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No-one knows for sure how many guns - legal or illegal - there are in Britain. The Home Office estimates there are some 396,800 legally held firearms - broadly rifles and pistols. It has a somewhat hazier estimate that there are about 1,330,000 legally held shotguns.

The number illegally owned is literally unknown - although it is known the numbers are rising with senior police officers such as Sir Paul Condon, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, expressing fears of an emerging "gun culture" on the streets of Britain's inner cities. Estimates of illegal weapons range from 500,000 to a million or more, perhaps many more.

The Dunblane tragedy is bound to lead to calls for tighter gun control. But what more could be done - short of banning all gun ownership outside the hands of the armed forces and police - to tighten up what its advocates argue is already one of the world's tighter gun regimes?

The Hungerford massacre in 1987 led to the last significant tightening of British gun law. Then Michael Ryan, 27, killed 16 and wounded 13 before killing himself after going on the rampage with weapons which included a semi-automatic Kalashnikov AK47, one of three handguns and two rifles, the other a .30-calibre MI semi-automatic carbine which he legally owned.

The result was amendments to the 1968 Firearms Act. Ownership of high- powered self-loading rifles and burst firing weapons was made illegal, while pump-action shotguns with a magazine of more than two bullets were classified as firearms, not shotguns, requiring a tougher certificate.

It didn't stop the killings. In 1989 Robert Sartin, a 23-year-old civil servant suffering from schizophrenia, stalked the streets of Monkseaton in Whitley Bay, Tyneside, with a shotgun - killing one and wounding 16.

Since then, there have been smaller, less dramatic incidents, contributing to a total of between 50 and 71 people who have died each year in shootings of one kind or another.

Hungerford, however, brought a changed attitude to guns by the police, according to the British Association for Shooting and Conservation, a key part of the gun lobby. Checks are tighter. Applicants have to show good reason for wanting a gun - usually target shooting or other membership of a gun club, or a farmer's requirement to deal with vermin. Any past history of mental illness has to be declared and a counter-signature is required from a person of standing declaring the applicant to be of good character.

Significant numbers among the one million or so people who shoot - anything from air pistols, to Olympic gunmen to wildfowlers and deer hunters - have been driven from the sport, according to Robin Peal, the BASC's head of public affairs - "people who couldn't be bothered with the hassle".

The result has been a fall in the number of gun certificates on issue - down to 670,000 at the end of 1994, almost a quarter fewer than in 1988 and the lowest number since 1971. Firearm certificates totalled 140,200 in 1994 - marginally more than in 1992 but 15,000 down on the 1988 total. Certificates can cover more than one weapon.

It is not, the gun lobby maintains, the legal guns that are the problem. "The numbers are tiny compared to uncertificated weapons, where the estimate is that there are between two million and four million guns out there," Mr Peal says. "It is the ones the police don't know about that are the problem."

And their numbers have been growing. They range from ancient muskets to Second World War revolvers, to a recent flood of weapons from Eastern Europe following the break-up of the Soviet Union that has led police to discover sub-machine guns and other automatics that could not be held legally on a firearms certificate.

Illegal "armourers" will even hire out guns for crime - from around pounds 300 for an ageing revolver to pounds 700 for a modern semi-automatic handgun. The exact price, Mr Peal says, "will depend on whether it is returned dirty or clean" - fired or unfired - the higher price reflecting the fact that fired ammunition can be traced to the gun, making it "hot", and in need of disposal.

So what more can be done? Bill Tupman, until recently director of the Centre for Police Studies at Exeter University, said yesterday that any decision about gun control "involves balancing risk against cost. When 13 children are killed, what is the cost of those lives against the risk of it happening?"

After Hungerford, Mr Tupman undertook a study of gun control for the BASC, when it seemed that Hungerford "was simply a one-off". But after the Whitley Bay shootings in 1989 there were smaller incidents, and now Dunblane. He said: "It seems someone is going berserk with a gun around once a year now.

"What is being asked for is a system which prevents someone going off their head and misusing guns. There are only two ways to do that. One is to require people who hold guns to go to the doctor for an annual certificate of fitness to hold a firearm. The other is for gun clubs to inform the police whenever someone they know who is in possession of firearms is unstable."

