You Can't Fix It If You'd Don't Know About It - Be Informed

This is the New York Times' Gun Report published on January 2, 2014.  I will just post the introduction and provide a link to the remainder of the report so that you can read the entire, sad, unbelievable report yourself.

Today we return from our holiday break. Here are some notable shootings that occurred while we were gone:

• A 2-month-old girl was shot and killed by a family member in East Lampeter Township, Pa., on Christmas Eve. No one was charged. She was the third child under the age of 2 to be killed in the area in 2013.

• A man in Colorado Springs, Colo., shot and killed his 14-year-old stepdaughter as she crawled into a basement window in the middle of the night, believing she was a burglar, on Dec. 23. No word on charges.

• A man, his wife and her two children, ages 10 and 12, were found dead in a murder-suicide in Fontana, Calif., on Dec. 31. The bodies were discovered by the woman’s 16-year-old son, who was concerned that he hadn’t heard from his mother.

• On Dec. 26, a man in Raceland, La., shot his former in-laws, his wife, and the head of a hospital where he’d worked before killing himself. Three of the victims died, including his wife.

• Xavier Hawkins, who was dressed as Santa Claus, was shot in the back with a pellet gun during a toy giveaway in southeast Washington, D.C., on Christmas Day. Hawkins led the annual gift giveaway for the last seven years.

• A 16-year-old girl was spared possibly fatal injuries after her glasses deflected a bullet that struck her in the face during a drive-by shooting in Seattle, Wash., on Dec. 21.

• A pregnant 17-year-old was fatally shot on in Dolton, Ill., on Christmas Eve. Doctors were able to save her baby.

• Dominique Romero, 19, was sitting on her sofa when an unknown gunman fired up to nine shots on the street outside her home in Richmond, Calif., paralyzing her. “My heart is broken,” her mother said. “I can’t imagine what my baby is going through.”

• Kayo Redd, the younger brother of the rapper Waka Flocka Flame, shot and killed himself near his home in Atlanta, Ga., on Dec. 29.

And on Dec. 26, Adam Weinstein of Gawker compiled a list of every mass shooting in 2013. The F.B.I. classifies mass murder as four fatalities, not including the killer. “The most obscene incidents of gun violence usually do not make the mainstream news at all,” someone posted on Reddit.

Here is today’s report.  Read More