ST. LOUIS — Hundreds gathered to remember a 9-year-old girl who was killed when shots were fired into her Ferguson home as she did homework on her mother's bed.
Sobs grew audible and tissues were passed down the aisles as fourth-grade classmates of Jamyla Bolden sang in front of her casket Saturday, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (http://bit.ly/1fPrcwZ ) reported. The shooting Aug. 18 in the St. Louis suburb also left Jamyla's 34-year-old mother wounded. After searching more than a week, authorities charged a 21-year-old O'Fallon man with second-degree murder and several other felonies.
The pastor at Friendly Missionary Baptist Church told Jamyla's family as the funeral began that the shooting has "wounded" the whole community, region and country.
"We dare not say we experience it in the same way as you," the Rev. Michael Jones added.
Jamyla's killing brought renewed attention to Ferguson, where Michael Brown was fatally shot by officer Darren Wilson on Aug. 9, 2014.
"We say go to school, get an education ... she tried to do all of that," former Missouri Rep. Betty Thompson said after the service.
Lillie Vinson, a longtime friend of Jamyla's great-aunt, said it seemed like the community worked well with the Ferguson Police Department and its new interim chief, Andre Anderson, to try to solve the crime.
"I hope we just stop all of this senseless shooting," Vinson said before the funeral began. "Enough is enough."
Officer Greg Casem told the gathering how he held Jamyla as she was dying and told her to "hold on."
Steve James wrote:But, the gun violence in those localized areas aren't what drives American gun ownership. As you point out, people in those areas don't have high rates of gun ownership. However, crime is a poor indicator or motivator, since most deaths by firearms in the US are the result of accidents and suicides. They do not become celebrity causes. Otoh, the victims of gun violence protest all the time. Those who aren't affected often begin to protest, too, just like the father of the woman shot in SF. In any case, the fact that people bring weapons into their homes only increases the likelihood of gun deaths.
Anyway, this will eventually turn into a "whack a mole" argument where for every argument there are two or more counter arguments, and we'll always wind up with either gun ownership is good or it's a God-given constitutional right that a supporter would sooner die (or kill) than give up.
klonk wrote:I do not think bizarre shootings are a distinctly American phenomenon. You could look for example to the Anders Brievik case in ordinarily peaceful Norway. Avoid conflating two things, America's gun violence rate in general and its rate from murderous lunatics. I suppose you could treat the two as indistinguishable, but I'm not sure that's convincing.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2013 firearms (excluding BB and pellet guns) caused 84,258 nonfatal injuries (26.65 per 100,000 U.S. citizens) [2] and 11,208 deaths by homicide (3.5 per 100,000),[3] 21,175 by suicide with a firearm,[4] 505 deaths due to accidental discharge of a firearm,[4] and 281 deaths due to firearms with "undetermined intent"[5] for a total of 33,169 deaths related to firearms.
Is gun ownership falling? The answer is yes, at least if you believe a new General Social Survey (GSS) by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC). Supposedly, since the late 1970s, the percentage of homes with a gun has fallen from approximately 50 percent to 32 percent. "The number of Americans who live in a household with at least one gun is lower than it's ever been,” reported Emily Swanson of the Associated Press.
Gun ownership is now back at the low point it reached in 2010: Only 32 percent of Americans own a firearm or live with someone who does, compared with about half the population in the late 1970s and early 1980s, according to the 2014 General Social Survey (GSS). The survey is a project of independent research organization NORC at the University of Chicago, with principal funding from the National Science Foundation.
The poll also found that 22 percent of Americans personally own a firearm, down from a high of 31 percent in 1985. The percentage of men who own a firearm is down from 50 percent in 1980 to 35 percent in 2014, while the number of women who own a gun has remained relatively steady since 1980, coming in at 12 percent in 2014.
klonk wrote:As I prolly said sometime already, America has its gun violence stats skewed all to hell by the presence of a smallish set of localities that are practically free fire zones. If you look at these hot spots in isolation from the rest of the country, the rest of it looks distinctly peaceful.
The last of the four suspected thieves, a slightly built man in yellow rain boots, surrendered on the roof, crying out, "Jesus saves!"
Police put him into a truck and drove away. But then witnesses watched, confused, as the truck circled back.
A video secretly recorded that rainy day in early August showed police officers taking the man to a concrete alley in the complex where his three companions already lay dead. They held him in place, and then shot him point blank. The video does not show the deaths of the others, but two witnesses told The Associated Press they saw the trio lined up against a wall earlier in the morning, police pointing guns at their chests.
"Jesus saves!"
Contrary to public perception, Western Europe, most of whose countries have much tougher gun laws than the United States, has experienced many of the worst multiple-victim public shootings. Particularly telling, all the multiple-victim public shootings in Western Europe have occurred in places where civilians are not permitted to carry guns. The same is true in the United States: All the public shootings in which more than three people have been killed have occurred in places where civilians may not legally bring guns.
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/2 ... -r-lott-jr
The US is rapidly becoming a multi-ethic society. These are also always much more violent than homogenous societies.
In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, defender of the Faith, etc.
Having undertaken, for the Glory of God, and advancements of the Christian faith and honor of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the Northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God, and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic; for our better ordering, and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience.
In witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape Cod the 11th of November, in the year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth, 1620.[13]
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