In strict gun control Japan man kills 7 with knife, truck

5.56X45mm

Milforum Mac Daddy

TOKYO — A Japanese man rammed a truck into a crowd of shoppers, jumped out and went on a stabbing spree in Tokyo's top electronics district Sunday, killing at least six people and wounding 12 others. A news report said a seventh victim had died.



The deadly lunchtime assault paralyzed the Akihabara neighborhood, which is wildly popular among the country's cyber-wise youth. The killings were the latest in a series of grisly knifings that have stoked fears of rising crime in Japan.



A 25-year-old man, Tomohiro Kato, was apprehended in the attack. Local news reports initially said the man was a self-proclaimed mobster, but national broadcaster NHK later said the suspect was not a gang member.



"The suspect told police that he came to Akihabara to kill people," said Jiro Akaogi, a spokesman for the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. "He said he was tired of life. He said he was sick of everything.

"

The violence began when he crashed a rented, two-ton truck into pedestrians. News reports said he jumped out and began stabbing the people he'd knocked down with the truck, then turned on horrified onlookers.



Police confirmed six deaths — five men and one woman — but they could not say whether the victims had died of injuries from the truck or were stabbed to death. NHK reported that a seventh victim had died, but police could not immediately confirm that.



Reports said the attacker grunted and roared as he slashed and stabbed at Sunday shoppers crowding a street lined with huge stores packed with computers and other advanced electronics, and the latest in video and computer games.



"He was screaming as he was stabbing people at random," an unidentified witness told NHK.



The attack paralyzed the district. At least 17 ambulances rushed to the scene, and TV footage showed rescue workers tending to victims in the street.



Once rare, stabbing attacks have become more frequent in Japan in recent years as violent crime has increased.



In March, one person was stabbed to death and at least seven others were hurt by a man who went on a slashing spree — with two knives — outside a shopping mall in eastern Japan. In one of the worst attacks, a man with a history of mental illness burst into an elementary school in Japan in 2001 and killed eight children. The killer was executed in 2004.




http://www. foxnews. com/story/0,2933,364321,00. html


Looks like in spite of the hysterical media assertions that guns are required for mass killings....they really aren't. They better ban knives, trucks, and mental illness.
 
[/size]Looks like in spite of the hysterical media assertions that guns are required for mass killings....they really aren't. They better ban knives, trucks, and mental illness.

yeah because the outcome would have been so much better had he had a gun and for the record I don't think any one has said guns are "required" for mass killings they are just the preferred weapon for mass killing.

Seriously your arguments are flawed, cyclic and weak, whats next multi-car accident on the M1 could have been avoided had British drivers been armed?

This is a fine example of Perseus's "If you repeat it often enough someone will believe it" post of earlier.
 
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I have to agree with Montyb, the conclusion would have been far worse if he had a access to a gun. Stabbing someone isn't that easy, if you want to kill someone using a gun is far easier and more efficient.
If you look at the Mall incident in Minneapolis 11 people were killed, and of course Virginia tech over 30 people were killed. Both of those crimes used guns.
 
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If guns are to blame for folks killing people and are to be banned than they also ought to ban pencils for the all the mistakes they made on my papers during math classes.
 
That would be true if both the pencil, knife and the gun had control over its own actions.
 
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Well, if people in Japan had the right to carry it is possible that he would've been killed before he could do too much damage.

I've accepted the fact that there are plenty of insane and/or bad people out there and killings like this are pretty much standard worldwide. This won't change, no matter what society becomes, because it's human nature.
 
Well, if people in Japan had the right to carry it is possible that he would've been killed before he could do too much damage.


Thats an interesting argument however it has flaws that those who push this style of thinking continually over look and the biggest one of those is that if one person can carry a weapon then so can the rest and that includes the bad guys so the argument that everyone being armed makes people safer is only accurate if you are prepared to be preemptive in the use of the weapon.

