That's the way the whole things ends

That's the way the cornbread crumbles
That's the way the whole thing ends
--Gillian Welch, The Way the Whole Thing Ends

1/22/14

Indiana's Purdue University shooting leaves one dead, man in custody

(Reuters)-A man was shot to death at Indiana's Purdue University on Tuesday and a male suspect was taken into custody, police said, in an apparently targeted killing that follows a rash of shootings at U.S. schools this month.

On Monday night, a student was shot and critically wounded outside an athletic center at Widener University in Chester, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia. Last week alone, two students were shot at a high school in Philadelphia, another was shot at a high school in Albany, Georgia, and two students were shot at a middle school in New Mexico.

Gun ownership laws in the United States have come under intense scrutiny since December 2012, when 20 young children and six educators were shot dead by a long gunman at Sandy Hook elementary school in Connecticut.

1/20/14

Gun access tied to greater suicide, murder risk

(Reuters) - People have heightened risks of dying from suicide and murder if they own or have access to a gun, according to a new analysis of previous research.

Researchers found people who lived in homes with firearms were between two and three times more likely to die from either cause, compared to those who lived in homes without guns.

For the new review, the researchers analyzed 14 studies that looked at the risk of committing suicide among people who did and didn't have access to guns and five studies that looked at gun access and the risk of being murdered. Four of the studies examined both suicide and murder risk.

The studies were published between 1988 and 2005. All but one found people with access to firearms had heightened risks of dying from suicide and murder.

The researchers found having access to a gun was tied to a three-fold increase in the likelihood that people would kill themselves.

Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). About 12 out of every 100,000 people commit suicide each year.

Anglemyer's team also found about a two-fold increased risk of death from murder among people who had access to a gun, compared to those without access to firearms. For women, the increased risk of being killed was even higher.

Firearm ownership is more common in the United States (upwards of one-third of households) than in any other country – and firearms cause more than 31,000 deaths a year here, according to the review. Further, the annual rate of suicide by firearms in America is higher than in any other country with reported data; the annual rate of firearm-related homicides in America is the highest among high-income countries.

Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results.
--Narcotics Anonymous