How many teachers have combat training or signed up to pack a weapon when they entered the profession? Packing a gun is what police and soldiers do. Shooting someone takes a special kind of person and training – shooting the right person takes extensive training. For decades, guns have been more often used for suicide than self-defense in America.
In Seattle area, 44 people shoot themselves fatally for every self-defense killing with a firearm
Active shooter drills are giving kids a lifetime of anxiety. Emergency gun violence drills are for adults – not 6 year olds. Port-a-potties are coming to classrooms as a public surrender to the coming gun violence. Let’s ban active shooter drills – they are traumatic for children (children locked down today already suffering from the anxiety from the drama & fear of this pandemic).
42% of Principals want to leave their position
52% of Black, Hispanic, Asian or Pacific Island and Native American teachers nationwide
are likely to stay in the profession for their whole careers 48% are not.
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In 2017, there were 10,380 criminal gun homicides. Guns were used in 35 criminal homicides for every justifiable homicide (almost 10,000 children & teens are killed by guns each year)
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According to a report by the Gun Violence Archive, more than 6,000 children were killed or injured by gunfire in the United States in 2022, the most ever recorded in the nine-year history of the nonprofit that tracks shooting incidents. This includes 306 children aged 11 or younger who were killed by gunfire and 1,323 children between the ages of 12 and 17 who died in shootings 1.
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In 2021, 49,000 Americans died by gun violence,
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between 2019 -2021, children killed by bullets increased 50% in the U.S.
- Policing, gun violence drills and militarization of elementary and high schools is not working. It is creating more trauma for a student body already stressed by the COVID lockdown, war, and growing crime in our communities.
Active shooter drills are giving kids a lifetime of anxiety. Emergency gun violence drills are for adults – not 6 year olds. Port-a-potties in classrooms as a public surrender to the coming gun violence. Let’s ban active shooter drills – they are traumatic for children (children locked down today already suffering from the anxiety from the drama & fear of this pandemic).
Arming teachers, the commonality of school lock downs and active shooter student training and placing the army or police force inside of our schools are extreme measures creating fear in students and make teaching more like combat than education. Wiki list of school shootings in America. List of Mass U.S. shootings;1,624 in 1,870 days. 2017 record year for U.S. gun deaths.
- Federal Funding, Zero Tolerance and Inadequate Alternatives mean that more states are policing schools with armed officers. Before the 1970’s police were almost absent from elementary and junior high schools.
- Today in American schools, 19,000 armed officers are dealing with an escalation of violence and criminal prosecutions for children as young as 5 years old. Prosecuting kids in place of using resources to help them adapt destroys the fabric of a child’s life and achieves the exact opposite of what children need and society expects from the school experience. Almost 40,000 Americans killed by guns in 2019, 409 mass shootings & 30 mass murders.
- This website tracks gun violence daily in the U.S. Every day 46 children are shot in murders, assaults, and suicides. In 2016 toddlers shot about one person a week(many of their victims were mothers and brothers)
- 8369 children were shot in 2015, 8867 in 2014 and in 2017 1532 children were shot in Chicago alone (according to the Chicago Tribune the number is probably higher) Guns are now the 3rd leading cause of child death in America. 1.15 million Americans have been killed by guns since John Lennon was shot dead 38 years ago. Civil unrest is causing retailers to remove gun displays from their stores.
- 265 moms dads, brothers, sisters and selves were shot by very young children this year and over 10,000 children killed or injured annually by gunfire in America. More Americans are killed by toddlers with guns than Terrorists and yes, we do sell guns for five year olds.
- Of all the children killed by guns in developed countries between 1961 & 2010, 91% of them lived in America
- In 2015, a toddler with a gun killed more Americans than were killed in terrorist incidents (Clear & Present Safety Michael Cohen 2019 Yale University Press)
- It is estimated that in the United States, a country with around 327.2 million inhabitants, there are 393 million firearms in the hands of citizens.
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This Report Tallied the Human and Economic Toll of Gun Violence in All 50 States. The Cost Is Staggering.