The latter they should do anyway, he argued, and the time might be coming for the former. "Police officers who carry guns have to be checked twice a year, facing psychological testing. If the police have to do that, at what point do we start to demand the same of anyone who carries weapons which are capable of lethal force?"

The gun lobby's objection, he said, would be the cost - "and it would be incredibly costly. But the cost has been incredible for the parents of those 13 children. The argument for such a move is strengthened by the growing number of deaths."

Similar ideas surfaced after Hungerford - as the picture emerged of Michael Ryan as an odd-ball loner, in his very different way as much a misfit as Thomas Hamilton, the author of yesterday's massacre, appears to have been. A small man, with a deep grudge and an obsession with firearms.

But the most powerful opposition came from doctors - in the shape of the British Medical Association - which resisted the idea. A spokesman for the BMA said yesterday: "It was put to us that doctors should provide some sort of 'sanity certificate' for someone seeking a shotgun or firearms certificate, but our view is that it is frankly impossible for a doctor, particularly a GP, to do that."

Past mental illness is taken into account in issuing certificates, but beyond that "it is virtually impossible for a doctor to make a judgement about someone's fitness to hold a gun," according to the BMA. Doctors were also worried about what would happen "if they provided a certificate and the individual then went out and shot a lot of people. Would the doctor, somehow, be held responsible for a judgement he could not really make?"

And given the number of certificates issued annually - each is renewable every three years - "it would be frankly impossible for psychiatrists to provide a full psychiatric examination of everyone holding a certificate, and there would be no guarantee even then that you would spot the people at risk".

The practicality of psychological - as opposed to psychiatric - examinations to identify possible mental illness - was also doubted by Gerard Bailes, a forensic psychologist specialising in firearms who works with the Norfolk constabulary's armed officers.

Psychological testing is used in training and re-training, he said - but to help identify officers who will react well under the specific stress of using firearms during police work. "I don't think a psychological test exists that would pick up this sort of risk," he said of Dunblane.

By coincidence, the Firearms Consultative Committee - a Home Office sponsored body which includes the police and shooting interests, is meeting today and such issues are bound to come again on to its agenda in the wake of the killings.

The gun lobby, however, will resist. Ian McConchie, general secretary of the National Pistol Association, said he shared the horror and shock at Dunblane but would oppose "knee-jerk" calls to further tighten gun controls. "However tight you draw the law, it will never protect against someone just going over the top and losing their marbles." Perhaps, but that will not console nor persuade the parents of Dunblane.

GUNS ABROAD

UNITED STATES

The right to keep and bear arms has rarely been out of the news recently. In 1994, the House of Representatives voted to outlaw the ownership of 19 types of assault weapon previously available. However, the US still has notoriously high homicide rates, and gun laws range state-by-state from lax to almost non-existent.

The "gun lobby" is extremely strong in the US, and a telling debate has been going on in this sector of society recently as to whether "the right to bear arms" should be taken in a strictly literal sense. One side argues that if a weapon is not too heavy to be borne (that is, lifted), it should be freely available to the population. In 1994, there were 600,000 incidents in which guns were used "defensively", and firearms deaths in the US average 40,000 per year.

SWITZERLAND

Almost every able-bodied man up to the age of 32 is a member of the Swiss army reserves, and maintains a gun of some sort. Many men choose to buy their gun when they leave the reserves.

Moreover, fears were recently expressed that private gun laws were so lax that Switzerland would become a major supplier of arms to the former Yugoslavia. These laws are now under review.

JAPAN

The homicide rate is roughly a quarter of that in the UK. Application can be made for permission to own a gun but in nearly all instances will be refused. For this reason, gun ownership statistics are not available. In 1993, 1,672 illegally held guns were seized by Japanese police.

FRANCE

Recent massacres by deranged gunmen in France, along with European legislation, have led to a tightening of gun law in France. Private ownership of handguns is now forbidden, but hunting rifles may still be bought by those who hold a hunting licence. Owners must also register their ownership of a hunting rifle with the police.

Since 1987, when the Hungerford killings took place, border checks throughout Europe have eased considerably and borders to the former Communist bloc have become less restricted. Consequently, the whole of Europe has seen a booming illegal market in guns of all sorts, irrespective of new national or European gun control laws.

