But that's not really a fair point of view, they get involved in that sort of life, you increase your risk. For your average Joe Bloggs shop worker, software engineer, doctor, teacher, clerk etc who lead a 'normal' life, the risk of getting shot walking down the street is low is it not, or have I really been living in an absolute bubble on my trips to the states?

 

That goes back to my post too. These two idiots got in an argument and shot at each other. That's the lifestyle they brought on but others happened to take stray bullets. This just happened to be on a campus. They didn't target the innocents. THAT kind of action and result is what I was saying happens everyday on the streets. BUT, there are times when your average man is shot for things like wearing the wrong color t shirt in the wrong part of town.

But that's not really a fair point of view, they get involved in that sort of life, you increase your risk. For your average Joe Bloggs shop worker, software engineer, doctor, teacher, clerk etc who lead a 'normal' life, the risk of getting shot walking down the street is low is it not, or have I really been living in an absolute bubble on my trips to the states?

 

From US Department of Justice data, it looks to me like somewhat less than half of all homicides are cases where the victim and killer do not know each other. From reading the news, the crimes that get attention frequently involve drugs and gangs. These, too, may be acquaintances or strangers. The news media probably under-reports most of this, as it has become so common that it draws little interest. What does make the news, though, is when a child gets shot in a gunfight, with no involvement other than the street he was walking on, or the window he was looking out of.

 

But, you are right in your assumption that the average person walking down the street is pretty safe. The violence is generally confined to a few neighborhoods. Unfortunately, economic and social circumstances are such that honest, innocent people do live in these neighborhoods, too, and they risk being victims every day.

I've never had any problems on any of my visits to Detroit and find the people there to be very welcoming to visitors

For the most part, that is spot on Matthew. However, if you happen off the "beaten path" things can go south in a hurry. Having several friends that are part of the Detroit police force, I know there are parts of Detroit that even the police won't venture into. That said, Greektown, Hart Plaza, the casinos, Cobo are all quite safe places to be. Have spent many happy hours in those places in years gone by. As we speak, huge crowds are heading downtown all day everyday to visit the Detroit autoshow.

terrible. Why does this keep happening?! Please tell me.

The news liberal news media loves digging up this stuff. There is a lot of biased reporting going on and they would have you believe that we live in a hell hole because of guns .

Detroit happens to be one of my favourite cities, I find it fascinating with its histrory and now abandoned areas, A great city to photograph. I am a big music lover so both Chicago and Detroit as well as New Orlean's has a lot of great history.

 

I've never had any problems on any of my visits to Detroit and find the people there to be very welcoming to visitors. I used to live in Toronto when I was younger so we did a lot of night-clubbing between Toronto and Detroit as it is only about 3 hour drive.

 

But yes, it does have its problems but it also has a lot of character. Give me a city with grit anyday...

 

As someone who lived 31 years in Detroit thanks for your words. It does seem the press loves to pick on it-sometimes justified but often not.

The news liberal news media loves digging up this stuff. There is a lot of biased reporting going on and they would have you believe that we live in a hell hole because of guns .

Ofcourse someone has to bring up politics... Fail. Topic is about a shooting in schools not someone "tryin' to take yer gunz". There is a news network FAR more biased that will make stuff up on the fly and lie about it.

 

Back on topic:

I am from the inner city and I know the causes there for shootings. For these copycat school shottings I have no idea what is precipitating them. It's really sad.

Well, everything he said was true.

For these copycat school shottings I have no idea what is precipitating them.

 

err... maybe the liberal news media popularizing them? They can't be "copycat" shootings if nobody hears about them, right?

Back on topic:

I am from the inner city and I know the causes there for shootings. For these copycat school shottings I have no idea what is precipitating them. It's really sad

 

It wasn't a copy-cat school shooting, and there haven't been any since Sandy Hook. This was an argument between two fools who shot at eachother on a school campus. The media blew it up because the media in this country is nothing better than 'death porn' with an agenda. They don't cover that more people died in Chicago last year than all the Allied Coalition troops in Afghanistan, but they'll cover a freak shooting between two idiots just because it advances their liberal agenda. Did I mention that the mayor of Chicago is a big-time liberal and former Chief of Staff for our benevolent and gracious El Presidente?

Gun violence in the US is overblown. I'm sure every major city in the world has really bad areas where one enters at their own risk. Humanity still has a ways to go.

Right or wrong people myself included look at schools pretty much the same as a church, as in they don't ever ever expect something like that to happen there. It is scary. Call me crazy if you want but the last place I want to even imagine that something like that is even possible is a school or the same school that my daughter goes to.

 

It is overblown because these are places of children and like it or not, they are looked at and treated differently in people's minds than undesirable parts of major cities or places with high violence.

 

While I do not agree at a with the way the media hypes up fear mongering of different subjects from time to time it doesn't change the fact the any violence at a school is a scary thing. Something that will instantly grab WAY more attention and rightly so, as these are places that just naturally seem that things like that should not happen at.

 

It's sad the world we are living in. Sad that news like this even happens.P.S

 

iPhone grammar fail.

For those that think America is going to pieces, here are some statistics from the FBI that are hard to refute-

.

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8

 

One thing the news media rarely reports is the fact that the total homicide rate in America has declined every year since 2007 -

 

2007 - 14,916 murders

2008 - 14,224 murders

2009 - 13,752 murders

2010 - 13,164 murders

2011 - 12,664 murders

 

Statistics for 2012 are not listed yet.

 

Bill

I saw this thread earlier today and unfortunately I couldn't respond. Now that I can, all I have to say is this violence is being escalated not due to loose gun controls. It's being escalated by the national media which is seizing on every incident as a way to splash headlines, front and center, for all to see. Those driven to inflict mass violence in public crave this attention. They want to go out in a blaze of glory. I've said we need to work on mental well being, especially early on in schools. But we also need to work on the national media, to work on the national media's sponsors--to get them to understand that they are not helping the situation by making the perpetrators of these crimes the star of the show.

 

Does anyone agree with this, or does anyone see a need for the national media to keep things status quo?

 

John

I'd say you're spot-on John. The only thing I'd add is that good old fashioned parenting seems to have gone missing in the last 20 yrs or so. The daycare generation... Anything for the almighty buck and nothing else matters.