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Subscribe to RSSInvestigators are putting together a timeline of Friday's shooting, beginning with Adam Lanza's allegedly shooting his mother while she slept before driving to Sandy Hook Elementary School. NBC's Pete Williams reports.
Updated at 7:34 p.m. ET: Adam Lanza, who authorities say killed 20 children and six women in Connecticut, shot his mother in the head multiple times before heading to Sandy Hook Elementary School, where he fired hundreds of rounds and died with hundreds more at his disposal, police said Sunday.
It was an extraordinary amount of weaponry that Connecticut State Police Lt. Paul Vance described Sunday. In addition to an assault-style rifle and at least two handguns, he also had a shotgun in reserve in the car he drove to the school.
And when he was found, Lanza, 20, still had "hundreds of rounds" of ammunition in multiple magazines, after having already fired hundreds of rounds inside the school, where he killed himself with a gunshot to the head as emergency crews arrived Friday.
An explanation still hasn't emerged for why Lanza killed the 26 people at Sandy Hook, but Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy opened a window for speculation when he told NBC News on Sunday that it appeared that Lanza attended the school as a youngster. Earlier reports that his mother, Nancy, may have taught there haven't borne out.
"He attended there — that's what I'm led to believe," Malloy said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
The children — 12 girls and eight boys, all of them 6 or 7 years old — were shot as many as 11 times, H. Wayne Carver, the state medical examiner, said Saturday. It appeared that Lanza had enough weapons and ammunition with him to have killed many, many more.
Police were analyzing the weaponry, along with a computer they found at the Lanzas' home, for possible leads on the gunman's motive, NBC News' Pete Williams reported.
Conn. shooting suspect Adam Lanza's father: 'We too are asking why'
Lanza's parents were divorced, and he lived with his mother, who home-schooled him for part of his childhood, Malloy said.
Connecticut school shooter was 'very nervous around people'
"He had a very troubled life," Malloy said. "He never seemed to be a good fit. ... It was a very difficult time for him and his mother."
Malloy declined to answer whether any documented evidence had been uncovered that Lanza might have been mentally disturbed. At Western Connecticut State University in Danbury, where he enrolled at about 16 in 2008, there was never any indication of trouble, the university said in a statement Sunday.
Lanza took six classes — including website production, data modeling, Philosophy 101 and ethical theory — and compiled a solid 3.26 grade-point average.
Investigators resolutely refused to go into detail about the timing of events Friday during official briefings. But investigators told NBC News that Lanza first killed his mother, an avid gun enthusiast, with her own gun and then took multiple weapons with him as he drove to the school in her car.
To bypass security, Lanza smashed in a window, they said. He shot and killed Principal Dawn Hochsprung, 47, and Mary Sherlach, 56, a school psychologist, before proceeding to a classroom, where he found the door locked.
So he moved on to a second classroom, where he killed everyone he found, before doing the same in a third classroom, investigators believe. He then shot himself.
Watch US News crime videos on NBCNews.com
Although he was carrying three weapons, he used only one of them in all of the school killings — a Bushmaster .223-caliber assault-style rifle similar to the one used by the snipers who terrorized the Washington, D.C., area in 2002. It was purchased legally, they said. He used one of the handguns to kill himself.
Authorities haven't said how Nancy Lanza stored the weapons.
Marsha Lanza, Nancy Lanza's sister-in-law and Adam Lanza's aunt, said there was a good reason for a divorced woman who grew up with guns to have them in the house: self-defense.
"She lived alone. She was a female (who) lived alone," Marsha Lanza said.
Chief Justice Correspondent Pete Williams and Isolde Raftery of NBC News contributed to this report.