I've accepted the fact that there are plenty of insane and/or bad people out there and killings like this are pretty much standard worldwide. This won't change, no matter what society becomes, because it's human nature.

The question is do you try and improve the situation or do you just regress to the methods that have failed throughout history?
 
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The incidents where carrying a firearm has led to multiple deaths is when only one party had the gun.
Bystanders tend to intervene better when they can take action at a distance, even if it means the assailant has a similar reach.
I'd pull a pistol out to stop some mad man with a pistol than pull a knife against some mad man who's got a knife.
 
The incidents where carrying a firearm has led to multiple deaths is when only one party had the gun.
Bystanders tend to intervene better when they can take action at a distance, even if it means the assailant has a similar reach.
I'd pull a pistol out to stop some mad man with a pistol than pull a knife against some mad man who's got a knife.

So what we start handing out snipers rifles to civilians so that they will feel safer getting involved?

Lets assume 5.56 gets his wet dream granted and we start handing out 9mm's in cornflakes boxes and with birth certificates do you really think the world will be safer?
Will the number of murders drop? (No where in the history of the world has this ever been the case)
Will we achieve some Utopian society? (Just take a look at every third world crap hole, the one thing they all have in common is a **** load of weapons on the streets).


or will we just have created a mini-arms race where we have him back here telling 10 years down the track bleating on about his rights being infringed because he cant own an automatic weapon even though "criminals" will be using them by then?

Simply put mankind will always find a way to kill each other we are a creative species so we are left with two options:
1) We can go for the free for all approach and arm everyone and everything and hope like hell the number of nutjobs doesn't increase.
2) We can accept that we cannot stop people killing each other and do all we can to make it difficult to do on a grand scale.

Personally I prefer option 2.

PS: Before someone pops up with "but we wont give guns to the crazy ones" how well has that worked to date?

As for me I would love to live in a world where I could buy and use firearms hell I would be happy not to have to jump through hoops to legally own the firearms I have but I am not naive enough to think that everyone out there is going to be responsible enough to make my life easier, in fact all I can rely on is that because of the stupidity of the human race I will get to jump through more hoops to keep what I have.
 
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MontyB, that's not what I meant and you know that.
Don't be a prick.
In countries where gun control have been successful, I guess gun control works fine in terms of keeping the death rate in crime low.
However, when such said person appears in public with a legal weapon, say like a sword even, then you're pretty screwed until the guy's luck runs out. You won't have that sort of problem if the said assailant has a pistol and so do a heck of a lot of bystanders. Chances are that there are more people who know how to point and shoot a pistol than a guy who knows how to sword fight that happens to be shopping for electronics with his $1,000 Katana.
As for societies where it's too late... it's too late. Keep gun ownership legal.
 
Nobody can carry or would they be allowed to legally who was not trained, qualified through authorized training and so on. Fact is, look at states and loacl area's in the USA where the gun control crap was eased, almost immediately, the crime rate decreased and stayed low.
 
The question in your PS. It worked fine until the left insisted on outrageous privacy policies.


How can you claim that when there has been at least 50 school shootings since 1996 that resulted in the death and wounding of one or more people and thats just schools.

Should we arming elementary school kids, not a lot of point in arming arming teachers given that the average class size in a public school is roughly 23 there just isn't enough teachers to provide adequate protection and lets face it some of them wont want to be armed.
 
How can you claim that when there has been at least 50 school shootings since 1996 that resulted in the death and wounding of one or more people and thats just schools.

Should we arming elementary school kids, not a lot of point in arming arming teachers given that the average class size in a public school is roughly 23 there just isn't enough teachers to provide adequate protection and lets face it some of them wont want to be armed.

The Virgina Tech shooting is a prime example of what has happened.

Seung-Hui Cho was under federal law unable to own a firearm but because of the HIPPA Law (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act). His mental disorder was not disclosed when the background check was done. Also Virgina Law allows people with legal conceal carry permits to carry firearms on school campus but Virgina Tech made a ruling that you cannot. That law has recently been changed.

