Today as a nation we experienced another mass shooting but this one was an event unlike any other we've experienced. Today one of the places we as Americans hold most sacred, most vulnerable and most pure was the scene of a horrific attack. As most of you know Shannon is a second grade teacher, as her and I talked she told me of how her peers and her believed it would never happen at an elementary school. Unfortunately today they and we were proved wrong.
I found out earlier in the day just before noon and was floored, not much but "Why" fills your mind. Hopefully, not many us will ever be able to understand the thinking of someone who's soul is so dark they could shoot innocent children. Never the less you can't help but ask why. I cannot imagine the feelings those parents had as they arrived at Sandy Hook and learned their child was killed. I have no shame admitting I wept thinking of those young lives that wouldn't see the Christmas Day they had been counting down. There are presents under the tree with the names of children that will never see them. Today the parents of twenty children will have empty beds in their house with no one to tuck them in to them. I truly pray I never experience the emptiness that is fresh in the hearts of so many tonight.
I hate that tonight the media and web site commentators have used this to bring up the issue of gun control. These events are not pedestals for gun control debates on either side but as you're aware I am for gun ownership and second amendment rights. You're put in a bad position because the conversation initiated from the media is never for gun ownership after these attacks. This forces you to make a decision about how to respond. Do you keep quiet and let people with their own anti-gun agenda use fear mongering to twist the public into believing it was guns and their owners that own the burden of these attacks? Perhaps you choose to speak out instead, to point out that the 2010 preliminary results list firearms as being responsible for 11,015 homicides in the US. In contrast pneumonia took the lives of 49,510 people and heart disease was responsible for a staggering 595,444 over 5400x that of homicides by firearms. Yet in the face of those statistics, fear is used to move the country, not facts. Our President called for "immediate action" to prevent such shootings but isn't that generality the issue in this debate. Over and over again we hear that a discussion needs to be had around gun control but we never hear about what or to what end that discussion is for. Where is the call to immediate action for legislation to lower the 83,308 deaths caused by Alzheimer disease? The fact is the number of homicides from firearms actually decreased by 12.8% from 2007 to 2010 according to CDC reports.
To give more context to how helpful "gun control" laws would be, the average loss of life from mass shootings over the past few decades is approximately 100 people annually. That is a whooping .004% of all deaths, but homicides by firearms are 111x more at .47% of all deaths. It's understandable why we should make it such a priority with numbers so large. Most journalist and experts will admit the issue of mental health is typically more pertinent to decreasing murders by firearm but that's just much harder to address.
Before we actually have a conversation around gun control let's prioritize what we're discussing and what we're trying to accomplish. Let's not make statements that say if the attackers didn't have a gun then the victims would still be alive. Statistics show over 31% of homicides weren't by a gun at all. Perhaps the discussion should be why select media groups and political parties continue to push an agenda that seemly has such a small impact on the number of overall deaths in the US. Is there another reason to limit the type or number of weapons that law abiding citizens have access to? We all know by common sense that new laws won't stop criminals at all from acquiring weapons of any type. Perhaps we really believe there was no alcohol drank during the Prohibition. Let's have a discussion around gun control but let's make it about responsible gun ownership, it keeps in line with the goal of protecting the innocent while also not infringing on the right to bear arms.
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