A WAY AROUND "THE CRAVEN"

Chicago Mayor Proposes Restrictions on Gun Sales

By JULIE BOSMANMAY 28, 2014

CHICAGO — Calling gun violence Chicago’s “most urgent problem,” Mayor Rahm Emanuel outlined a proposal on Tuesday that would make it harder to buy firearms in the city.

The proposal would restrict gun purchases for individuals to one a month and would mandate that all gun sales be videotaped, an effort to deter buyers from using false identification. Under the proposed ordinance, employees in gun stores would be required to undergo background checks and complete training to help them spot the common signs of gun traffickers. Retailers would be subject to a quarterly audit of inventory in an effort to reduce theft. In addition, the plan would impose a 72-hour waiting period to buy handguns and a 24-hour waiting period to buy rifles and shotguns.

Mr. Emanuel planned to introduce the report at a City Council meeting Wednesday morning.

“Chicago’s violence problem is largely a gun problem,” the report said. “Every year, Chicago police officers take thousands of illegal guns off the street. But, despite these efforts, it remains far too easy for criminals to get their hands on deadly weapons.”

The proposal is the latest attempt by the mayor to restrict firearms in the city, a response to intractable gang-related violence. In January, a federal judge ruled that an outright ban on gun shops in Chicago was unconstitutional, citing “the right to keep and bear arms for self-defense under the Second Amendment.”

Mr. Emanuel has tried to tamp down violence in Chicago since taking office in 2011, pushing for tougher rules on gun retailers and stronger federal laws on firearms. Chicago’s rate of gun-related violence is three times that of New York.

The report blamed states with weaker gun laws for most of the illegal guns in Chicago, saying that from 2009 to 2013, 60 percent of guns used to commit crimes in the city were originally bought out of state, mainly in Indiana, Mississippi and Wisconsin.

A Medal for Jennifer

I have to admire Jennifer Mascia who compiles and writes the Gun Report for the Joe Nocera blog in the New York Times.  Can you imagine how difficult it is to read about senseless killings day after day after day, and mentally accumulating all that fear, pain, and heartbreak.  She should get a Congressional Medal.  Here is her report for January 3, 2014.

Mass shootings have tripled in recent years, from five a year between 2000 and 2008 to 16 a year from 2009 to 2012, according to a new study obtained by Yahoo! News yesterday. The authors, who are from the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training Center at Texas State University, define mass shootings as incidents where a gunman opens fire in a public place with the motivation of killing many.

The report, which is set for release in an F.B.I. bulletin next week, also sheds some light on who is committing these shootings. Among the findings:

• 94 percent of the gunmen are men. The youngest was 13 and the oldest was 88.

• Shootings most often take place at businesses (40 percent), followed by schools (29 percent), and outdoors (19 percent).

• Despite the rapid police response time, nearly half the active shootings are over before officers arrive.

• The shootings claim, on average, two lives.

In response to the increased frequency of such events, the F.B.I. is changing protocol. Previously, police officers were instructed to wait for a SWAT team before apprehending active shooters. Now, the F.B.I. is instructing police how to respond themselves.

Here is today’s report.

—Jennifer Mascia

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Gun Violence Is a Contagious Disease

Gary Slutkin proposes an approach that the NRA can whole-heartedly support.  Does not involve ANY infringement on the 2nd Amendment, and actually supports their slogan, "Guns don't kill people, people kill people."  See what you think.

Thinking Outside the Box to Curb Gun Violence

This is such an important piece of news, but I doubt that you will see it on the 6 o'clock news in your city.  It's fair to say, I think, that all of the mass shootings that have taken place were committed by people who had previously had some contact with the mental health system.  It's also fair to say that some of them didn't get the treatment they needed because their insurance (if they had any) wouldn't pay for it.  Now that changes and mental illness will be treated no differently than appendicitis.  It's a lengthy article, but well worth your time reading it.

Rules to Require Equal Coverage for Mental Ills

By JACKIE CALMES and ROBERT PEAR

Published: November 8, 2013 NY Times

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Friday will complete a generation-long effort to require insurers to cover care for mental health and addiction just like physical illnesses when it issues long-awaited regulations defining parity in benefits and treatment.

The rules, which will apply to almost all forms of insurance, will have far-reaching consequences for many Americans. In the White House, the regulations are also seen as critical to President Obama’s program for curbing gun violence by addressing an issue on which there is bipartisan agreement: Making treatment more available to those with mental illness could reduce killings, including mass murders.

