Headlines : Police constable, civilian killed as gunman opens fire near Texas A&M (today), Sikh Temple massacre, Aurora Colorado Movie Theater shootings, a massacre at a Seattle Cafe killing six, Seven dead in Oikos University shooting – these have all occurred since April this year.  With the possible exception of today’s murder, all the weapons have been legally purchased.  While the NRA and vocal gun nuts out there will continue to spew their usual crap around like “guns don’t kill people…” and continue to inaccurately cite the 2nd amendment, we continue to see blameless citizens killed and injured all around us.  To many, these numbers are not large and in the scheme of real numbers of those killed vs. the total population, they are not (aren’t statistics great!) however, I would challenge these people against any changes in gun control laws to show me another country, civilized (and I wonder about us at times) or not, that anywhere approaches a similar number of massacres and killings that we are seeing in increasing numbers.  For me, it isn’t about pure numbers – I don’t need to see a certain threshold to see we have a problem here.  But then again, I like to think I am reasonably intelligent and can see the forest thru the trees.

Do we think his fingers are still wrapped around that gun?

I don’t expect any NRA member or current anti-gun control person to care but I did find some interesting data that speaks to the growing issue we all face with people (anyone basically) having relatively easy access to weapons.  I’m still wondering the need to have assault rifles and high-capacity clip handguns within easy reach but that is just me.  Mother Jones, a nonprofit news organization that specializes in investigative, political, and social justice reporting (non-political despite yelling to the contrary), has pulled together some interesting information and statistics tracing the history of mass shootings in the US over the past 30 years.

Suggest you actually read the article (http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/mass-shootings-map) but thought I would give a view into some of the more interesting data I found in the article.  Point of consideration when you look at the data, all the shootings that made the “list” happened during a single incident and in a public place and resulted in at least 4 people being killed (not including the shooter if we were so lucky to have him immediately out of society).

All following content credit to Mother Jones.

Credit: Sodahead.com