Those that get conceal carry permit have to go through a criminal background check but State Law Enforcement, get their finger prints taken, take a certification course, and they cannot be one of the following.

* Anyone who has been convicted in any court of, a felony punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding 1 year, excluding those crimes punishable by imprisonment related to the regulation of business practices.
* Anyone who is a fugitive from justice.
* Anyone who is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance.
* Anyone who has been adjudicated as a mental defective or has been committed to a mental institution.
* Any alien illegally or unlawfully in the United States or an alien admitted to the United States under a nonimmigrant visa. The exception is if the nonimmigrant is in possession of a valid hunting license issued by a US state.
* Anyone who has been discharged from the Armed Forces under dishonorable conditions.
* Anyone who, having been a citizen of the United States, has renounced his or her citizenship.
* Anyone that is subject to a court order that restrains the person from harassing, stalking, or threatening an intimate partner or child of such intimate partner.
* Anyone who has been convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence.
* A person who is under indictment or information for a crime (misdemeanor or felony) punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year cannot lawfully receive a firearm. Such person may continue to lawfully possess firearms obtained prior to the indictment or information, and if cleared or acquitted can receive firearms without restriction.

It has been statically proven that conceal weapon permit holders have lower brushes with the law, traffic tickets, violent issues, etc....



Some (but not all) states publish statistics indicating how many people acquire permits to carry concealed weapons, and their demographics. Reported permit-holders are predominantly male. For example, while over 60,000 women were licensed in Florida as of June 2007, 85% of permit holders were male in that state.[37] The number of permit-holders has been growing. Michigan, for example, reported more than 40,000 applications in a one year period.[38] Florida has issued over 1.2 million permits since adopting the law, and has had more than 400,000 currently-licensed permit holders as of June 2007.[39]

Distribution by age is generally proportionate to the overall state adult population. In Florida, 26% of permit-holders are in the 21–35 age group, 36% are 36–50, 27% are 51–65, and 11% are over age 65. The numbers of permit revocations are small. North Carolina reports only 0.2% of their 263,102 holders had their license revoked in the 10 years since they have adopted the law.[40]

Permit holders are a remarkably law-abiding subclass of the population. Florida, which has issued over 1,346,000 permits in twenty years, has revoked only 165 for a "crime after licensure involving a firearm," and less than 4200 permits for any reason. [41]


As for my "wet dream" I think that you have taken things to far. I am a firm believer that an armed society is a polite society. But I don't think that "9mm in cornflakes" is the right answer. I believe that a society in which it's citizenry have conceal carry permits prevent crime.

Society has not changed in anyway since the days of past. Society is a very fragile and delicate thing that can break apart for such a small reason. Criminals are still predators. Self Defense is a human right.... you have the right to defend yourself with what ever tools you can.

Banning firearms will not solve the idea of criminals getting access to them. Look at nations in which firearms have been banned. Criminals still use firearms for crimes, crime rates went up, and in the case of the UK. The Bobbies, whom have gone unarmed for as long as time can remember are now armed.

Firearms are out on the streets. You will never get rid of them. It is the same as nuclear weapons. The secret has been released from the genie's bottle.

So with that..... what is better. A society in which only the criminal and the State has access to arms or a society in which the criminal, the State, and the Citizenry has access to arms? I'll take the later choice thank you very much.

Now, here in the USA we view firearms a little differently then those across the world. We were a nation of settlers. We used are firearms to feed ourselves and defend ourselves. We used firearms to free ourselves form the oppressive yoke of King George and the UK.

Firearms for us is so important we put it into our constitution. And our founding fathers said that the rights in the constitution are inalienable human rights. The term inalienable rights (or unalienable rights) refers to a theoretical set of individual human rights that by their nature cannot be taken away, violated, or transferred from one person to another. They are the most fundamental set of human rights, natural means not-granted nor conditional. They are applicable only to humans, as the basic necessity of their survival. Basically when our founding fathers founding this nation and the constitution they simply wrote down rights that we as people already have and that cannot be taken away.