In issuing the regulations, senior officials said, the administration will have acted on all 23 executive actions that the president and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. announced early this year to reduce gun crimes after the Newtown, Conn., school massacre. In planning those actions, the administration anticipated that gun control legislation would fail in Congress as pressure from the gun lobby proved longer-lasting than the national trauma over the killings of first graders and their caretakers last Dec. 14.

“We feel actually like we’ve made a lot of progress on mental health as a result in this year, and this is kind of the big one,” said a senior administration official, one of several who described the outlines of the regulations that Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, will announce at a mental health conference on Friday in Atlanta with the former first lady Rosalynn Carter.

While laws and regulations dating to 1996 took initial steps in requiring insurance parity for medical and mental health, “here we’re doing full parity, and we’ve also taken steps to extend it to the people covered in the Affordable Care Act,” the senior official said. “This is kind of the final word on parity.”

With the announcement, the administration will make some news that is certain to be popular with many Americans at a time when Mr. Obama and Ms. Sebelius have been on the defensive for the bungled introduction of the insurance marketplaces created under the Affordable Care Act.

According to administration officials, the rule would ensure that health plans’ co-payments, deductibles and limits on visits to health care providers are not more restrictive or less generous for mental health benefits than for medical and surgical benefits. Significantly, the regulations would clarify how parity applies to residential treatments and outpatient services, where much of the care for people with addictions or mental illnesses occurs.

Any geographic or facility-type limitations would have to be comparable for medical and mental health benefits. For example, an administration official said, an insurer “can’t say you can only get substance-abuse treatment in state but you can go anywhere for medical/surgical.”

The regulations, which specifically put into effect the 2008 Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, would affect most Americans with insurance — roughly 85 percent of the population — whether their policies are from employer plans, other group plans, or coverage purchased in the market for individual plans.

The final parity rules do not apply to health plans that manage care for millions of low-income people on Medicaid. However, the administration has previously issued guidance to state health officials saying that such plans should meet the parity requirements of the 2008 law.

The parity law does not apply to Medicare, according to Irvin L. Muszynski, a lawyer at the American Psychiatric Association.

The rules have been awaited since the 2008 law by patient advocate groups. As it happened, the groups’ complaints about regulatory delays were the subject of a Senate hearing on Thursday. Interest picked up further last month as individuals could begin enrolling in the new insurance marketplaces, or exchanges, provided under Mr. Obama’shealth care law.

Under that law,treatment for mental health and substance abuse is among 10 categories of benefits considered essential and thus mandatory in plans marketed in the new exchanges to individuals and small groups. Although many insurers already provide extensive mental health coverage, some have found ways to get around existing rules and to deny payment for treatment, Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, said the five-year delay in issuing a final rule had real-world consequences. “In mental health, uncertainty kills,” he said. “If an individual poses a threat to himself or others, he cannot be told he will get the care he needs as soon as his insurance company decides what ‘parity’ means.”

Insurance companies have raised concerns about the expense involved in paying for the lengthy and intensive courses of treatment that the final regulations address. But experts have said the rules are not expected to significantly add to the cost of coverage because so few patients require these levels of care. 

Mental health services are scarce in many parts of the country, particularly for children, so experts have questioned whether changes in the law will have much impact in practice.

Former Representative Patrick J. Kennedy of Rhode Island, a co-sponsor of the 2008 law, said the rules could particularly help veterans. “No one stands to gain more from true parity than the men and women who have served our country and now need treatment for the invisible wounds they have brought home from Iraq and Afghanistan,” he said.

Administration officials consulted closely with mental health groups. “What we are hearing is very positive,” said Andrew Sperling, a lobbyist at the National Alliance on Mental Illness, based on what he had been told of the final language.

Under the 2008 law, treatment limits — like restrictions on the number of doctor visits or days in a hospital — cannot be more restrictive for mental health benefits than for medical and surgical benefits. But interpretation of the law left much in question.

For example, Mr. Sperling said, policyholders can easily determine whether numerical limits on doctor visits are comparable in their plans for mental and medical health care. But, he said, it is more difficult to challenge “nonquantitative limits” — like some insurers’ requirements that people get their authorization before seeing a psychotherapist.

The provision of the rule that will seek to clarify the amount of transparency required of health plans “is important,” Mr. Sperling said. Patients advocates say they need to be able to see the criteria by which insurers find a particular service to be medically necessary, so policyholders can judge whether standards for mental health treatments are more restrictive.

Carol A. McDaid, the leader of a coalition of patients and providers of mental health and addiction services, said: “This is the beginning, not the end, of our work to make the vision of the law a reality. We have to make sure that the law and the rules are fully enforced.”

Insurers and business trade groups said they did not know enough about the rules to comment.