More content from NBCNews.com:
- Conn. school victims all shot multiple times, chief medical officer says
- Mom of suspected school shooter was avid gun enthusiast, friend says
- Newtown mourns: Candlelight vigils, Beanie Babies and a lot of tears
- Victims: Daring principal, fun-loving teacher, 6-year-old twin brother
- Lives saved by teachers, custodian and even kids
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Why oh why did she need to have so many guns to "protect" herself in her $600,000 mansion in the middle of nowhere with a mentally disturbed son who at the age of 20, still lived home with Mommy. If it were for protection, all you need is 1 gun and the odds of you getting to that gun in the event of a home invasion by a criminal are not very good. I am 56 years old and live alone on a 1st floor apt. and often think someone is breaking in. I still won't go out and buy a damn gun. By the time I would get to the gun, it would be too late. And I don't want one around me to begin with. This country needs to stop jailing mentally ill and start opening treatment centers for the criminally insane. I'll bet you he had "Call to Duty" and all the other violent video games at home and he thought he would show his Mom he was a real commando....at the terrible terrible terrible expense of 6 year old babies. What a piece of crap. Wish he would have shot himself at his house. Now we have to worry that some other well to do "genius, loner is going to try and "one up" his evil satanic act of cowardliness.
Do you only need one pair of shoes for walking?
Wow Vern... you just one the STUPIDEST COMMENT OF THE YEAR award for that doozy.
I hope Vern is not a real person, hopefully some type of spam
This is the elephant in the room. It's sad to say but maybe the extensive press coverage of the shooting has a more to do with them occurring than anything else. Most of the monsters who do this crap are cowardly attention seekers who precieve themselves as failures and outcasts. I don't know how you change the media coverage because the community at large has a right to know what's going on the the country but pieces of crap use this stuff as motivation to try to be seen.
I am fromWisconsin and like to hunt. Guns for hunting and protection are one thing.
Assault weapons are another. I can see no need for a person to own assault
weapons. 20 children, between the ages of 5 and 7. A lone survivor of one class,
which at 7 knew enough to play dead. Come on America it is time to change our laws.
This would sicken our forefathers who wrote our constitution.
There are alot of angy people out there, people are struggling for reasons, why and cant cope with the senseless violence they see before them. We all want answers or some kind of solutions, I have never been a advocate for guns and have never owned one. I usually speak against them in group discussions at work. I guess I just wanna express my sorrow like everyone else here. It's very sad in America I pray we all get better and heal although things will probably get worse before getting better. Lets just all NOT be violent IDK its just so sickening. SO SADDD :((
We need to ban assault weapons and start paying closer attention to the mental health of adolescents. This shooter should have gotten forced (if necessary) mental treatment years ago. And make it a felony to allow others to have access to your weapons.
There were no "assault weapons" used in this tragedy.
Murdering your mother, stealing her guns, handgun possession of any kind under 21 years of age, and murdering several dozen children, are ALREADY crimes.
What makes you think more laws are going to help.
@ republic
Ok. So you make it a felony to allow others to have access to your weapons. How would that have stopped this killer from shooting up the school? Oh yeah, it wouldn't have!
Yes there were assault weapons used in this killing. And making it a felony to allow others to have access to your weapons might have stopped this shooting. Maybe this nutbag teabag mommy would never have taught her psycho kid to shoot.
Actually, republic, there weren't. An 'assault-style' rifle is not an 'assault weapon'. Not that either term means much of anything. But 'assault-style' is just a cosmetic term. It's the same as the regular rifle by the same maker, just with a more intimidating 'look'. I've seen .22 'assault-style' rifles, one would hardly call them 'assault weapons'. Heck, they make air rifles with that look.
The part I am most bothered by is that the shooter did not appear to have any structure in his life. There is no mention of him having a job or learning a skill. He was too old for the school psychology system and there doesn't seem to be anything else giving him rules to live by. A parent, even the best one, can only do so much. Mainstreaming of kids with serious mental problems does not help all of them - and home-schooling doesn't help at all. Some kids need to be part of a structured program for a long time after they turn 18.
So the mom, a single woman living alone had an assault rifle for self-defense? Yeah, right. She kept them unsecured with an obviously mentally ill son in the household. Can you say STUPID!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I was single for many years, and yes, I am a gun enthusiast but I NEVER left my guns unsecured. I had a gun safe. My guns were used for hunting and target shooting. For my personal safety, I had Tarzan. A 115 lb German Shepherd. Tarzan was all I needed. Maybe more single woman should try it. Much safer and fewer innocents will die.
There was no "assault rifle".
You lie. Please learn how to read, and stop trying to mislead people:
@ Cpt
Vern is technically correct. Assault rifles are fully automatic military grade weapons (i.e. machine guns).