If you don't remember MontyB, I've lived under a despotic regime. I fled it and came to the USA. For me the rights to keep and bear arms is as important as my freedom of speech and my freedom of religion. The fact that I can protect myself, my loved ones, and even complete strangers from criminals and a unjust government is something that I will never forget. I've seen what the State can do to people..... and I will never let that happen again.
 
It has been statically proven that conceal weapon permit holders have lower brushes with the law, traffic tickets, violent issues, etc....

It has also be statistically proven that dead people almost always stop breathing. Seriously how long did it take you to figure out that those who follow the laws have less issues with the police than those that don't?

You know I had a long and repetitive response ready to go on this and then I found this...

Death by the Barrel
David Hemenway applies scientific method to the gun problem


by Craig Lambert


This particular gun story took place, ironically enough, at the 1997 convention of the American Public Health Association in Indianapolis. There, among a group of white-collar professionals and academics, a seemingly minor incident quickly led to mayhem. While eating dinner at the Planet Hollywood restaurant, a patron bent to pick something up from the floor. A small pistol fell from his pocket, hit the floor, and went off. The bullet struck and injured two convention delegates waiting to be seated; both women went to the hospital.
"Why manufacture guns that go off when you drop them?" asks professor of health policy David Hemenway '66, Ph.D. '74. "Kids play with guns. We put childproof safety caps on aspirin bottles because if kids take too many aspirin, they get sick. You could blame the parents for gun accidents but, as with aspirin, manufacturers could help. It's very easy to make childproof guns."
Logic like this pervades Hemenway's new book, Private Guns, Public Health (University of Michigan Press), which takes an original approach to an old problem by applying a scientific perspective to firearms. Hemenway, who directs the Harvard Injury Control Research Center at the School of Public Health (www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc), summarizes and interprets findings from hundreds of surveys and from epidemiological and field studies to deliver on the book's subtitle: A Dramatic New Plan for Ending America's Epidemic of Gun Violence. The empirical groundwork enables Hemenway, whose doctorate is in economics, to sidestep decades of political arm-wrestling over gun control. "The gun-control debate often makes it look like there are only two options: either take away people's guns, or not," he says. "That's not it at all. This is more like a harm-reduction strategy. Recognize that there are a lot of guns out there, and that reasonable gun policies can minimize the harm that comes from them."
Hemenway's work on guns and violence is a natural evolution of his research on injuries of various kinds, which he has pursued for decades. (In fact, it could be traced as far back as the 1960s, when, working for Ralph Nader, LL.B. '58, he investigated product safety as one of "Nader's Raiders.") Hemenway says he doesn't have a personal issue with guns; he has shot firearms, but found the experience "loud and dirty—and there's no exercise"—as opposed to the "paintball" survival games he enjoys, which involve not only shooting but "a lot of running." He also happens to live in a state with strong gun laws. "It's nice," he says, "to have raised my son in Massachusetts, where he is so much safer."