Reuse content

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No-one knows for sure how many guns - legal or illegal - there are in Britain. The Home Office estimates there are some 396,800 legally held firearms - broadly rifles and pistols. It has a somewhat hazier estimate that there are about 1,330,000 legally held shotguns.

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In California, people 70 and up must renew their driver's licenses in person to be interviewed, take a vision test, make a practice run and pass a written quiz.

And yet the state gave Elliot Rodger, who'd been mentally ill for years and openly posted threats to the public on YouTube and Facebook, a gun license that allowed him to buy semiautomatic guns that helped him to slaughter six innocent people.

Nationally, Homeland Security has the power to hold, question and search suspected terrorists, and yet the American homeland remains vulnerable to those among our own citizens who are psychotic - not religiously motivated - and can buy guns more readily than Sudafed.

It's time America looks up to Canada, where anyone can own a gun - but licensing is properly managed with a process that takes weeks, requires applicants to show up in person and includes background checks and a personal safety-training course.

In 2012, Canada, had 172 gun homicides. The U.S., with 314 million people, had 6,371 - four times as many per capita.

There are mass killings in Canada, including two mass stabbings this year by mentally ill persons, but far fewer than in the U.S.

A big reason why is that Canada provides mental health care (and drugs and financial support) for all its residents, and enforces proper gun controls to protect the public.

Canada catches mentally ill people in its health care net, because it has one. Rodger would almost surely have been turned down for a gun license in Canada, given his history - and if he had posted threats online, he would likely have been taken to a hospital by police and kept there for diagnosis.

Too many Americans have no access and cannot afford help or medications - a hole budget cuts have widened. Canada also has a larger share of psychiatrists than America, and the number is rising in the Great White North even as it's declining south of the border. What's annoying is the Second Amendment nonsense spouted by the NRA and its allies. As my social studies teacher once explained about liberty and its responsibilities, freedom is the right to swing your arm but not to hit anybody else with it.

This applies to everything in life except, in the United States, guns. The right to bear arms by militias, established in the 18th century, has been stretched and corrupted by litigators and inept judges to effectively allow anyone anywhere in the U.S. to use semiautomatic weaponry at will.

Americans aren't so much more violent than Canadians. They are just far more likely to use guns - which account for nearly three-fifths of all murders in the U.S., compared to just one-third north of the border - and thus far more likely to see violent incidents end with fatal results.

Americans, like Canadians, realize that guns, like cars or prescription drugs, should be carefully regulated and licensed. No one should shoot a gun, or drive a car, without proving to the public he or she can safely and responsibly do so.

Perhaps Americans need Homeland Security to protect them from craven commercial interests, incompetent politicians and government officials as well as terrorists.

Francis, a dual U.S. and Canadian citizen and resident, is the editor-at-large for the National Post and author of "Merger of the Century: Why Canada and America Should Become One Country."

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In California, people 70 and up must renew their driver's licenses in person to be interviewed, take a vision test, make a practice run and pass a written quiz. And yet the state gave Elliot Rodger, who'd been mentally ill for years and openly posted threats to the public on YouTube and Facebook, a gun license that allowed him to buy semiautomatic guns that helped him to slaughter six innocent people.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In California, people 70 and up must renew their driver's licenses in person to be interviewed, take a vision test, make a practice run and pass a written quiz.

And yet the state gave Elliot Rodger, who'd been mentally ill for years and openly posted threats to the public on YouTube and Facebook, a gun license that allowed him to buy semiautomatic guns that helped him to slaughter six innocent people.

Nationally, Homeland Security has the power to hold, question and search suspected terrorists, and yet the American homeland remains vulnerable to those among our own citizens who are psychotic - not religiously motivated - and can buy guns more readily than Sudafed.

It's time America looks up to Canada, where anyone can own a gun - but licensing is properly managed with a process that takes weeks, requires applicants to show up in person and includes background checks and a personal safety-training course.

In 2012, Canada, had 172 gun homicides. The U.S., with 314 million people, had 6,371 - four times as many per capita.

There are mass killings in Canada, including two mass stabbings this year by mentally ill persons, but far fewer than in the U.S.

A big reason why is that Canada provides mental health care (and drugs and financial support) for all its residents, and enforces proper gun controls to protect the public.

