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Yes, Science Communication should get involved with Gun Control!
Just nine months ago, I posed the question: should science communication get involved with gun control? I noted the number of homicides committed by using guns in New Zealand (5 in 2014) compared to the United States (over 15,000 in 2016). Ten days ago, one lone gunman with a collection of semi-automatic assault rifles killed 50 people in Christchurch: ten years’ accumulation of homicides in a matter of minutes! Apart from the tragedy of it all, it underscores just how lethal these weapons can be in the wrong hands and that countries like New Zealand and Norway, with high per capita gun ownership but low homicide rates, cannot be complacent.…
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Gun Control: should Science Communication get Involved?
I live in New Zealand, where two items on the national news over this last week really caught my attention. The first was a report that a student at a school in Auckland had been punched by another, causing him to fall and hit his head, which required him to be hospitalised. This was just over a week after another student at another school – this one in Texas – used a shotgun and .38 revolver to kill 10 people and injure 10 others. The second news item occurred just yesterday morning: it was reported that a police dog had been stabbed with a knife. This wasn’t just any news…
