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Violence and crimes are a daily occurrence in the US society, where people's
life, freedom and personal safety are under serious threat. According
to the 2001 fourth issue of Dialogue published by the US Embassy in China,
in 1998, the number of criminal cases in the United States reached 12.476
million, including 1.531 million violent crime cases and 17,000 murder
cases; and for every 100,000 people, there were 4,616 criminal cases,
including 566 involving violent crimes. From 1977 to 1996, more than 400,000
Americans were murdered, almost seven times the number of Americans killed
in the Vietnam War. During the years since 1997, another 480,000 people
have been murdered in the country. According to a report carried by the
Christian Science Monitor in its January 22, 2002 issue, the murder rate
in the United States at present stands at 5.5 persons per 100,000 people.
According to data provided by police stations in 18 major US cities, the
number of murder cases in many big cities in 2001 increased drastically,
with those in Boston and Phoenix City increasing the fastest. In the year
to December 18, 2001, the number of murder cases in the two cities increased
by more than 60 percent over the same period of the previous year. The
number of murder cases increased by 22 percent in St. Louis, 17.5 percent
in Houston, 15 percent in St. Antonio, 11.6 percent in Atlanta, 9.2 percent
in Los Angeles and 5.2 percent in Chicago. According to the same report
of the Christian Science Monitor, on campuses of colleges and universities
in the United States in 2001, the number of murder cases increased by
almost 100 percent over 2000, that of arson cases by about 9 percent,
that of break-ins by 3 percent.
The United States is the country with the biggest number of private guns.
On the one hand, worries about the threat of violence have led to rush
buying of guns for self-protection; on the other hand, the flooding of
guns is an important factor contributing to high violence and crime rates.
Statistics of the FBI show that sales of weapons and ammunition in the
United States in the three months of September through November of 2001
grew anywhere from 9 percent to 22 percent. October witnessed a record
1,029,691 guns registered. Statistics also show that shooting is the second
major cause of non-normal deaths after traffic accidents in the United
States, averaging 15,000 deaths annually. Over the history of more than
200 years, three US presidents were shot, with two dead and one wounded
seriously. There is much less personal safety for common people in the
United States. Since 1972, more than 80 people have been shot dead every
day on average in the United States, including about 12 children.
On March 5, 2001, a 15-year-old student killed two and wounded 13 fellow
students at Santana High School in California. This is the deadliest school
shooting following one in a high school in the state of Colorado in April
1999, in which 13 were killed. Two days later, that is, on March 7, a
14-year-old girl student shot dead a schoolmate of hers in the cafeteria
of a Roman Catholic school in Pennsylvania. On the same day, police overpowered
a gunman who was about to shoot on the campus of the University of Albertus.
On April 14, a 43-year-old man with two rifles and two short guns fired
madly at a bar and its car park, killing two and wounding 20. On September
7, a gunman burst into a family on the outskirts of Simi Valley of Los
Angeles and shot three people dead and wounded two. Earlier on August
31, a demobilized policeman shot dead another and set fire on himself.
FBI called Los Angeles "the freest city for crimes." On December
7, a worker at a woodworking factory shot one fellow worker dead and wounded
six others in Indiana.
On January 15, 2002, a teenage student fired at fellow students at Martin
Luther King High School, seriously wounding two. This coincided with the
73rd anniversary of Martin Luther King, leader of the human rights movement
in the United States and an advocator of non-violence. More ironically,
on March 4, 2002, the very day when the US State Department published
its annual report, accusing other countries of "human rights violations,"
another shooting took place: in New Mexico, a four-year-old boy, while
watching TV in his bedroom, shot dead an 18-month-old baby girl with his
father's gun.
The US media are inundated with violent contents, contributing to a high
crime rate in the United States, especially among young people. Young
people in the country get used to violence and crimes from an early age.
With the extensive use of cable TV, video tapes and computers, children
have more opportunities to see bloody violent scenes. A culture beautifying
violence has made young people believe that the gun can "solve"
all problems. An investigative report issued on August 1, 2001 by a US
non-governmental watchdog group -- Parents Television Council (PTC) --
says that violence in television programs from 8 to 9 p.m. in the recent
one-year period was up by 78 percent and abusive language up by 71 percent.
Even CBS, regarded as the " cleanest" TV network, had 3.2 scenes
of violence and abusive language per hour. After the September 11 terrorist
attacks, TV stations and movie houses in the United States exercised some
restraint on the broadcasting and screening of programs and films of violence.
But it was hardly two months before violence films, which have top box-office
value, staged a comeback. International Herald Tribune reported that one
American youth could see 40,000 murder cases and 200,000 other violent
acts from the media before the age of 18. A survey by California-based
Ethical Code Institute shows that over the past year, most American youth
had the experience of using violence, including 21 percent of the boys
in high schools and 15 percent of the boys in junior middle schools who
had the experience of taking arms to school for at least once. The US
National Association of Education estimates that about 100,000 students
in the United States take arms to school every day.
In recent years, voices for controlling guns and eliminating the culture
of violence have been running high. On Mother's Day on May 14, 2000, women
from nearly 70 cities in the United States staged a "Million Moms
Mother's Day March," demanding that the US Congress enact a strict
gun control law. However, voices of the common people can hardly produce
any results.
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