Canada catches mentally ill people in its health care net, because it has one. Rodger would almost surely have been turned down for a gun license in Canada, given his history - and if he had posted threats online, he would likely have been taken to a hospital by police and kept there for diagnosis.

Too many Americans have no access and cannot afford help or medications - a hole budget cuts have widened. Canada also has a larger share of psychiatrists than America, and the number is rising in the Great White North even as it's declining south of the border. What's annoying is the Second Amendment nonsense spouted by the NRA and its allies. As my social studies teacher once explained about liberty and its responsibilities, freedom is the right to swing your arm but not to hit anybody else with it.

This applies to everything in life except, in the United States, guns. The right to bear arms by militias, established in the 18th century, has been stretched and corrupted by litigators and inept judges to effectively allow anyone anywhere in the U.S. to use semiautomatic weaponry at will.

Americans aren't so much more violent than Canadians. They are just far more likely to use guns - which account for nearly three-fifths of all murders in the U.S., compared to just one-third north of the border - and thus far more likely to see violent incidents end with fatal results.

Americans, like Canadians, realize that guns, like cars or prescription drugs, should be carefully regulated and licensed. No one should shoot a gun, or drive a car, without proving to the public he or she can safely and responsibly do so.

Perhaps Americans need Homeland Security to protect them from craven commercial interests, incompetent politicians and government officials as well as terrorists.

Francis, a dual U.S. and Canadian citizen and resident, is the editor-at-large for the National Post and author of "Merger of the Century: Why Canada and America Should Become One Country."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In California, people 70 and up must renew their driver's licenses in person to be interviewed, take a vision test, make a practice run and pass a written quiz. And yet the state gave Elliot Rodger, who'd been mentally ill for years and openly posted threats to the public on YouTube and Facebook, a gun license that allowed him to buy semiautomatic guns that helped him to slaughter six innocent people.

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Twenty-one states have asked a federal appeals court to overturn Maryland's tough gun-control law, contending that its provisions banning 45 assault weapons and limiting gun magazines to 10 rounds violate the Second Amendment right to keep firearms at home for self-protection.

A coalition led by West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey filed the friend-of-the-court brief last week in the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia. The document supports an appeal by groups whose challenge to the law was rejected in August by the U.S. District Court in Baltimore.

Morrisey, a Democrat, said in a statement that the Maryland Firearms Safety Act of 2013, if upheld by the courts, would undermine a core part of the Second Amendment by banning popular firearms that can be used for self-defense.

"States must band together at times when they see citizens' rights being diminished or infringed upon," he said.

A spokeswoman for Democratic Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley criticized the action Monday.

"A federal judge has already affirmed the constitutionality of this law," Nina Smith wrote in an email. "This effort by other states won't do anything to reduce violent crime or save lives."

David Paulson, spokesman for the Maryland attorney general's office, declined to comment on the pending litigation, citing an agency policy. The state has until Dec. 31 to file its written response.

The other states involved are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Wyoming. The group includes 18 Republicans and 3 Democrats.

Maryland's Republican Gov.-elect, Larry Hogan, has said he would uphold the laws of both Maryland and the United States, including the Second Amendment.

Maryland lawmakers passed the legislation in response to the December 2012 shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

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Throw out Maryland's tough gun-control law, 21 states tell federal court

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Twenty-one states have asked a federal appeals court to overturn Maryland's tough gun-control law, contending that its provisions banning 45 assault weapons and limiting gun magazines to 10 rounds violate the Second Amendment right to keep firearms at home for self-protection.

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Black Friday isn't just when shoppers rush to stores for holiday sales. It's also one of the busiest days of the year for gun purchases.

In the US, there are nine guns for every 10 people. Someone is killed with a firearm every 16 minutes. And every minute, gun shops make about 40 new requests for criminal background checks on people wanting weapons.

On Black Friday, the rush accelerates to nearly two checks a second, testing the limits of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.

"We have a perfect storm coming," says Kimberly Del Greco, a manager in the FBI division that helps run the system, known as Nics.

Much of the responsibility for preventing criminals and the mentally ill from buying guns is shouldered by about 500 men and women who run the system from inside the FBI's criminal justice centre, a grey office building with concrete walls and mirrored windows just outside Bridgeport, West Virginia.

