pewsocialtrends.org
Hugh Bailey:
A group with both the standing and expertise to effect change is trying to make it happen. United Physicians of Newtown, formed in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook killings, wants to turn the gun debate away from the usual contours and focus the discussion on public health.
There ought to be some common ground. It's a regular refrain from the no-gun-regulations crowd that since cars cause thousands of deaths maybe we ought to ban cars, not guns. But the issue isn't banning. The issue is that cars and driving are heavily regulated, and as a result are much less harmful than they might otherwise be (for instance, because of seatbelts). The same is true for alcohol and cigarettes, both of which can cause serious harm but neither of which are banned.
United Physicians of Newtown is the group I'm a member of, and have been writing about
here and
here. The group does not fund raise. But we are into
policy.
Morgan Whitaker:
“They call me crazy, yet the people doing the finger pointing are doing things that are absolutely bizarre,” Wayne LaPierre said, adding, ”It’s time to take a look at the insanity that’s consumed the media and too many in this town.”
Of course we have learned that majority of the NRA’s 5 million members don’t agree with LaPierre, who argued that no new laws should be pursued to address gun violence, beyond arming teachers. A recent Johns Hopkins University survey shows 75% of self-identified NRA members support universal background check laws, a policy LaPierre opposes.
He also claimed that “the vast majority of Americans” favor trained armed police and security officers in every school. Apparently LaPierre’s definition of “vast majority” is a two point margin, because an ABC News/Washington Post poll asked this question in the last week and found only 50% of Americans agreed with LaPierre, compared to 48% who disagreed. Moreover, support for that idea has declined in since the question was asked in January, only a few weeks after the Newtown school shooting.
LaPierre wasn’t only confused about how Americans and his own organizations members feel about the issues. He also claimed that gun ownership is at an all-time high in America, despite a report released just this week that shows gun ownership has declined in the last four years.
Chicago Reader:
Shannon Hicks, a reporter and photographer for the weekly Bee of Newtown, Connecticut, was perhaps the first journalist to arrive at the Sandy Hook Elementary School last December 14 to cover what turned out to be the massacre of 20 children and six adults. She took a picture of children leaving the school that showed up the next day on the front page of the New York Times, and a couple of weeks ago she served as the entree into Rachel Aviv's New Yorker story [behind paywall, alas] on the Bee's response to the massacre.
In typically understated New Yorker style, Aviv brought her report into focus with the following paragraph:
"After the second class had been evacuated, the education reporter came to retrieve the memory card from Hicks's camera, and Hicks went over to the Sandy Hook Volunteer Fire & Rescue Company, which had just arrived. She bunched up her knee-length skirt and pulled bunker pants over it, and put on boots, a turnout coat, and a helmet. With three other firefighters, she set up a triage area near the school's baseball field, laying out medical bags, collars, backboards, and stretchers."
Reporters don't commonly double as volunteer firefighters. Reporters don't commonly surrender their memory cards and stop reporting the biggest story of their career because of a volunteer obligation. What obligation—as any Chicago reporter would ask you—could possibly exceed serving the people’s right to know?
I read Aviv's article because someone in my book club, a retired Chicago homicide detective named Jim Hennigan, sent us all an e-mail recommending it. He explained in a later e-mail that Aviv's story interested him because it was about "how the practice of that craft [journalism] might complement one's membership in a community or be challenged by it."
More politics and policy below the fold.
Dr Stephen Chasen:
That is where Cuomo’s proposed reforms come in. By moving the regulation of abortion out of the criminal code and into the Public Health Law where it belongs, the revisions to our law would ensure that if something goes terribly wrong at any point during a woman’s pregnancy, she will be able to access the care she needs here in New York.
And by aligning state law with federal law, women and their doctors will know that women’s health is a medical issue that will be managed in accordance with medical standards. It will not be subject to political or ideological games.
Doctors need to be able to provide the best care possible. Too often around our country, we see how the politicization of abortion-related care ties doctors’ hands. New York must ensure that all pregnant women receive the care they need, when they need it, right here.
Amen.
PBS:
While Feds Debate, States Take Up Gun Fight
Most of the movement on gun legislation has been at the state level. Since Jan. 1, a raft of new bills has been introduced, with 574 proposed bills to strengthen gun controls, and 512 to bolster gun rights, according to a new analysis by the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, which tracks state gun laws. Connecticut alone has introduced more than 100 gun-control measures and as well as a handful of gun-rights bills since the shooting.
And 54 additional measures — about half pro-gun, half gun-control — were already pending when the Newtown shooting happened on Dec. 14 and are still in front of state legislatures.
Newtown isn't that divided. It's predominantly 10-1 "do something more" (but the 1 is adamant and organized.)
Dana Milbank:
The CPAC conservatives were isolated — literally: Instead of the usual in-town location at the Marriott in Woodley Park, CPAC assembled at the Gaylord, at out-of-the-way National Harbor in Maryland. Omitted from the invite list were some of the more popular national Republicans, including New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, for being insufficiently doctrinaire.
The result was a conservative caricature, to judge from the CPAC exhibit hall: an NRA laser-shooting tent, two life-size Transformer action figures marching about, the Right to Life’s larger-than-life fetus photos and a profusion of stickers and posters (”I’m a bitter gun owner and I vote”).
On the ballroom stage, the soul-searching continued.
“Maybe conservatives could get a sense of humor,” proposed publisher Tucker Carlson. “You’d be amazed at what just knowing 50 words of Spanish will do,” suggested journalist John Fund.
Yep, that should do it.
WaPo:
They worry they don’t spend enough time with their kids. They’re exhausted by just how much they have to cram into their days, juggling work with loading the dishwasher, driving to taekwondo practice, supervising homework and planning the Girl Scout camping trip. The pressure is relentless.
This isn’t just Mom anymore. This is Dad.
Article refers to this
Pew study:
The way mothers and fathers spend their time has changed dramatically in the past half century. Dads are doing more housework and child care; moms more paid work outside the home. Neither has overtaken the other in their “traditional” realms, but their roles are converging, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of long-term data on time use.
At the same time, roughly equal shares of working mothers and fathers report in a new Pew Research Center survey feeling stressed about juggling work and family life: 56% of working moms and 50% of working dads say they find it very or somewhat difficult to balance these responsibilities.