What the shooter had was an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle (AR-15 is the civilian version of the selectable fire military M-16). All of these kind of rifles, AR-15s & semi-auto clones of the AK-47s etc...have been labeled incorrectly by the media as 'assault weapons'.
You can go down to your local gun shop right now & buy a semi-auto hunting rifle with wood stocks chambered in .223 caliber (same as an AR-15). Put the hunting rifle next to an AR-15 & ask the average person which one is more dangerous.
Guess, what they'll tell you? They'll say the AR-15 is far more dangerous & scary!. Even though they both shoot the same caliber bullets & function the exact same way.
It's very simple (unless gun nuts make it so complicated that no one can understand). That weapon which Adam Lanza used to massacre all those children should not be legal for regular citizens to own. That kind of firepower has no purpose, except for murdering large quantities of people. Enough is enough. The madness must end and an assault weapon ban is the first logical step.
Well, except the AR-15 can be fitted with high capacity magazines (60 to 100 shots) apparently for those *really* pesky squirrels. Again, liar, liar pants on fire.
@ Huh
Well, guess what smart ass. There are semi-auto hunting rifles that are magazine fed & you can buy high capacity magazines for them..
I even have a little .22 caliber rifle that is magazine fed. It comes stock with a 10 round magazine. Even for this little pea shooter I can buy a high capacity magazine if I want to...
So there goes your theory you gun illiterate moron...
And you can buy a .22 caliber pea shooter that has the 'assault rifle' look.
" So he moved on to a second classroom, where he killed everyone he found,..."
Correction... 15 of 16 kids in that room got killed - one 6.5-year-old girl played dead. She came running out of the room covered in blood saying "Mommy I'm okay but all my friends are dead". The pastor from the church said it was divine intervention - I tend to believe him. I don't know the girl's name.
So apparently it wasn't such a good idea for the lib-tards to remove things like "Thou shalt not commit murder" from the classrooms.
And maybe it wasn't such a good idea to teach the children fiction (the "theory" of evolution) as if it was fact, trying to convince them that their lives had no more value than an accident that happened to mud.
Or to teach them that it's okay to murder babies (50 million and counting since "Roe" v. Wade).
These results were fairly predictable.
BLAH BLAH BLAH... there IS no 'god' and your imaginary friend belongs NO WHERE but in your deluded little mind. Oh.. and keep your 'morality' , whatever the hell that is... to YOURSELF. No one is 'murdering babies' wingnut.
So the blame is on EVOLUTION?!! And since when did they remove "Thou shalt not kill" from the classrooms? This is just another stupid smokescreen to keep people from understanding that IT WAS THREE GUNS THAT KILLED THESE CHILDREN!! YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE!! Your anger, your paranoia and your demands that you be allowed to keep dangerous items in your house when you're obviously mentally unstable.
Vern
Nope. Mass murders are nothing new. All you're trying to do is to manipulate this tragedy to fit with your nonsense.
I pity you and those like you.
There are no simple answers. Rampage shootings have quadrupled in the last 40-50 years according to one study someone posted. Why is that? What is causing people to flip out & go on killing sprees at an accelerated rate.
Guns are the tools. Not the cause. Prior to the Gun Control Act of 1968, signed by President Johnson, guns were much easier to buy than they are today. Back then you could buy guns through mail order & have them delivered to your home. No background checks, no safeguard, nothing at all. Yet people back in those days were not running around shooting up offices, malls, & schools as frequently as now.
So many kids & people in general are on prescription drugs that if someone asks & you say you don't take any prescriptions you get a funny look from them. All of the drugs kids are prescribed must be part of the issue IMO. As is undiagnosed/untreated mental illness.
So:
1. Improve mental illness diagnosis/treatment
2. Figure out a better way to limit mentally ill from having access to firearms
3. Incorporate smart gun technology into guns so they will only function for the registered owner/owners. It would have prevented this killer from using his mom's guns.
4. Train some (i.e. those who are willing/not all) teachers to use firearms proficiently & safely. Also let the teachers who already own firearms & who have concealed carry permits to carry on campus.
For those against armed teachers then you will need to pony up money for trained armed guards or off duty police officers at all schools.
6. Perhaps there is some non-lethal technology that could also be incorporated into the schools that could be used to immobilize an active shooter. Or at the very least used to distract the shooter so someone would have time to take them out or so more people would have time to escape.