Granted a rare glimpse into the inner workings of the Nics, the Associated Press was able to see first-hand why 512 gun sales a day effectively beat the system last year.

By federal law, Nics researchers must race against the clock: they have until the end of the third business day following an attempted firearm purchase to determine whether or not a buyer is eligible. After that, buyers can legally get their guns, whether or not the check was completed.

This clock ran out more than 186,000 times last year.

The problem is the data.

States voluntarily submit records, which are often missing information about mental health rulings or criminal convictions, and are not always rapidly updated to reflect restraining orders or other urgent reasons to deny a sale. It's a particular problem on Black Friday, when so many background checks are done at once.

There are more than 48,000 gun retailers in the US, from Walmart stores to local pawn shops. Store clerks can use the FBI's online E-Check System, which federal officials say is more efficient. But nearly half the checks are phoned in. Three call centres - in Kentucky, Texas, and Wheeling, West Virginia - take these calls from 8am to 1am every day but Christmas.

Nics did about 58,000 checks on a typical day last year. That surged to 145,000 on Black Friday 2013. They are bringing in 100 more workers than usual for the post-Thanksgiving rush this year.

The call centres have no access to privileged information about buyers' backgrounds, and make no decisions. They just type in their name, address, birthdate, social security number and other information into the system. On Black Fridays, the work can be gruelling: one woman took a call that lasted four hours when a dealer phoned in the maximum 99 checks.

"Rules had to be stretched," recalled Sam Demarco, her supervisor. "We can't transfer calls. Someone had to sit in her seat for her while she went to the bathroom."

In the years since these background checks were required, about 71% have found no red flags and produced instant approvals.

But 10 factors can disqualify gun purchasers: a felony conviction, an arrest warrant, a documented drug problem or mental illness, undocumented immigration status, a dishonourable military discharge, a renunciation of US citizenship, a restraining order, a history of domestic violence, or an indictment for any crime punishable by longer than one year of prison time.

Any sign that one of these factors could be in a buyer's background produces a red flag. FBI researchers then investigate, scouring state records in the federal database and calling state and local authorities for more information.

"It takes a lot of effort ... for an examiner to go out and look at court reports, look at judges' documents, try to find a final disposition so we can get back to a gun dealer on whether they can sell that gun or not," Del Greco says. "And we don't always get back to them."

The researchers must use their skill and judgment, striking a balance between the rights of gun owners and the need to keep would-be killers from getting firearms.

Researcher Valerie Sargo says outstanding warrants often come up when they examine a red flag, and that can help police make arrests.

"It makes you feel good that this person is not supposed to have a firearm and you kept it out of their hands," she says.

It also weighs on them when red flags aren't resolved within three days, which happens about 2% of the time, or 512 checks each day on average. Tacked to a cubicle wall, a sign reads: "Our policy is to ALWAYS blame the computer."

These workers have considerable responsibility, but little independent authority.

"They won't proceed or deny a transaction unless they are absolutely certain the information they have is correct and sufficient to sustain that decision," an FBI spokesman, Stephen G Fischer, told the AP.

FBI contractors and employees oversaw more than 9m checks in the first full year after the system was established as part of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act in 1998. By last year, they oversaw more than 21m. In all, only 1.25% of attempted purchases are denied. Denials can be appealed.

People can get guns without background checks in many states by buying weapons at gun shows or from individuals, a loophole the National Rifle Association does not want closed. But even the NRA agrees that the Nics system needs better data.

"Any database is only going to function as well as the information contained within," an NRA spokesman, Andrew Arulanandam, says.

Del Greco doesn't see the states' data improving soon, which only adds to the immense challenge of getting through huge numbers of requisite checks on Black Friday.

"It's really critical that we have accurate information," Del Greco says. "Sometimes we just don't."

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Associated Press in Bridgeport, West Virginia

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Black Friday gun purchases test background check system to limit

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Black Friday isn't just when shoppers rush to stores for holiday sales. It's also one of the busiest days of the year for gun purchases. In the US, there are nine guns for every 10 people. Someone is killed with a firearm every 16 minutes.