Statistically, the United States is not a particularly violent society. Although gun proponents like to compare this country with hot spots like Colombia, Mexico, and Estonia (making America appear a truly peaceable kingdom), a more relevant comparison is against other high-income, industrialized nations. The percentage of the U.S. population victimized in 2000 by crimes like assault, car theft, burglary, robbery, and sexual incidents is about average for 17 industrialized countries, and lower on many indices than Canada, Australia, or New Zealand.
"The only thing that jumps out is lethal violence," Hemenway says. Violence, pace H. Rap Brown, is not "as American as cherry pie," but American violence does tend to end in death. The reason, plain and simple, is guns. We own more guns per capita than any other high-income country—maybe even more than one gun for every man, woman, and child in the country. A 1994 survey numbered the U.S. gun supply at more than 200 million in a population then numbered at 262 million, and currently about 35 percent of American households have guns. (These figures count only civilian guns; Switzerland, for example, has plenty of military weapons per capita.)
"It's not as if a 19-year-old in the United States is more evil than a 19-year-old in Australia—there's no evidence for that," Hemenway explains. "But a 19-year-old in America can very easily get a pistol. That's very hard to do in Australia. So when there's a bar fight in Australia, somebody gets punched out or hit with a beer bottle. Here, they get shot."
In general, guns don't induce people to commit crimes. "What guns do is make crimes lethal," says Hemenway. They also make suicide attempts lethal: about 60 percent of suicides in America involve guns. "If you try to kill yourself with drugs, there's a 2 to 3 percent chance of dying," he explains. "With guns, the chance is 90 percent."
Gun deaths fall into three categories: homicides, suicides, and accidental killings. In 2001, about 30,000 people died from gunfire in the United States. Set this against the 43,000 annual deaths from motor-vehicle accidents to recognize what startling carnage comes out of a barrel. The comparison is especially telling because cars "are a way of life," as Hemenway explains. "People use cars all day, every day—and 'motor vehicles' include trucks. How many of us use guns?"
Suicides accounted for about 58 percent of gun fatalities, or 17,000 to 18,000 deaths, in 2001; another 11,000 deaths, or 37 percent, were homicides, and the remaining 800 to 900 gun deaths were accidental. For rural areas, the big problem is suicide; in cities, it's homicide. ("In Wyoming it's hard to have big gang fights," Hemenway observes dryly. "Do you call up the other gang and drive 30 miles to meet up?") Homicides follow a curve similar to that of motor-vehicle fatalities: rising steeply between ages 15 and 21, staying fairly level from there until age 65, then rising again with advanced age. Men between 25 and 55 commit the bulk of suicides, and younger males account for an inflated share of both homicides and unintentional shootings. (Males suffer all injuries, including gunshots, at much higher rates than females.)
Though assault weapons have attracted lots of publicity from Hollywood and Washington, and NRA stands for National Rifle Association, these facts mask the reality of the gun problem, which centers on pistols. "Handguns are the crime guns," Hemenway says. "They are the ones you can conceal, the guns you take to go rob somebody. You don't mug people at rifle-point."
And America is awash in handguns. Canada, for example, has almost as many guns per capita as the United States, but Americans own far more pistols. "Where do Canadian criminals, and Mexican criminals, get their handguns?" asks Hemenway. "From the United States." Gang members in Boston and New York get their handguns from other states with permissive gun laws; the firearms flow freely across state borders. Interstate 95, which runs from Florida to New England, even has a nickname among gun-runners: "the Iron Pipeline."
 