7. How about adding an additional exit door to the outside for the classrooms that are on/against the perimeter walls of the schools so people could escape easier & not be trapped/sitting ducks.
Obviously, this wouldn't work for classrooms on the interior of building. Though even if these rooms had an additional exit door, perhaps on the opposite side of the room, more people could escape from a shooter.
No. This isn't an exhaustive list that would prevent everything but it is a start. I also don't know how all of these measures would be implemented & where the money would come to pay for it.
But at least it would be a start...These measures would prevent some of these incidents from occurring & stop some of the folks who are sitting around right now planning the next rampage shooting.
Add your own thoughts to the list....
Had that woman not had an arsenal in her home this might not have happened. Period...... So much for having a weapon for self-defense.
Had the crazy person been in the nut house where he belonged, this WOULD NOT have happened.
"an arsenal", lol. Two antique rifles, two handguns, and a civilian model .223 caliber Bushmaster deer rifle.
Hyperbole much?
That's an arsenal as far as I am concerned. It only took one gun to kill 27 people. One is an arsenal.
@ Patti
Yeah, good thing your city with the most restrictive gun laws in the country are preventing all of guns & killings in parts of Chicago...Those gun bans work well to stop the criminals/gang bangers etc..don't they?
His picture does not deserve to be next to his victims. Please quit displaying it!!!
"He attended there — that's what I'm led to believe," said Malloy, who declined to answer whether any documented evidence had been uncovered that Lanza might have been mentally disturbed."
The reporting on this story has been truly pathetic. Either he attended the school or he didn't, school records would show that and the media should be asking for the proof if he attended the school. The yearbook photo they have released is ridiculous. It was only supposed to have been taken 4 years ago, there are no photos of the guy in 4 years? Why haven't they explained why he had his brother's ID? There is no proof that the guy was mentally disturbed, he may have just snapped that day for all we know, so why do they keep printing this with no evidence? I don't remember anyone calling Timothy McVeigh or the DC snipers mentally disturbed.
"He had a very troubled life," Malloy said. "He never seemed to be a good fit. ... It was a very difficult time for him and his mother."
Where is the proof of this? Only yesterday on the news neighbors were saying he was a good kid and he belonged to game club or something. If you belong to a club you fit in somewhere. Where is the proof that he purchased a bullet proof vest...video, receipt, anything? It didn't raise any red flags to the clerk? This story doesn't make any sense and our idiot media won't ask the questions so therefore no justice for these poor parents. RIP little ones and adults who lost their lives
A single parent home.... Who would have guessed? ***shrug
COLUMBINE STUDENT'S FATHER 12 YEARS LATER !!
Guess our national leaders didn't expect this. On Thursday, Darrell Scott, the father of Rachel Scott, a victim of the Columbine High School shootings in Littleton, Colorado, was invited to address the House Judiciary Committee's subcommittee. What he said to our national leaders during this special session of Congress was painfully truthful.
They were not prepared for what he was to say, nor was it received well. It needs to be heard by every parent, every teacher, every politician, every sociologist, every psychologist, and every so-called expert! These courageous words spoken by Darrell Scott are powerful, penetrating, and deeply personal. There is no doubt that God sent this man as a voice crying in the wilderness.. The following is a portion of the transcript:
"Since the dawn of creation there has been both good & evil in the hearts of men and women. We all contain the seeds of kindness or the seeds of violence. The death of my wonderful daughter, Rachel Joy Scott, and the deaths of that heroic teacher, and the other eleven children who died must not be in vain. Their blood cries out for answers.
"The first recorded act of violence was when Cain slew his brother Abel out in the field. The villain was not the club he used.. Neither was it the NCA, the National Club Association. The true killer was Cain, and the reason for the murder could only be found in Cain's heart.
"In the days that followed the Columbine tragedy, I was amazed at how quickly fingers began to be pointed at groups such as the NRA. I am not a member of the NRA. I am not a hunter. I do not even own a gun. I am not here to represent or defend the NRA - because I don't believe that they are responsible for my daughter's death. Therefore I do not believe that they need to be defended. If I believed they had anything to do with Rachel's murder I would be their strongest opponent
I am here today to declare that Columbine was not just a tragedy -- it was a spiritual event that should be forcing us to look at where the real blame lies! Much of the blame lies here in this room. Much of the blame lies behind the pointing fingers of the accusers themselves. I wrote a poem just four nights ago that expresses my feelings best.