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The drumbeat of news about gun violence in the United States is so steady and rhythmic these days that it's starting to fade into the background. Another week, another school shooting. One of the biggest risks now is of a population-wide numbness, eroding the will to tackle the crisis. So perhaps we should be grimly grateful whenever the gun lobby demonstrates that it retains the power to horrify.

Case in point: this sequence of tweets by the conservative journalist Charles C Johnson, featured on Glenn Beck's website The Blaze and on Hot Air, and being forwarded enthusiastically everywhere among pro-gun tweeters and bloggers. (I found it via Quinn Norton.)

Johnson takes it upon himself to debunk the claim, made by the gun reform group Everytown for Gun Safety, backed by Michael Bloomberg, that there have been 74 school shootings since Adam Lanza killed 20 children, six adults and himself at Sandy Hook elementary School 18 months ago. In fact, Johnson concludes, there have only been seven. How does he manage this feat of mathematical magic? Simple: by narrowing the definition of "school shooting" so far that almost none of them count.

Let's be fastidiously fair to Johnson and his supporters by acknowledging that a handful of the incidents he identifies do seem misclassified. Most people, for example, would surely agree that a shooting that doesn't happen on a school campus isn't a school shooting. But the rest of his alleged debunkings offer a truly depressing glimpse of how pro-gun argumentation works these days.

It doesn't count, for example, if you're a student shot at school by a gunman who wasn't originally planning to shoot up a school that day:

It doesn't count if the bullet you're injured by, on school grounds, was discharged accidentally:

It certainly doesn't count if you're the one who shoots yourself to death at school:

It isn't a school shooting even if it's a shooting, at school, so long as the victim, on this occasion, is an adult rather than a child:

It most definitely doesn't count if the shooting is gang-related - a recurring theme in Johnson's tweets - though he never clarifies why:

It doesn't count if the shooting arises from a dispute over a games console:

And (there are many, many more similarly tendentious examples, but I'll stop here) it doesn't count if it was in the school parking lot:

In short - as far as I can follow the logic - the message to parents concerned that there are loaded weapons going off on school property, and that their sons and daughters are at risk of being hit by bullets from those weapons, is this: it doesn't really count unless the shooter is a pupil, not involved in a gang, who made a pre-meditated plan to massacre a large number of students.

And not in the parking lot.

(If you think this kind of absurdity is confined to the fringe, see this only slightly less mendacious CNN piece, which brings the figure down from 74 to 15 by excluding, among others, shootings motivated by "personal arguments, accidents [or] alleged gang activities and drug deals". Johnson says the cable channel stole his work.)

What's especially dispiriting about this flat denial of reality is how little prospect it offers for rational discussion or compromise. Even if you're a supporter of gun control, you can still hold a reasoned discussion with somebody who believes that the benefits of widespread firearms ownership outweigh the harms. You can discuss international comparisons; and how no comparable country experiences anything like this level of gun violence; the other person can seek to establish why those comparisons aren't relevant; or that, yes, violent deaths are actually in decline in the US, and so on. But when the pro-gun side of the argument consists of simply insisting that the gun violence that people are so distraught about isn't real gun violence? Then there's no clear way forward at all.

And let's not forget the bigger point here. A pro-gun journalist applies the most stringent imaginable criteria to the term 'school shooting'; he rejects every instance he possibly can, for reasons many might regard as spurious, and then triumphantly declares that there have only been ... seven bona fide school shootings in America since December 2012!

Only seven school shootings since December 2012.

I hope I never to get to the point at which the word "only" in that sentence makes even the slightest bit of sense.

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The gun lobby's new tactic: redefining 'school shootings' so they don't count

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The drumbeat of news about gun violence in the United States is so steady and rhythmic these days that it's starting to fade into the background. Another week, another school shooting. One of the biggest risks now is of a population-wide numbness, eroding the will to tackle the crisis.

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Dear Mom and Dad- get to work saving my life!

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Regular readers of this blog know that I think, write, and organize a lot around policing and violence. It's back to school season and many of my educator friends have either already started teaching or will be soon. Police violence is very much in the news lately and many young people want to address the issue (they always do). I and several of my comrades have created several resources that can assist in those conversations. I share them below.

