Another school shooting in US.

[Mick Mac]

As many as 27 people have been killed, including children, in a shooting attack at a Connecticut primary school

At least a dozen children are among the dead at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown

Earlier, the gunman was reported to have been killed

[Kingy]

What a crazy world we're living in

 

[Alan Medic]

Tasteless.

[woodrot]

more fodder for the NRA aim to get everyone tooled up sadly

[Alan Medic]

Surely the opposite woodrot. Time for America to change its constitution.

[Huguenot]

Tragically the NRA will probably use this as evidence that all school teachers should carry weapons.

I was interested to read the history of the NRA, and see detailed how it grew quickly in strength after the wreck of the KKK.

It's not unreasonable to see a connection between barely educated fundamentalist bully boys in both organisations.

[Jeremy]

Alan - logically you are right, but unfortunately some people see the proliferation of firearms as the answer.

[LondonMix]

God this is too horrific to discuss so blithely. I burst into tears when I heard last night. Please remember that 18 primary school age children have just been murdered. I honestly can't bear to even to imagine what those families are going through.

[Otta]

You're right of course LondonMix, but the point is that these incidents are becoming less shocking as each one happens. Not any less tragic, and the fact the victims were so young in this case makes it possibly even more so, but unfortunately we are kind of used to seeing these stories.

And still nothing gets done about the gun laws in the U.S. because too many people with real power over there are fecking idiots!

That is not to say these things don't happen over here, they have done, but at least if the guns weren't so readily available, it's less likely.

[Gidget]

Latest is that 20 children are dead,and the rest are teachers, and the shooter and his mother, who was a teacher. Apparently he used his mother's guns!

[Marmora Man]

The US is not alone - Dunblane, Hungerford and Cumbria in the last 15 years here in UK.

[LondonMix]

I get what you are saying Otta and agree that US gun laws are weak on a number of fronts. I just am surprised there is so little thought being paid to the victims in this thread from the outset. There appeared to be a lot more grief being expressed regarding the very tragic suicide committed by the nurse who put through the DJ hoax call. I understand some people may be desensitized to such a thing but I can't imagine ever not finding the murder of small children deeply disturbing and tragically moving. I'm losing it just writing this so I think I just have to refrain from reading this thread as I find the entire event just so upsetting. Perhaps its because its my own country it affects me more deeply or its the fact the children were so very young.

[Otta]

Marmora Man Wrote:

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> The US is not alone - Dunblane, Hungerford and

> Cumbria in the last 15 years here in UK.

Indeed, that was part of my point, but how many more could there have been..

[StraferJack]

It's not all about random gun rampages

About 85 people die from his every day in America

Ridiculous to support the right to bear arms

Imagine allowing the tanked up revellers in British towns and cities to carry arms.

[StraferJack]

"Australia suffered 13 mass murders between 1981 and 1996. In the 16 years since our gun law reforms: zero. No more excuses please America."

[Gingerbeer]

Yesterday a man in China weilding a knife stabbed 22 elementary school children.

Is this a mental health issue or a weapons issue?

[Alan Medic]

It's both.

[El Pibe]

Hungerford was 25 years ago.

There have been three more deadly shootings in the US in 2012.

[civilservant]

LondonMix Wrote:

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> I get what you are saying Otta and agree that US gun laws are weak on a number of fronts. I just

> am surprised there is so little thought being paid to the victims in this thread from the outset.

Understatement of the year about US gun laws, LM!

As for your other point, it is necessary for us to identify victims as individuals before we can properly empathise. There is very little info at the moment apart from that about the shooter and the school principal who tried to restrain him. So we have no way of really understanding the scale of the catastrophe. The sympathy that people expressed for the hoaxed nurse started to flow only after they knew who she was and what the circumstances were.

I do hope that you cast your net of sympathy for small children facing disaster more widely e.g. the hundreds of children who died in places like China or Afghanistan as a result of natural disaster or military action.

[Fabricio the Guido]

News note

5,500 children die in Eastern and Southern Africa every day

Deaths are declining in Eritrea, Madagascar and Tanzania but, for most countries in eastern and southern Africa, Millennium Development Goal 4 remains elusive

NAIROBI, 15 July 2005 - A disproportionately heavy burden of child deaths weighs on families in eastern and southern Africa. Every day 5,500 children under the age of five die across the 21 countries of the region and the majority of the deaths are largely preventable.

That means that in the space of just two months more children?s lives are lost in the region than were lost in the tsunami. This toll is followed by 330,000 more in the next two months, and every two months.

?More, much more must be done, and luckily can be done, to prevent these deaths,? said Per Engebak, UNICEF Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa. ?What we need now is for countries to make sure that life-saving health interventions get to the children who need them. These interventions aren?t complicated, they aren?t expensive and they work. We know what treated mosquito nets, immunization and vitamin A supplements, for instance, can do. With these and other simple measures in place, children just do not have to die.?

The exceptions to the grim rule reinforce this point. Eritrea, one of the world?s poorest countries and encumbered by a long-standing drought, has managed nevertheless to make excellent progress in reducing malaria deaths among children under five. Its many-sided approach includes increasing children?s and pregnant women?s access to treated mosquito nets and to effective community-based diagnosis and treatment.

In fact, Eritrea, Tanzania, Malawi and Zambia are all within reach of the important target of having 60 per cent of their children under five and pregnant women sleeping under treated mosquito nets this year and ensuring prompt access to effective treatment for those suffering from malaria. More children die from malaria in sub-Saharan Africa than from any other cause.

New statistics from Madagascar and Tanzania point to declines in infant and child mortality rates in recent years. Among the reasons are that Tanzania has boosted budget allocations to the health sector and has a national programme to get more babies and their mothers and young children under insecticide treated nets. Madagascar?s integrated approach includes improving children?s nutritional status, and reaching them with immunization and treated mosquito nets.

The recent African Union Summit in Libya early in July reaffirmed that body?s commitment to improving children?s survival and development prospects in Africa. The body urged all member states to replicate the successes being achieved and put in place the measures needed to reduce the death toll exacted among the continent?s children. Strong national leadership and sustained international support can turn the tide.

As the Commissioner for Social Affairs said in Libya, ?The means to attain MDG 4 [to reduce child mortality by two thirds between 1990 and 2015] are known, proven, cost effective and widely available. The opportunity to act has rarely been greater. The time to deliver is now!?

For further information, please contact:

Patricia Lone, UNICEF ESARO, Tel: (0722-590595); plone@unicef.org

Victor Chinyama, UNICEF ESARO, Tel: (0722-701505); vchinyama@unicef.org

Beatrice Karanja, UNICEF ESARO, Tel: (0722-205482); bkaranja@unicef.org

Updated: 19 July 2005

[Huguenot]

Gingerbeer, I'm staggered at your logic, yes, some kids also died at the hands of a lunatic in China.

11,000 people died in the US this year from firearms, you genuinely think there's equivalence?

What is wrong with your head?

[Otta]

Fabrico, whilst that is all terrible, what's your point again?

[alice]

grieving for unknown children is self-indulgent and unhealthy unless linked with action

[Huguenot]

Still shocked by Americans who abort reason when it comes to justifying guns. That's an hour later, and I really liked Gingerbeer until, well, now.

[maxxi]

Huguenot Wrote:

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> Gingerbeer, I'm staggered at your logic, yes, some

> kids also died at the hands of a lunatic in

> China.

In fact, of the 22 children stabbed in Henan, none has died and just two were seriously injured. Whilst there have been fatalities in similar attacks in China it should be blindingly obvious that had this frenzied attack been carried out with a firearm(s) so many would not have survived.