Your laws ignore our deepest needs,
Your words are empty air.
You've stripped away our heritage,
You've outlawed simple prayer.
Now gunshots fill our classrooms,
And precious children die.
You seek for answers everywhere,
And ask the question "Why?"
You regulate restrictive laws,
Through legislative creed.
And yet you fail to understand,
That God is what we need!
"Men and women are three-part beings. We all consist of body, mind, and spirit. When we refuse to acknowledge a third part of our make-up, we create a void that allows evil, prejudice, and hatred to rush in and wreak havoc. Spiritual presences were present within our educational systems for most of our nation's history. Many of our major colleges began as theological seminaries. This is a historical fact. What has happened to us as a nation? We have refused to honor God, and in so doing, we open the doors to hatred and violence. And when something as terrible as Columbine's tragedy occurs -- politicians immediately look for a scapegoat such as the NRA. They immediately seek to pass more restrictive laws that contribute to erode away our personal and private liberties. We do not need more restrictive laws. Eric and Dylan would not have been stopped by metal detectors. No amount of gun laws can stop someone who spends months planning this type of massacre. The real villain lies within our own hearts.
"As my son Craig lay under that table in the school library and saw his two friends murdered before his very eyes, he did not hesitate to pray in school. I defy any law or politician to deny him that right! I challenge every young person in America , and around the world, to realize that on April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School prayer was brought back to our schools. Do not let the many prayers offered by those students be in vain. Dare to move into the new millennium with a sacred disregard for legislation that violates your God-given right to communicate with Him. To those of you who would point your finger at the NRA -- I give to you a sincere challenge.. Dare to examine your own heart before casting the first stone!
My daughter's death will not be in vain! The young people of this country will not allow that to happen!"
- Darrell Scott
Do what the media did not - - let the nation hear this man's speech. Please send this out to everyone you can.
God Bless
Just what we need... more useless , delusional "god" BS. Take your fairytales and your imaginary friend HOME where he and they belong and OUT of the REASONABLE, REAL world of CRITICAL THOUGHT. I am so SICK of listening to this hocus pocus b u l l s h i t from the minds of low-information sheeple. BTW I marked that comment NO VALUE.
Hocus pocus indeed. Theology is bunk. The arguments for the existence of a supernatural creator being are easily refuted (moral, ontological, teleological, cosmological, etc). The problem is that a good percentage of the population have not received a proper education and fail to challenge mysticism.
But truly, this post is a desperation attempt. So many believers try to manipulate tragedies to fit with their absurdity. Emotions run high and everyone flocks to the church. The church tells them it's the fault of science and/or atheism. Absolute mindless drivel. It takes advantage of those who lost loved ones.
Oh, if only we indoctrinate more children into our faith, the world would be a better place. /sarcasm
COULD HAVE NEEN PREVENTED..
MOM
Could Have Bought..a "GUN SAFE" and ALWAYS..KEPT her GUNS ...LOCKED.
Could Have Gotten Her son ..More Mental Help..He Needed.
If she could AFFORD ..All Those Weapons..
MONEY Better well spent..would Have Been for Routine Psych..EVALS..for her son...
ASPERGER SYNDROME..Is a Form of HIgh Functioning AUTISM..
THERE is NO CLINICAL.EVALUATION...FOR AUTISM.at This Moment..
That is to Say..Nothing ..NEUROLOGIC..or BIOLOGIC Can .. Be Pointed To
AUTISM is an Incredibly Broad Term...to DEFINE EVERYONE ..who shows symptoms of DEVELOPEMENTAL
Disabilities..
Would Be interesting to see if Mother EVER Got ADAM..What he Needed ..> Neurologic and Organic EVALS..?
The MOTHER was The "CONTROL" ASPECT..Of ADAM..He Reacted to His Environment..with Whatever Stimulus
And Conditioning That Spanned His Life..we will Never Know How His Brain was Wired...or what went on..?
The Suffering He Felt (from what?) was Turned unto others ..There was a Connection ..that led him Back to
To that Elementary School..soon We will learn what the Objects of his rage were...