19 September 19 2017 marked the first time firearms killed more people than motor vehicle accidents, the report said.
un violence hits America’s youth and rural states the hardest and has reached the highest levels in decades, a report released Wednesday by Democrats on Congress’ Joint Economic Committee has found.
U.S. teens and young adults, ages 15-24, are 50 times more likely to die by gun violence than they are in other economically advanced countries, according to the 50-state breakdown.
In 2017 — the year of a mass shooting in Las Vegas that killed 58 and injured hundreds — nearly 40,000 people died from gun-related injuries, including 2,500 school children, the report said, noting that six in 10 gun deaths in the U.S. are suicides.
How the marketing arm of the NRA has come to own the issues of public health, public safety and education is hard to understand. No other industrialized nation has anywhere near the mass shootings, gun violence or child death by guns.
*Kids and Guns: Shootings Now Third Leading Cause of Death for U.S. … www.newsweek.com/guns-kids-third-leading-cause-death-627209 Jun 19, 2017 – Few stories are more heartbreaking than those involving children who are injured or killed by gunshots.
Guns kill nearly 1,300 US children each year – CNN.com www.cnn.com/2017/06/19/health/child-gun-violence-study/index.html Jun 19, 2017 – Guns kill nearly 1,300 US children each year, study says …. Boys accounted for 82% of allchild firearm deaths and about 84% of all nonfatal …
Key Gun Violence Statistics* | Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence www.bradycampaign.org › Gun Violence Every day, 7 children and teens die from gun violence:4 are murdered2 die from … years of complete data from death certificates (2011-2015) and estimates of …
Guns Are the Third Leading Cause of Child Death in America – Fortune Fortune.com/2017/06/20/cdc-suicide-teen-gun-deaths/ Jun 20, 2017 – A new CDC report finds nearly 1300 American children are killed by guns each year. But suicides and mental health are a big contributor.
Race is a huge factor in child gun deaths – VICE News https://news.vice.com/story/race-is-a-huge-factor-in-child-gun-deaths Jun 20, 2017 – Nearly 1300 children are killed by guns every year in the United States and another 5800 are wounded, making firearms the third-biggest killer …
Gun deaths: When kids find guns, should parents be blamed? https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/05/24/justice…die…gun…/101568654/ May 24, 2017 – Children die from gun accidents in the U.S. about once a week. Almost every deathbegins with the same basic circumstances. And each ends …
Gun Violence: Facts and Statistics | Violence Prevention Initiative https://injury.research.chop.edu/violence-prevention…/gun…/gun-violence-facts-and American children face substantial risk of exposure to firearm injury and death according to scientific literature. Learn more about gun violence today.
Images for guns and child deaths Easy to understand graphics and charts;
More Cops in Schools Is the Wrong Answer to Mass Shootings
Across the country, school districts are quietly arming teachers for the …
On November 6, 17-year-old Da’Qwan Jones-Morris, a former Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) Freedom Schools® scholar from St. Paul, Minnesota, was killed when he was accidentally shot in the chest by a 15-year-old friend playing with a stolen gun in our gun saturated nation. Da’Qwan and a group of friends were playing video games after school when the boy who had stolen the gun a few days earlier pulled it out of his bag to show it to the 15-year-old, who fired it without realizing it was loaded. Da’Qwan, a high school senior, was the co-captain of his football team and excited about applying to college. His mother said she always sought out positive opportunities like the CDF Freedom Schools program, sports, and the church choir to keep her son busy—but she still couldn’t keep him safe.
When will parents be able to protect their children from guns? CDF’s Protect Children Not Guns 2019 report sets the record straight about critical truths you need to know about gun regulations, gun laws, and the gun industry in America to fight the scourge of gun violence in our nation that takes 3,410 child lives a year—one every 2 hours and 34 minutes. It is outrageous and irresponsible that the only unregulated consumer product in America is one that takes the lives of nine children and teens a day and injures another 50.