Dr. Paul Summergrad of Tufts University, president-elect of the American Psychiatric Association, said he hoped the final rules would end “the uniquely discriminatory form of prior authorization and utilization review” applied to emergency care for patients with mental illness.

A person who has a heart attack or pneumonia and goes to a hospital will routinely be admitted, with electronic notice sent to the insurer on the next business day, Dr. Summergrad said. By contrast, he said, if a person who is profoundly depressed and tried to commit suicide goes to a hospital, an emergency room doctor must call a toll-free telephone number, “present the case in voluminous detail and get prior authorization.”

State insurance commissioners will apparently have the primary responsibility for seeing that commercial insurers comply with the parity standards. They already have their hands full, however, enforcing new insurance market rules, and in some states insurance regulators are considered close to the industry.

“We need enforcement,” Mr. Kennedy said in an interview. “The notion of delegating this to the states, which are looking to the federal government for direction, is problematic.”

Whisper in the Library

We have a good friend who lives in Seattle and frequents the public library near his home.  He uses their computers when his iPad isn't enough.  He'd better be careful now - he's likely to get shot for not whispering in the library.

Guns are now allowed in public libraries in Seattle, thanks to a state supreme court ruling holding that cities have no right to ban guns in public places such as parks and libraries. The board of the library system said it did not have a choice but to remove its longstanding ban on firearms.

Dave Workman, a gun rights advocate, told KOMO News that there’s no reason guns shouldn’t be allowed in libraries. “It’s public property,” he said. “Carrying a firearm is fundamental, individual civil right.”

But Pete Holmes, a city attorney, said he hopes that someday cities will be permitted to create their own gun controls. “It’s just wrong, and it is something that can be fixed at the state level,” Holmes said.

Guns are still banned in schools and courthouses in Washington State. Here is today’s report.

—Jennifer Mascia

A man who walked through a Paramus, N.J., mall firing a weapon and sending thousands of people running Monday night shot and killed himself early Tuesday. Richard Shoop, 20, entered the Garden State Plaza at around 9 p.m., shortly before the mall was scheduled to close, and roamed the hallways before taking his own life. No customers or employees were injured.

—The New York Times

12-year-old Dario L. Datis shot and killed himself at a home in Lower Milford Township, Pa., Monday morning. “Any time a child loses their life, it is very difficult,” said Leah Christman, the district superintendent.

—LehighValleyLive.com

41-year-old Robert Libke, an Oregon City, Ore., police officer who was shot and critically injured as he responded to a house fire on Sunday afternoon, died Monday afternoon. The home’s owner, 88-year-old Lawrence Cambra, had set it ablaze and was running around the property with a gun. Cambra was killed at the scene.

—KOIN.com

Abdul Waqas Hussain, 24, who was shot at his family-owned gas station inPaterson, N.J., on Thursday, died Monday. Three people have been charged with murder. Police say they are responsible for a string of robberies in the city.

—NorthJersey.com

Four people were wounded in a drive-by shooting outside a nightclub inPerris, Calif., early Sunday. A large group of people were leaving when someone drove by and opened fire. Jose Luis Avalos, 36, was arrested. The shooting may have stemmed from an earlier argument.

—The Press-Enterprise

Natasha Clark, 32, and Anthony Torres, 41, were found shot to death inside a home in the Meadow Lakes area outside Wasilla, Alaska, Sunday morning. Both were shot in the head and a pistol was found next to the man. The victims were reportedly involved in a relationship.

—Anchorage Daily News

A woman was shot and killed and two other people were injured in a home on the east side of Indianapolis, Ind., Monday evening. Police are trying to piece together the details of the shooting.

—TheIndyChannel.com

One person was shot and killed while breaking into an apartment in Fort Wayne, Ind., early Monday. One of the apartment’s occupants was wounded. It is unclear who fired the shots.

—INC NOW

Tiara M. Paul, 20, accidentally shot herself in the back of a police cruiser while trying to conceal a handgun from officers in Chicago, Ill., Saturday evening. Paul was stopped by officers in the Armour Square neighborhood for unsafe crossing between cars on a Chicago Transit Authority train. She was charged with two felonies.

—WLS-TV

Loretta O’Neal was shot in the back of the head outside a restaurant inDoniphan, Mo., Friday afternoon. Police arrested the victim’s ex-boyfriend, 45-year-old Curtis E. Ellis. He had been served with an order of protection last month.

—KFVS

A 19-year-old woman was shot in the stomach and seriously wounded inWaldorf, Md., Sunday evening. Police said several people were arguing when a man pulled a gun and fired twice. Officers are working to identify the shooter.

