Slate Tries to Compile Gun Deaths in U.S. Since Newtown
January 3, 2013 08:50:37 am
Since the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., on Dec. 14, Slate has wondered how many people are dying from guns in the U.S. daily. At least 393 have died in less than a month. The data are surprisingly hard to come by. The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence tallies "people shot in America," but that number is an estimate based on gun injuries and Deaths recorded by the Centers for Disease Control in 2008 and 2009.
The anonymous creator of the Twitter feed @GunDeaths has tried to compile those statistics, tweeting every reported death he can find. He was inspired, he told us in a phone interview, by the Aurora, Co., shootings, and simply wanted to call daily attention to the toll that guns take. Now Slate is partnering with @GunDeaths to create this interactive feature, “Gun Deaths in America Since Newtown.”
Posted by Dorn Cranert
Friday, January 11, 2013 06:30
I wrote this letter—for what it is worth to you guys—to Racheal Madow, her show web site and to the NBC site
Dear Ms Madow,
This is a simple little Email concerning a simple little thought that I had the other day.
I am a 69 year old retired guy who was spending a few days in the hospital earlier this week undergoing a simple procedure, I was bored and using my IPad to search for an interesting App to pass time with and I stumbled upon one called TED.
TED is an App that makes it easy to view the interesting TED lectures. I installed it on my computer and began watching one interesting lecture after another—-what fun!!! I ended my TED session by watching a moving and uplifting lecture by a Young Israeli who described how he had started a powerful dialogue between Israelis and Iranians by simply posting a graphic design poster of his family (he himself is a Graphic Designer) on his facebook page which read “IRANIANS we will never bomb your country WE Love You. The man who did this is named Ronny and his Poster has gone viral and has inspired thousands of people in both Israel and Iran, as well as almost every other country in the world to post similar posters and express similar thoughts.
Ronny inspired me to write to you concerning a thought that has been floating around in my head for the past few days. My Idea concerns Gun Violence!
I was a young man during the Vietnam War, I was luckily discharged from the 101st Airborne Division in late 1064 and was safe at home when they were deployed to Vietnam in early 1965. My Brother was not as lucky and was badly wounded there in 1966 or 1967.
When the Vietnam war first started I was like most Americans of the time, very supportive of the Conflict—-I was also like most Americans slowly dissuaded from a position of support for the war to a position of opposition. I read every book I could find on the Vietnam War, especially the great books by historian Bernard B Fall who wrote about the French Involvement as well as the American and who was eventually Killed by a Land Mine while covering the war as an Historian in the Late 1960’s.
I always contribute my conversion from support to opposition to the Daily reporting of the Number of Americans Killed and Wounded at the End of Each days Major Network Newscasts. Over time this simple daily reporting had an undeniable effect on myself and the public in general.
I now submit my idea to you:
What if——at the end of your show each day you closed with a Simple Graphic which said something like this
Total Number of Americans Killed or wounded by Guns since Sandy Hook xxxx
Total Number of people in the entire rest of the Civilized World Killed or Wounded by Guns since
Sandy Hook xxxx
Sometimes simple thoughts and Natural Leaders can make Grand Changes
Cheers and with all good thoughts for a better tomorrow
Dorn Cranert