Move on..after Grief..Help The Families ..and Provide Security ..in ALL schools ..So We Can Prepare..
Practice RESONSIBILITY ..at Home ..and Make Your CHILDREN..YOUR PRIORITY...
Good comment...insightful.
This piece of garbage took many innocent lives. Only God can judge him now.
INSANE People ..He NEEDED Help ..He Never got..
For all of you SANE people out there here is an EXCELLENT article from a source OUTSIDE of the USA that documents the insanity that's going on in this country w/regards to gun nuts and their obsessions and the rise in the rate of homicides and mass murders because of LAX gun control.
http://www.eurasiareview.com/01102012-america-domestic-guns-and-mass-murder-oped/
Maybe gemini618, we can hope that for once, you are not just a lone voice in the wilderness. At least a few people seem to have the guts now to stand up to the gun nuts. Maybe to some people, the bullet-riddled corpses of little kids is finally enough to move them to say ENOUGH, whereas the unfathomable 10,000 annual gun deaths in this country don't seem to mean a thing. Perhaps, the violent death of 20 little kids is a tragedy, whereas the deaths of 10,000 people is a statistic. This requires a MASSIVE and decisive response, because the gun nuts are not only nuts, their money has the government in their pockets. Getting the guns off the streets will take prolonged, persistent, decisive action that will require dealing the manufacture and import of ammunition and assault weapons. But it starts with standing up to the gun nuts. We've never had the courage to do that. It may take many more massacres to get us to that point (two massacres in one week didn't shut the gun baboons up). What a sick state of affairs.
Total Murders by year (FBI Stats);
2006-15,087
2007-14,916
2008-14,224
2009-13,752
2010-12,996
2011-12,664
Total Murders by firearms
2006-10,225
2007-10,129
2008-9,528
2009-9,199
2010-8,775
2011-8,583
Number of NICS checks per year
2006-10,000,000
2007-11,000,000
2008-12,000,000
2009-14,000,000
2010-14,560,000
2011-15,142,400
Seems like the more firearms we have in society, the less murder we have.
Most Murders by Firearm by state.
1. CA-1,220
2. TX-699
3. PA-470
4. MI-450
5. NY-445
The U.S. isn't the deadliest place on the planet at least when you look at the murder rate per 100,000 population (see below).
Mexico had a total of 27,199 murders in 2011. How many of these were due to firearms I don't know for sure. However, I would be willing to bet that many of them were caused by guns.
How is that total gun ban working out for the citizens down there?
Murder Rate
Mexico had 24 homicides per 100,000 people in 2011, up from 23 per 100,000 inhabitants a year earlier. That compares with 91.6 killings per 100,000 residents in Honduras, 69.2 in El Salvador, 38.5 in Guatemala and 25 in the Dominican Republican, according to data compiled by the United Nations. The U.S. had 4.2 murders per 100,000 people in 2010, the most recent year included in UN data.
There are an estimated 85-100 million gun owners with an estimated 270-300 million guns in this country. Yet the murder rate by firearms has been dropping. While stats aren't any consolation to the family/friends of murder victims the fact is only a small fraction of 1% of guns are used in committing murder.
So what you're saying is you have a bunch of raw data with no hope of correlating the numbers correctly but you're gonna spew it out and hope somebody (Besides your gun loving buddies) buys it wholesale and you convince them that we're really safe because of guns. Again liar, liar pants on fire.
@ Huh
The numbers are what they are. I didn't make up the numbers. They are from the FBI. The ones in the article were from the U.N. So I didn't lie about anything.
What a great idea, lets ban guns to stop murders, lets ban cars to stop automobile accidents and lets ban food sto stop people from choking. I mean really what nonsense.
This isn't current... I'm sure the statistics are probably much WORSE by now, but this is right from the DOJ website and supports GUN CONTROL during the Clinton Administration. If you read the article the reason why gun deaths DECLINED was because of STRICTER GUN CONTROL MEASURES.