- The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) can regulate teddy bears and toy guns but not real guns. A 1976 amendment to the Consumer Product Safety Act specifically states that the Commission “shall make no ruling or order that restricts the manufacture or sale of guns, guns ammunition, or components of guns ammunition, including black powder or gunpowder for guns.” This restriction remains in effect today. As a result, the CPSC can regulate teddy bears and toy guns but not real guns—one of the most deadly consumer products that kills 39,220 Americans every year. This is disgraceful!
- The gun industry has been granted broad immunity from liability lawsuits, preventing consumers from holding negligent gun manufacturers and dealers accountable for irresponsible behavior unlike every other major industry. The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA)—passed by Congress in 2005 with pressure from the NRA—grants gun manufacturers and dealers broad immunity from federal and state liability lawsuits. The PLCAA makes it nearly impossible to hold the gun industry accountable, prohibiting individuals from filing lawsuits against gun manufacturers or dealers when their dangerous products cause harm or their irresponsible practices enable criminals to obtain guns. No other industry enjoys such blanket immunity. Given these special protections, gun manufacturers and dealers face virtually no penalties for failing to make guns safer or preventing their guns from getting into the wrong hands.
- Virtually anyone can buy a gun without a background check under current law. Federal law requires anyone purchasing a gun from a federally licensed dealer to complete a background check but does not cover private sales at gun shows, sales over the internet, and between individuals. These hugely dangerous loopholes allow people unable to pass a background check—including those convicted of violent crimes and domestic abuse—to easily obtain a gun.
- Common sense gun safety laws work and have effectively reduced gun violence without preventing law abiding citizens from owning guns.
- Tighter regulation and oversight of gun sellers prevents guns being diverted to criminals. A study with data from 54 U.S. cities found diverting guns to criminals is much less common in states that license retail gun sellers; require careful record keeping that can be reviewed by law enforcement; require potential buyers to apply for a license directly with a law enforcement agency; and conduct regular compliance inspections.
- Requiring background checks for purchases through licensed and private sellers prevents guns from getting into the wrong hands. More than 3 million firearm purchase applications have been denied since the 1994 Brady Law, which instituted a federal background check requirement for sales through licensed dealers. Evidence from California suggests extending background checks to cover not only licensed but private sellers substantially decreases illegal straw sales in which a purchaser buys a gun for a person who isn’t eligible to buy it.
- Firearm prohibitions for high-risk groups reduce the risk of violent crime. A California study suggests denying handgun purchases to people who have committed violent misdemeanors is associated with a decreased risk of arrest for new gun and/or violent crimes.
- Child access prevention laws save lives. Studies of child access prevention laws requiring gun owners to store guns so children and teens can’t access them unsupervised have found they reduce accidental child shootings as much as 23 percent and adolescent suicides 8 percent.
- Well-designed assault weapons bans reduce homicides, suicides and mass shootings. An Australian law banning and buying back assault weapons—including semi-automatic rifles, pump-action rifles and shotguns—was associated with lower homicide and suicide rates. No mass shootings occurred in the decade following the law’s enactment compared with 11 in the decade before.
- The majority of American voters, including gun owners, support common sense gun safety regulations. As of August 2019, 60 percent of voters supported stricter gun laws and 93 percent of voters and gun owners supported universal background checks. Three in five voters (60 percent) favored a nationwide ban on assault weapon sales and about 3 in 4 American voters (72 percent) said Congress must do more to reduce gun violence.
The American people want change. Our children are crying for it. Please make sure your lawmakers know and act on the truth about guns. Make sure they have a copy of Protect Children Not Guns 2019 and insist they do something about it.
According to a report by Psychology Today, a person pulling the trigger on a gun is most likely to be shooting themselves or their family rather than a “bad guy.” More than 30,000 people are shot and killed in the U.S. each year. About two-thirds of these, 20,000 people, are suicides. In other words, two out of three people who use a gun to kill a person use it on themselves. A bit less than a third of all gun deaths are homicides 1.
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KARA reports on the issues of child abuse.
This article submitted by CASA volunteer Mike Tikkanen
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