The ways in which people die by guns would not make a good television cop show. Rarely does a suburban homeowner beat a burglar to the draw in his living room at 3 a.m. Few urban pedestrians thwart a mugger by brandishing a pistol. "We have done four surveys on self-defense gun use," Hemenway says. "And one thing we know for sure is that there's a lot more criminal gun use than self-defense gun use. And even when people say they pulled their gun in 'self-defense,' it usually turns out that there was just an escalating argument—at some point, people feel afraid and draw guns."
Hemenway has collected stories of self-defense gun use by simply asking those who pulled guns what happened. A typical story might be: "We were in the park drinking. Drinking led to arguing. We ran to our cars and got our guns." Or: "I was sitting on my porch. A neighbor came up and we got into a fight. He threw a beer at me. I went inside and got my gun." Hemenway has sent verbatim accounts of such incidents to criminal-court judges, asking if the "self-defense" gun use described was legal. "Most of the time," he says, "the answer was no."
Ask criminals why they carried a gun while robbing the convenience store and frequently the answer is, "So I could get the money and not have to hurt anyone." But as Hemenway explains, "Then something happens. Maybe somebody unexpectedly walks in, or the storeowner draws a gun. Your heart is racing. Next thing you know, somebody is dead."
Researchers have interviewed adolescents in major urban centers, where many inner-city kids carry guns. When asked why, the reason they most often give is "self-defense," adding that getting a gun is easy, something one can often do in less than an hour. Yet when researchers asked a group of teenagers, more than half of whom had already carried guns, what kind of world they would like to live in, Hemenway says that almost all of them replied, "One where it's difficult or impossible to get a gun."
Most murderers are not hired killers. Instead, killings happen during fights between rival gangs or angry spouses, or even from road rage, and leave deep regret in their wake. "How often might you appropriately use a gun in self-defense?" Hemenway asks rhetorically. "Answer: zero to once in a lifetime. How about inappropriately—because you were tired, afraid, or drunk in a confrontational situation? There are lots and lots of chances. When your anger takes over, it's nice not to have guns lying around."
Many suicides, similarly, are impulsive acts. Follow-up interviews with people who survived jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge reveal that few of them tried suicide again. One survivor volunteered this epiphany after jumping: "I realized that all the problems I had in life were solvable—except one: I'm in midair." In the United States, suicide rates are high in states with an abundance of guns—southern and western mountain states, for example—and lower in places like New Jersey, New England, or Hawaii, where guns are relatively scarce. Nine case-control studies have shown that guns in the house are a risk factor for suicide. Firearms turn the agonizing into the irreversible.

Virtually all industrialized nations have stronger firearms laws than the United States. We have no national law, for example, requiring a license to own a gun (though some states require one). Almost all other countries have licensure laws, and many demand that gun owners undergo training, also not required here. Hemenway scoffs at the rote objection, "A determined criminal will always get a gun," responding, "Yes, but a lot of people aren't that determined. I'm sure there are some determined yacht buyers out there, but when you raise the price high enough, a lot of them stop buying yachts."
In most of these United States, many types of gun sale trigger neither a background check nor a paper trail. "You can go to a gun show, flea market, the Internet, or classified ads and buy a gun—no questions asked," Hemenway says. It is illegal to sell a firearm to a convicted felon or for criminal purposes, although sting operations have proved that some licensed vendors flout even this proscription. "In 1998, police officers from Chicago (where possessing a new handgun is illegal) posed as local gang members and went firearms shopping in the suburbs," Hemenway writes. "In store after store, clerks willingly sold powerful handguns to these agents, who made it clear that they intended to use these guns to 'take care of business' on the streets of Chicago."
Some civil lawsuits have targeted gun manufacturers, seeking damages for the death and disability resulting from the use of firearms. In one sense, such plaintiffs are in the bizarre position of suing manufacturers for making products that perform as advertised. Yet there may be parallels to the legal assault on tobacco, another product that can be lethal when used as directed. "For decades, there were no plaintiff victories beyond the appellate level" in the tobacco litigation, Hemenway notes. "Reasonable suits might allege things that the manufacturers could do to make guns safer."
Many such changes are possible. Fairly small tweaks in design and engineering could save countless human lives—in much the same way that the 1985 law requiring a third brake light (the upper back light) on cars reduced rear-end collisions. For starters, making childproof guns is, well, child's play. Even a century ago, gunsmiths made pistols that would not fire unless the shooter put extra pressure on the handle while pulling the trigger; this required strength beyond that of a child's hand.
Many times a teenaged boy will find a gun such as a semi-automatic pistol in his home and, after taking out the ammunition clip, assume that the gun is unloaded. He then points the pistol at his best friend and playfully pulls the trigger, killing the other lad with the bullet that was already in the chamber. "People say, 'Teach kids not to pull the trigger,' but kids will do it," Hemenway says. In a 2001 study, for example, small groups of boys from 8 to 12 years old spent 15 minutes in a room where a handgun was hidden in a drawer. More than two-thirds discovered the gun, more than half the groups handled it, and in more than a third of the groups someone pulled the trigger—despite the fact that more than 90 percent of the boys in the latter groups had received gun-safety instruction.
Hence product redesign may do more good than safety education. Hemenway suggests such changes as adding "a magazine safety, so that when you remove the clip, the gun does not work. Or make guns that visually indicate if they are loaded—just like you can tell if there is film in a camera." A different design solution could help police, who often find that guns recovered from crime scenes are untraceable because it's "pretty easy to obliterate the serial number," Hemenway notes. "Often you can just file it off. You could make it hard to remove a serial number. You won't eliminate the problem, but you can decrease it."
 