The carnage caused by guns in the United States is unique among developed nations. The rate at which children under 15 years of age are murdered with guns in our country is 16 times higher than in the 25 other wealthiest industrialized countries combined.(1) In 1998, over one-third of a million violent crimes were committed with firearms. Firearms injuries are the eighth leading cause of death in the United States, and a leading cause of injury-related death. The economic impact of this violence is staggering. The medical costs of gun-related fatalities and injuries are estimated to exceed $2 billion each year. In addition, work loss costs are estimated at $20 billion or more per year.
http://www.justice.gov/archive/opd/Strategy.htm
@gemini
I provided numbers & you dismiss them by saying they are not current. What you're really doing is dismissing them because they don't fit your anti-gun agenda. Besides, 2011 was only last year. The FBI can't provide 2012 numbers because the year hasn't ended yet.
I can also play your game. The stats & studies below are from a long time ago. Yet even back when this info was published just look at how many people prevented crimes from occurring & kept themselves from becoming victims.
A. Guns save more lives than they take; prevent more injuries than they inflict
* Guns used 2.5 million times a year in self-defense. Law-abiding citizens use guns to defend themselves against criminals as many as 2.5 million times every year -- or about 6,850 times a day. This means that each year, firearms are used more than 80 times more often to protect the lives of honest citizens than to take lives.
* Of the 2.5 million times citizens use their guns to defend themselves every year, the overwhelming majority merely brandish their gun or fire a warning shot to scare off their attackers. Less than 8% of the time, a citizen will kill or wound his/her attacker.
* As many as 200,000 women use a gun every year to defend themselves against sexual abuse.
* Even anti-gun Clinton researchers concede that guns are used 1.5 million times annually for self-defense. According to the Clinton Justice Department, there are as many as 1.5 million cases of self-defense every year. The National Institute of Justice published this figure in 1997 as part of "Guns in America" -- a study which was authored by noted anti-gun criminologists Philip Cook and Jens Ludwig.
* Armed citizens kill more crooks than do the police. Citizens shoot and kill at least twice as many criminals as police do every year (1,527 to 606). And readers of Newsweek learned that "only 2 percent of civilian shootings involved an innocent person mistakenly identified as a criminal. The 'error rate' for the police, however, was 11 percent, more than five times as high.
* Handguns are the weapon of choice for self-defense. Citizens use handguns to protect themselves over 1.9 million times a year. Many of these self-defense handguns could be labeled as "Saturday Night Specials."
B. Concealed carry laws help reduce crime
* Nationwide: one-half million self-defense uses. Every year, as many as one-half million citizens defend themselves with a firearm away from home.
* Concealed carry laws are dropping crime rates across the country. A comprehensive national study determined in 1996 that violent crime fell after states made it legal to carry concealed firearms. The results of the study showed:
* States which passed concealed carry laws reduced their murder rate by 8.5%, rapes by 5%, aggravated assaults by 7% and robbery by 3%.
* If those states not having concealed carry laws had adopted such laws in 1992, then approximately 1,570 murders, 4,177 rapes, 60,000 aggravated assaults and over 11,000 robberies would have been avoided yearly.
* Vermont: one of the safest five states in the country. In Vermont, citizens can carry a firearm without getting permission... without paying a fee... or without going through any kind of government-imposed waiting period. And yet for ten years in a row, Vermont has remained one of the top-five, safest states in the union -- having three times received the "Safest State Award.
* Florida: concealed carry helps slash the murder rates in the state. In the fifteen years following the passage of Florida's concealed carry law in 1987, over 800,000 permits to carry firearms were issued to people in the state. FBI reports show that the homicide rate in Florida, which in 1987 was much higher than the national average, fell 52% during that 15-year period -- thus putting the Florida rate below the national average. 14
* Do firearm carry laws result in chaos? No. Consider the case of Florida. A citizen in the Sunshine State is far more likely to be attacked by an alligator than to be assaulted by a concealed carry holder.
1. During the first fifteen years that the Florida law was in effect, alligator attacks outpaced the number of crimes committed by carry holders by a 229 to 155 margin.
2. And even the 155 "crimes" committed by concealed carry permit holders are somewhat misleading as most of these infractions resulted from Floridians who accidentally carried their firearms into restricted areas, such as an airport.15
C. Criminals avoid armed citizens
* Kennesaw, GA. In 1982, this suburb of Atlanta passed a law requiring heads of households to keep at least one firearm in the house. The residential burglary rate subsequently dropped 89% in Kennesaw, compared to the modest 10.4% drop in Georgia as a whole.