General Questions To Ask About Policing

Who benefits?
Who suffers?
Whose interests are advanced?
Who pays the costs?
Who/What is protected and served?
Who is bullied and brutalized?
How has policing evolved over the years?
Can you envision a world without police?
What might be some alternatives to policing?

Introductory Activities
#1 - 6 Words about Policing and Violence
I have found 6 word stories to be good opening activities (especially if you are limited in terms of time). You can figure out what young people/students already know & think about various issues and can effectively engage a group. I have created an activity that includes watching a video, discussing it, and then facilitating a 6 word story activity. This was created for an event I co-organized last year. Download the instructions HERE (PDF).

If time is an issue, you can substitute the video suggested in the curriculum template with this 2 minute one produced by Buzzfeed using Shirin-Banou Barghi's powerful series of graphics depicting the last words of unarmed black men killed by police. I shared her graphics here.

Some examples of 6 word stories are:
Walked outside. Did nothing. Cop Harassed. [by me]
Cops said my bruises would fade. [by me]

You can also switch it up by asking students/youth to write a 6 word story for the families of the murdered men featured in Barghi's graphics as well as others.

#2 - Activity Guide
A couple of years ago, I created an activity guide to help youth workers and educators discuss police violence with young people. You can find some introductory activities there too.
Historical Timelines of Policing
#1 - Interactive Timeline
We focus on political education at Project NIA. As such, we create many resources and tools that can help with that work. A couple of years ago, Lewis Wallace, Jessie Lee Jackson and Megan Milks (3 of our volunteers) created an interactive timeline that covers the history of policing in the U.S. from pre-colonial times to the present. You can find that timeline here.

#2 - Interactive Activity
In addition, Lewis developed an interactive activity about the history of policing and violence that can be downloaded HERE.

#3 - History Zines
In late 2011, I decided to develop a series of pamphlets to inform and educate community members about the longstanding tradition of oppressive policing toward marginalized populations (including some activists and organizers).

This series titled "Historical Moments of Policing, Violence & Resistance" features pamphlets on various topics including: The Mississippi Black Papers, the 1968 Democratic Convention, Resistance to Police Violence in Harlem, the 1937 Memorial Day Massacre, Oscar Grant, the Danziger Bridge Shootings, among others. The pamphlets are available for free downloading here. They are youth-friendly and each publication includes a set of discussion questions.
Art
#1 - Music
I created and have regularly updated an interactive timeline tracing how rappers have discussed the issue of police violence since 1980. Educator friends have used the timeline to invite their students to analyze lyrics. They have also encouraged students/youth to write their own poems or raps.

#2 - Visual Art
In March 2013, we curated an intergenerational visual art exhibition about policing, violence and resistance. You can encourage students to view the online exhibit and then to create their own visual art.

or

Have your students read this comic about police violence by my friend Rachel Marie-Crane Williams and then create their own comics.

#3 - Poetry
I love poetry so I collected several that focus on police violence. You can find that collection HERE (PDF).
Other Resources Chain Reaction: Alternatives to Policing
A Different Approach to School Safety - a short film that features a high school that doesn't have metal detectors or police officers on site.
Chicago Torture Justice Memorials Growing Up with the CPD
Death of Two Sons: Death of Two Sons tells the story of Amadou Diallo, the West African immigrant shot 41 times by four New York City police officers in 1999, and of Jesse Thyne, an American Peace Corps Volunteer who lived with Amadou's family in his home village in Guinea. Jesse himself died in Guinea less than a year after the Diallo shooting. This film explores the political, personal, and spiritual implications of their lives and deaths. Death of Two Sons shows the common humanity shared by these young men, their families, and their nations.

Fruitvale Station: The film tells the story of Oscar Grant, a young black man from Oakland, who was shot and killed on a train platform by a Bay Area Regional Transit police officer named Johannes Mehserle. He was subsequently found not guilty for second-degree murder, but found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to two years in County Jail for pulling a gun and killing a unarmed man.

The Hunted and the Hated: An Inside Look at the NYPD's Stop-and-Frisk Policy (under 15 minutes)

I Am Sean Bell - Black Boys Speak (10 minutes): Young boys reflect on the Sean Bell tragedy, speaking out about their fears and hopes as they approach manhood in a city where the lives of young black men are often cut short.