—SoMdNews

A 29-year-old woman was found lying outside an apartment complex suffering from serious gunshot wounds in Polson, Mont., Sunday morning. Police had earlier received a report about a domestic disturbance. Michael James Gardipe, 35, was charged with armed assault.

—DailyInterlake.com

Michael Chrisco, 36, was shot in the face with a sawed-off shotgun in Jackson County, Ore., Sunday night. Investigators said his brother, Joshua Chrisco, 32, shot at the victim’s trailer after a drunken disagreement and the pellets shattered the window and hit the victim in the face. Joshua Chrisco was arrested and his bail was set at more than $2 million.

—Fox 12 Oregon

A woman in her early 30s was shot in an apartment complex in Richmond, Calif., Monday afternoon. No one was arrested, though police said it’s possible the woman knows the shooter.

—Contra Costa Times

46-year-old Jay Seaford was shot and killed after an argument with his wife at their home in Marshall County, Ky., Sunday evening. Deputies said Rhonda Seaford shot her husband in the back with a handgun after a day of target shooting. Their child was home at the time. She was charged with murder.

—WPSD

A 22-year-old man was shot in the foot following a dispute over money inAiken, S.C., Sunday evening. A woman said four people came to her home and began yelling at her, and one of them pulled out a shotgun and began waving it around. He then shot the victim in the foot. The victim refused to press charges.

—Aiken Standard

A man sustained multiple gunshot wounds at a home in Pointe-aux-Chenes, La., Monday afternoon. Detectives are searching for Adam Naquin, 42, who lives at the home. He is considered armed and dangerous.

—HoumaToday.com

One person was shot and wounded at Gonzales Gardens, a public housing complex known for gang activity, in Columbia, S.C., Monday afternoon. A second gunshot victim was being treated at a local hospital and investigators were trying to determine whether the shootings are related.

—The State

A man was shot and injured in east Las Vegas, Nev., Monday afternoon. A police gang unit is searching for the suspect.

—Las Vegas Sun

A man was shot in the stomach with a revolver during an argument over a card game in Wildwood, Mo., early Sunday. The victim was dropped off at a police station. Alfredo Castro, 37, was charged with first-degree assault.

—KMOV

A 19-year-old man was shot several times and wounded while standing outside the McDougald Terrace apartment complex in southeast Durham, N.C., Sunday night. No word on his condition or suspects.

—NewsObserver.com

A man was shot and wounded in Long Beach, N.Y., late Saturday. Police recovered two rifles and have detained a person of interest. No motive was revealed.

—Newsday

A man was shot and wounded while leaving a grocery store in the Hollywood Heights neighborhood of Shreveport, La., Monday evening. No word on suspects.

—ShreveportTimes.com

19-year-old Raymond Mills was shot in the head and killed in the driveway of his home in Miami Gardens, Fla., early Monday. “A child is supposed to bury the mother and now I gotta bury my grandson,” the victim’s grandmother, Dianne Cope, told NBC6. “It just don’t make sense.”

—MiamiHerald.com

A 45-year-old man was shot in the back and collapsed in front of a pizza shop in downtown Trenton, N.J., Monday morning. No arrests have been made.

—NJ.com

Jerrmie Fields, 39, was shot and killed in the Homestead neighborhood ofPittsburgh, Pa., early Monday. Police said the victim was shot multiple times inside a car before being pushed out. Police are reviewing surveillance footage.

—CBS Pittsburgh

Edward Gwinner was shot in the chest and killed in an apartment inYpsilanti, Mich., early Friday. Police said the victim’s sister was involved in a domestic violence incident at a house party and he intervened on her behalf. Witnesses aren’t talking.

—MLive

Two men who allegedly robbed a Reading, Pa., convenience store were shot to death by a man who stumbled upon the scene Monday afternoon. Police said the victims entered Krick’s Korner, pointed guns at the store owner and demanded cash. When the men fled the store they ran into someone leaving an apartment in the same building. He pulled out his own weapon and shot the two men.

—ReadingEagle.com

A man in his late teens or early 20s was shot multiple times and left for dead at an intersection in northeast Houston, Tex., early Monday. A dark-colored S.U.V. was seen fleeing the scene.

—KHOU.com

A man was shot in the leg near a daycare center in central Toledo, Ohio, Monday afternoon. The victim also cut his hand on a fence while fleeing the shooter. No word on a suspect or an arrest.

—ToledoBlade.com

According to Slate’s gun-death tracker, an estimated 10,199 people have died as a result of gun violence in America since the Newtown massacre on December 14, 2012.

From Joe Nocera's blog on the New York Times website.

How Many Died Today?