* Ten years later (1991), the residential burglary rate in Kennesaw was still 72% lower than it had been in 1981, before the law was passed.
* Nationwide. Statistical comparisons with other countries show that burglars in the United States are far less apt to enter an occupied home than their foreign counterparts who live in countries where fewer civilians own firearms. Consider the following rates showing how often a homeowner is present when a burglar strikes:
* Homeowner occupancy rate in the gun control countries of Great Britain, Canada and Netherlands: 45% (average of the three countries); and,
* Homeowner occupancy rate in the United States: 12.7%.
Rapes averted when women carry or use firearms for protection
* Orlando, FL. In 1966-67, the media highly publicized a safety course which taught Orlando women how to use guns. The result: Orlando's rape rate dropped 88% in 1967, whereas the rape rate remained constant in the rest of Florida and the nation.
* Nationwide. In 1979, the Carter Justice Department found that of more than 32,000 attempted rapes, 32% were actually committed. But when a woman was armed with a gun or knife, only 3% of the attempted rapes were actually successful.20
Justice Department study:
* 3/5 of felons polled agreed that "a criminal is not going to mess around with a victim he knows is armed with a gun.
* 74% of felons polled agreed that "one reason burglars avoid houses when people are at home is that they fear being shot during the crime.
* 57% of felons polled agreed that "criminals are more worried about meeting an armed victim than they are about running into the police.
Why do we even need to see the creep's name in print? Why does the media have to make celebrities out of these slime balls? It's already way too much to ask that the gun nuts would have enough class and grace to just shut the bleep up for awhile after something like this (two gun massacres in a week, you would think that might make them crawl back in their holes for a few days at least). But after watching the NRA come goosestepping into my town just days after we suffered through Columbine, I realized the ilk of people we are dealing with when it comes to gun fanatics. At least the media could realize that, to the sick creeps who go on rampages with guns, the idea of going down in infamy and having their stupid little lives discussed world wide is probably quite appealing. The only thing I'd like to know about subhuman creatures that shoot people is absolutely NOTHING.
We don't know what this kid's state of mind was but we do know that he had access to these weapons and ammunition. Solution, eliminate access.
Chicago has the most restrictive guns laws in the country. How well is that working out in your city. Oh yeah, it isn't. LOL
The twisted logic of the valu of guns for protection is nowhere more evident than the dimwitted aunt:
"Marsha Lanza, Nancy Lanza's sister-in-law and Adam Lanza's aunt, said there was a good reason for a divorced woman who grew up with guns to have them in the house: self-defense. She lived alone. She was a female (who) lived alone," Marsha Lanza said.
It was mommas gun that killed her and allowed her deviant son to murder so many innocent children. Which part of warped can't the aunt understand. It all has to do with the paranoia that drives gun nuts to have multiple guns, lots of ammunition and apparently in this case inadequate security to keep the guns locked up. Now Nancy Lanza has to show us how all these guns kept mom the divorcee, who live alone, safe while she lies dead after being shot by her own so0n..
I know that they probably didn't, but I would hope that they would just throw Adam Lanza's body in a dumpster at the school and let the maggots and flies and other bugs just eat away at his body!
So making guns illegal will take them off the street?
We should make heroine and meth illegal too!
Already is.. And guess what, theres less of it available, because of it.
Its much more work to get those drugs from an illegal source, than if it was sold at Walmart over the counter.
Why isn't anyone looking into the possibility that Adam Lanza was taking psychotropic medication? If he was as disturbed as his behavior suggests, it's not only very likely he was on medication, but it's also possible that his behavior is one of the manifestations of suddenly going OFF psychotropic medication. Even the medication itself often produces violent behavior when taken over a long period of time. It seems to me someone should be looking into this. An autopsy may or may not find evidence if too much time elapses before it's done.
Why did it happen in Connecticut? What pushed Adam Lanza to get over the threshold of not killing such innocent little children.
My wife works at a hospital in Connecticut....she says....it is common to medicate the mentally ill and put them out on the street!! so society at large ...ends up dealing with this type of thing!!
Why did it happen in Connecticut? Looking in the mind of Adam Lanza.