suspicions, it feels as if there now are an unprecedented number of humans who feel entitled for whatever reason to snuff out the life of another.

Not being particularly hashtag savvy, I'm hesitant to attempt the launch of a #alllifematters movement. I'm equally aware my effort would be lame and feeble and wouldn't make the slightest difference.

I am inclined, though, to raise an uncomfortable question about the role that moral relativism, collapse of the family unit, poverty, greed, executed convicts, aborted fetuses, violent movies/TV shows/video games and any number of other factors have played in the overall loss of respect for life.

Because isn't that ultimately the problem we need to solve? Whether I shoot you with a gun on live television or merely look the other way while my state straps you to a gurney and pumps poison into your veins, you end up equally dead.

On second thought, let's just confiscate guns. That might be easier.

 

What role have aborted fetuses and moral relativism played in the plummeting of the U.S. homicide rate over the last few decades, which is actually what has happened?

 

(W)ith absolutely zero statistics to back up my suspicions, it feels as if there now are an unprecedented number of humans who feel entitled for whatever reason to snuff out the life of another.

In 1993, gun homicides occurred in the United States at a rate of 7.02 per 100,000 people.

By 2010, that rate was 3.59 per 100,000 people.

The rate was cut in half, essentially, in 17 years.

Most of the drop occurred over a five- or six-year period in the 1990s, and it has held fairly steady since then. Experts largely attribute the drop to the end of the crack epidemic.

 

Yeah, I recall seeing those stats posted somewhere else and basically knew I wasn't supported by the numbers.

Still feels like overall, respect for human life is at an all-time low.

But I guess that depends on how many others, as I do, believe that "human life" includes both fetuses and 22-year-olds convicted of capital murder.

Note: I understand my view is in the minority here, so no need to call me a "Jesus freak" or anything similar.