Law and Disorder: This Frontline documentary explored a series of questionable shootings by the New Orleans police department during Hurricane Katrina.

Murder On A Sunday Morning: Oscar-winning documentary that documents a murder trial in which a 15-year-old African-American is wrongfully accused of a 2000 murder in Jacksonville, Florida. The film also shows how police can lie.

Scenes of a Crime: "SCENES OF A CRIME" explores a nearly 10-hour interrogation that culminates in a disputed confession, and an intense, high-profile child murder trial in New York state.

Tulia Texas: On July 23, 1999, undercover narcotics agent Thomas Coleman carried out one of the biggest drug stings in Texas history. By the end of the blazing summer day, dozens of residents in the sleepy farming town of Tulia had been rounded up and thrown behind bars. Thirty-nine of the 46 people accused of selling drugs to Coleman were African American. But disturbing evidence about the undercover investigation and Coleman's past soon began to surface. TULIA,TEXAS follows the 1999 raid and its aftermath, which roiled the small rural community.

'We Deserve Better': A short documentary that explores police targeting and harassment of LGBTQ young people in New Orleans.
Action/Organizing
#1. Showing Up for Racial Justice has compiled a police brutality action kit.

#2. List of Demands focused on Ferguson and Ending Police Violence - Have students/youth read the list of demands from various different organizations and evaluate the three or four that they feel would most contribute to ending police violence. Invite students to come up with their own local list of demands. You can also show the Dream Defenders's video that lists their demands and do the same activity:

#3. Show the video of the Chicago Moment of Silence Vigil, one of many that took place on August 14th in response to the call for a National Moment of Silence in response to the killing of Mike Brown. Students/youth will notice that this was an intergenerational gathering led by young people of color. It's a good way to begin a conversation about how young people are currently organizing around these issues.

#4. Hands Up United is a coalition that has emerged to support the residents of Ferguson MO. If students/youth want to do solidarity events/activities with Ferguson this is a good place to connect with.

#5. October 22 is the National Day of Protest Against Police Brutality. Encourage your students to organize something on that day or to join existing organizing efforts.

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Prison Culture " #FergusonSyllabus: Talking and Teaching About Police Violence

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Regular readers of this blog know that I think, write, and organize a lot around policing and violence. It's back to school season and many of my educator friends have either already started teaching or will be soon. Police violence is very much in the news lately and many young people want to address the issue (they always do).

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A fatal shooting in Arizona has touched off a debate over whether children should ever be given access to guns.

"A 9-year-old girl accidentally killed her instructor with Uzi submachine gun." (Video via KTTV)

Continue Reading

Authorities say the girl first fired several rounds in single-shot mode. When she switched to fully automatic, she lost control and accidentally shot her instructor in the head.

The story is reminiscent of this fatal accident back in 2008. An 8-year-old boy unintentionally shot himself with an Uzi at a Massachusetts gun expo.

If you're not familiar, an Uzi is a submachine gun capable of firing 600 rounds per minute. It was originally designed for use by the Israeli army in the 1950s but is now used by militaries worldwide. (Video via YouTube / IWI israel weapon industries)

JIM CAVANAUGH, MSNBC LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: "It doesn't have a long grip like a rifle where you can stabilize the front. It's really not made for children to shoot."

Unsurprisingly, the Arizona accident has launched yet another debate over gun control. Mashable's Jim Roberts summed up the general sentiment on Twitter, asking, "What were her parents thinking?"

A recent study led by researchers at the Yale School of Medicine found about 7,000 American kids are injured from guns each year. Another 3,000 die from firearm-related accidents before reaching the hospital.

Cornell University researchers found children exposed to gun violence - whether at home, school, or in the media - can experience negative psychological effects in both the long- and short-term.

​The Arizona shooting range where the accident took place allows children 8 and older to shoot as long as they are accompanied by an adult. According to The Las Vegas Review-Journal, no charges will be filed in the case since the range is licensed.

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Uzi Shooting Renews Concerns About Children's Access To Guns

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A fatal shooting in Arizona has touched off a debate over whether children should ever be given access to guns. "A 9-year-old girl accidentally killed her instructor with Uzi submachine gun." (Video via KTTV) Continue Reading Authorities say the girl first fired several rounds in single-shot mode.