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posted by takyon on Monday November 06 2017, @02:25AM   Printer-friendly
At Least 26 Dead After Gunman Opens Fire In South Texas Church

Federal authorities are responding to a shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, a small community southeast of San Antonio.

In a press conference Sunday night, an official from the Texas Department of Public Safety described the scene: Around 11:20 am, the suspect, dressed in black, approached the church and began firing an assault rifle. He then entered the church and continued firing.

Gov. Greg Abbott confirmed that at least 26 people were killed. A Texas Department of Public Safety official said the ages of the victims ranged from 5 to 72 years old. The AP reports that the pastor's 14-year-old daughter is among the dead.

The Department of Public Safety confirmed to NPR that at least 20 others were wounded. A DPS official said in the press conference that the gunman was confronted by an armed civilian outside of the church.

The shooter, who was found dead in neighboring Guadalupe County, has been identified as Devin Kelley, 26, a former Air Force member.

 
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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by urza9814 on Tuesday November 07 2017, @12:28AM

    by urza9814 (3954) on Tuesday November 07 2017, @12:28AM (#593362) Journal

    Will banning guns completely eliminate gun violence? No, but it would greatly reduce it.

    The USA has nearly 10x the gun homicide rate when compared to Canada (and Canada doesn't have a gun ban, just restrictions):

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate [wikipedia.org] [wikipedia.org]

    Unless you think knife attacks or vehicular homicide are totally acceptable, you should probably be looking at OVERALL homicide rate. Less guns = less gun violence is practically a tautology. If it was your only goal you could probably reduce gun deaths greatly by freely distributing high explosives, but most people wouldn't consider that to be an improvement...

    I'll also note that Canada also has things like universal healthcare and better social services in general, which tend to make people less desperate. Better mental health and less desperation means less suicide (which are the VAST majority of gun deaths) and also less crime in general. Maybe try comparing to China next time, in this context they *might* be more similar politically... :)

    More seriously though...compare these three maps:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate [wikipedia.org]
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country [wikipedia.org]
    https://assets.weforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/1511B11-global-inequality-work-map-GINI.png [weforum.org]

    None of them line up perfectly...but it looks to me like the GINI index is a better predictor of overall violent crime than rates of gun ownership.

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