Twenty years ago, the Congress of the United States sentenced thousands of its citizens to death. They attacked research on firearm deaths and injuries.  They attacked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for funding firearm research.  And to drive the nail home, the CDC saw $2.6 million stripped from its budget. Coincidentally, that is the same amount they had spent on firearms research the previous year.  Because there has been so little scientific research on firearms done, it has been impossible to enact measures to reduce the incidence of death and injury.  How many lives might have been saved had this action not been taken?  We will never know.

Joe Nocera, writing in an Op Ed piece for The New York Times, states that Slate's gun-death tally, which is included at the end of each of his blog posts, has recorded 7,897 deaths since the Newtown massacre last December-almost three times the total killed on Sept. 11, and nearly double the number of U.S. soldiers killed over the course of the nine-year-long Iraq War.

As astonishing as that number is, there is a glaring disparity between the C.D.C figures (they are still allowed to report death records) and Slate's running total.  The reason, Slate has explained, is that its tally is culled from news reports, and the C.D.C figures are taken from death records. "Using the most recent CDC estimates. . .it is likely that as of today, 9/5/2013, roughly 23,381 people have died from guns in the United States since the Newtown shootings.  Compare that number of deaths reported in the news and you can see how under-told the story of gun violence in America really is. "

Here is the gun report for September 6, 2013:

A 2 month old in Minneapolis, a 6 month old shot by her 3 year old brother in Charlston, S.C., a 12 year old boy shot by his 15 year old cousin in New Mexico, a 14 year old boy in Newark, N.J., a 16 year old and another man in one shooting in Philadelphia, 4 people in Charlotte, N.C., a 72 year old woman in Longmont, Colorado, a 26 year old woman in Tennessee, a passenger on a bus shot by another passenger in Houston, Texas, a 29 year old man in Austin, Texas, a man in his 20s in Chicago, a 33 year old and a 44 year old in a murder-suicide in Minnesota, a 38 year old man in Yakima, Washington, a man in Boston, Massachusetts, a 36 year old man in Rochester, NY, a man in Tallahassee, Fl, a 19 year old in Toledo, Ohio, a man in North Kansas City, MO, a man in Houston, Texas, a 55 year old man and a 20 year old man in Elkhart, Indiana, a 21 year old in Portage, Wisconsin.

These were real people, folks.

Aljazeera Whaaat?

I can't wait to see what the " new voice" of news in America has to say. We watched our first segment of Aljazeera America last night and I must say I was impressed.  Ever since the school massacre in Newtown, there have been very few investigative stories that focus on the proliferation of gun violence in our country.  Aljazeera apparently owes no debt to the NRA and is not afraid to shine a light on the number of shootings taking place in Chicago.  The first segment was last night, and the second is tonight.  The veteran newswoman, Joie Chan, is excellent, as is every other journalist I have seen on this network.  One of my favorites is Ali Velchi who I have previously watched on anorher network.

Here are the names of the editorial team for Aljazeera.  Relax, none of them are named Mohammed!

The editorial team will be led by Kate O'Brian, a 30-year ABC News veteran who will take over as president of the network.

She will be joined by David Doss and Shannon High-Bassalik, who will join from CNN as senior vice-presidents, and Marcy McGinnis, a former journalism associate dean who worked at CBS News.

Ehab al-Shihabi will serve as interim chief executive officer of the network, according to an announcement made by Al Jazeera's acting director-general, Mostefa Souag.

Q&A

Five Questions with Kate O'Brian, Al Jazeera America's newly

appointed president:

 Why Al Jazeera? 

This is an incredibly exciting opportunity to create a news product that I think is sorely missing in the American media landscape right now. There is a great history of quality journalism at Al Jazeera, and I am looking forward to bringing all that to Al Jazeera America. 

O'Brian, a former senior vice-president at ABC News who began her career there as an intern, will be based at the network's headquarters in New York City, and "will have full responsibility for defining and implementing the editorial strategy and operations across the network, including news, documentary and all other programming", according to the statement.

In an interview, O'Brian told Al Jazeera English, AJAM's sister network, that there was "a gap" in the US news media landscape that her channel would be seeking to fill.

"Coming into the American news landscape, the opportunity to innovate is something Al Jazeera can bring into the equation. We can start from scratch, producing in-depth, quality content for the viewers who are looking for something different. It will be a new product, not incremental tweaks in existing news formats," she said.

Al-Shihabi said at the end of June that Al Jazeera had hired 650 employees and planned to air 8 minutes of commercials per hour, which is below the industry standard of about 15 minutes.

Interestingly, the channel that the network purchased, Current TV, was sold to Aljazeera by none other than that great American, Al Gore.