Friday, May 4, 2018

Guns, Youth, Civics, and the Dying Art of Conversation

From PopZette:
I then asked the students about the leading cause of death among young people. First was accidents, at 41 percent. Over 2,820 young people died in car accidents alone. Over 10 percent of those were related to distracted driving — to texting and phone-related activity."Why not march about that?" I told them. "Many more of you die that way, and it's behavior you can actually control and change."

Next was suicide, at 18 percent. Homicide was third, at 16 percent; 87 percent of those deaths were gun-related. The overwhelming majority were not from assault-style weapons but handguns, the students learned. Less than 1 percent of those shootings happened in schools. "Say we eliminate the high-powered assault rifles you talked about before," I said. "How much change would you see?"

"If we can save even one life, it's worth it," one student said. A few others nodded.

"And if those laws are passed, and there are a lot of people who think they should be, what will stop future killers from using handguns to do what they set out to do?" I asked. There was no answer. So I kept asking questions. (Read more.)
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