Tagged: gun violence

States with the most gun control laws have the fewest gun-related deaths, according to a study published this week in the medical journal JAMA Internal Medicine. Researchers found that states with the most laws have a mortality rate 42 percent lower than those states with the fewest. So how does Washington state compare? Ross Reynolds talks with the lead researcher from Boston Children’s Hospital, Dr. Eric Fleegler.

In President Obama’s State of the Union Address, he called on Congress to pass new gun control legislation. He declared that “in the two months since Newtown, more than a thousand birthdays, graduations and anniversaries have been stolen from our lives by a bullet from a gun."

According to the most recent report on gun deaths by the Center for Disease control, two-thirds of all US gun deaths in 2010 were suicides. 

Hundreds of people came out on a chilly Saturday morning to exchange their guns for $100 and $200 Amazon.com gift cards in the first guy buyback event held in Seattle in 20 years. People stood in line holding rifles in camouflage cases and shot guns wrapped in blankets among other things. Traffic clogged up city streets near the parking lot where the event took place.

Former Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, former Astronaut Mark Kelly, are launching a new gun control group.  Their specific proposals to combat gun violence include comprehensive background checks for private sales and stricter controls on high-capacity magazines and assault weapons. 

What do you think? Is gun control the answer?  Ross Reynolds talks with UCLA law professor Adam Winkler, Second Amendment Foundation spokesman Dave Workman, and Washington Cease Fire executive director Beth Flynn about the latest push for further gun control.

Designing safer schools doesn't mean turning them into military bunkers. That might have been an easy remodel back when schools were built like jails, filled with "cells" and controlled by bells. Today's schools are open, flexible spaces that allow students to combine and recombine into groups that learn from each other as much as they learn from the teacher.