One of Hemenway's main goals is to help create a society in which it is harder to make fatal blunders. He compares it to cutting down on speeding autos. "You can arrest speeders, but you can also put speed bumps or chicanes [curved, alternating-side curb extensions] into residential areas where children play....Just as...you can revoke the license of bad doctors, but also build [a medical] environment in which it's harder to make an error, and the mistakes made are not serious or fatal."
Yet even if such interventions became public policy, there would be no way to evaluate their impact without meaningful data. Consider the 1994 law that bans assault weapons, which is due to expire this year. "We don't know if homicides have gone up, down, or stayed the same as a result of this law," Hemenway says. "Or take unintentional gun deaths, of which there are about two a day. We don't know if they tend to occur indoors or outdoors, whether the victim is the shooter or another person, whether they involve long guns or handguns, if they occur in the city or country, or if patterns have changed over time."
This ignorance about gun deaths stands in sharp contrast to the wealth of useful data available on motor-vehicle fatalities, for which more than 100 pieces of information per death are collected consistently in every state. Shortly after its creation in 1966, the predecessor of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration began to record information like the make, model, and year of the car, speed limit and speed of car, where people were sitting, use of seatbelts and more recently airbags, weather conditions—these data and many more are available to researchers on the Web. Consequently, Hemenway says, "We know what works. We know that speed kills, so if you raise speed limits, expect to see more highway deaths. Motorcycle helmets work; seat belts work. Car inspections and driver education have no effect. Right-on-red laws mean more pedestrians hit by cars."
This kind of detailed information allows researchers to statistically evaluate the effects of laws. Regarding those right-on-red laws, for example, Hemenway explains, "If you only [tracked] traffic deaths, you wouldn't see this pattern. You need data on pedestrian deaths, and pedestrian deaths at intersections!"
In 1998, Hemenway and the Harvard Injury Control Research Center launched the pilot for what has become the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) in an attempt to assemble a similar database documenting violent deaths, including those by firearms. They funded 10 sites to organize a consistent, comparable set of data, using information that already existed. Vital statistics like age and sex were commonly available. The police have a good system for homicide data. Medical examiners' (coroners') reports are a rich source of information but are not part of any system and aren't linked to anything else; the same is true of crime lab reports. The new system will also provide important suicide data. (Currently, once a death is defined as a suicide, the police investigation ends, so "all we have are death certificates," says Hemenway. "They tell you nothing about the circumstances.")
Two years ago, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) took over administration of NVDRS; Hemenway estimates that funding the whole system for all 50 states would cost about $20 million. He will continue this work, but he is also getting involved with international firearms problems. Although high-income countries (other than the United States) generally don't have severe gun problems, the developing world faces major issues with guns in places like Jamaica, Colombia, and South Africa. The goal at home and abroad, he says, is "to make sure the guns we have are safe, and that people use them properly. We'd like to create a world where it's hard to make mistakes with guns—and when you do make a mistake, it's not a terrible thing."

Craig A. Lambert '69, Ph.D. '78, is deputy editor of this magazine.
Copyright ©1996–2007, Harvard Magazine, Inc.


Better dot the "i"'s and cross the 'T"'s I guess and add the link.

http://harvardmagazine.com/2004/09/p-death-by-the-barrel.html
 
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Look where the article came from, Harvard. One of the most Left leaning (anti-gun) schools in the country. Of course their going to come up with something to try to downplay the facts.
 
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