Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Violence, Emotion, Facts

"Most gun violence, he said, involves suicide, not homicide. And he noted that access to highly lethal weapons makes a difference, citing the school attack Friday in China in which a knife-wielding man wounded more than 20 students: "The point is, they were injured" - not killed - "because the lethality of a knife is so much less than that of a gun.""
--Statistically, knife wounds are twice as lethal as gun wounds - 30% for guns, 60% for knives.  The knife in China - was it sharp?  Large?  Used with the intent to kill?

Important quote:
"The one thing that we must not do is look for a quick fix for our grief by in any way assuming that the diagnosis is equal to the cause of this violence," said Harold J. Bursztajn, a psychiatrist and co-founder of the Program in Psychiatry and the Law at Harvard Medical School.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/anguished-search-for-an-explanation/2012/12/16/183fee14-47a7-11e2-ad54-580638ede391_story_1.html

No comments:

Post a Comment