Guns: how much longer will it take ....

McGentrix wrote:

The police react to crime, very rarely do they actually stop crime.

Not here, at any of the regional and district's police headquarters, there's a "crime prevention department".
Our state's "State Criminal Police Office" has in a large division ('Division 3 Stratetic Combating Crime') a department for 'Crime Invention'.
I've worked with/in (more than 20 years ago) one of the subdepartments of the latter, the subdepartment of 'Generic Prevention, Juvenile Delinquency, Drug Prevention.

On February 18, a 33-year-old woman was raped while visiting a cemetery in Bochum. The attacker ambushed the woman from behind and hit her on the head with a rock, rendering her unconscious. He then repeatedly raped her. Bochum police kept silent about the rape until pressed by Rheinische Post, a local newspaper. It subsequently emerged that the rapist is a convicted sex offender who had attended a "rehabilitation" program and was then released from custody.

Authorities in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) apparently suppressed information about the rape to prevent public concern over the recidivism of convicted sex offenders. The police cover-up sparked public outrage. "The public, in my view, has a right to know that convicted sex offenders pose a real danger when they are back out," said a senior detective. "When something as horrible as Bochum happens, it has to be called by name, without any ifs or buts. When such important information is withheld from the public, people think everything is fine and that of course participants will not relapse." A police spokesperson said the media blackout was meant to protect the victim: "We know from psychologists that this is often very stressful for the victims." After a backlash, Bochum police admitted to making a "mistake."

On February 22, an 18-year-old British student on a class trip to Berlin was raped by two men after she became separated from her group. She was hospitalized for two days. Berlin police kept silent about the rape until the girl returned to Britain and her parents contacted British media outlets, which reported on the case. When pressed for information by Journalisten Watch, a media accountability group, Berlin police admitted that they had arrested two men in relation to the rape but released them due to a lack of evidence (Haftgründe lagen nicht vor).

On January 26, an "Asian or North African" man (orientalisch bis nordafrikanischer Herkunft) tried to rape a female student at the Goethe University in Frankfurt. It subsequently emerged that three other women had been attacked by a man who police believe is the same individual. Although the attacks occurred on October 6, December 29 and January 6, university officials did not warn students that a sex offender was stalking the campus until February 2, four months after the first attack.

On January 11, an unidentified man sexually assaulted two 15-year-old girls on a subway train in Munich. One of the girls managed to take a picture of the man, but police refuse to make the image public. A police blotter asks the public to help them find the man, described as follows: "Male, 170cm, 20s, skinny, red overcoat, dark pants, black shoes."

On January 10, police in Magdeburg released a photograph of a "dark-skinned" man (dunkle Hautfarbe) suspected of raping and seriously injuring a woman at the central railway station on June 27, 2017. Police did not say why they waited more than six months to make the image public.

On January 4, a 24-year-old man raped a woman at a school in Hanover. The police blacked out information about the man's nationality. Bild filled in the missing details: he is from Albania. A local newspaper, Hannoversche Allgemeine, initially reported that the man was from Albania; an hour later, however, it "updated" its story by replacing the word "Albania" with "the Balkans."

It's good that there isn't any rape in the USA!
To "grab them by the pussy" is allowed, though, I've learnt.

To "grab them by the pussy" is allowed

So are we going to have a bunch of whiny brats calling to outlaw ex-boyfriends now?

Is there any reason to malign a respected and valued A2 contributor like oralloy.

It's good that there isn't any rape in the USA!

Thousands of people are expected to take part in the "March For Our Lives" in Washington DC this weekend. It'll be led by students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, following the gun attack that killed 17 pupils and students in February.

One of survivors, Nikki, tells Newsbeat why she's taking part. This is her story.

Valentine's Day 2018 - 3,300 lives were changed forever.

A day later, sitting in the park with all of the students of my school, we mourned the loss of our friends, teachers, and coaches.

I felt despair the likes of which I've never experienced in my life.

That night, the activism began. My friends started appearing on CNN, MSNBC, FOX, every show on America's dinnertime TV.

They talked about what happened in their part of the building, the changes they wanted to see, and the reform that is needed in this country.

By the next week, they had a name and they had a purpose.

Never Again, they said, as they planned to March For Our Lives in Washington DC, right in front of the legislators who have the power to make the changes they want to see.

I'm heading up to DC too, as a Douglas student, as a student journalist, and as a future voter in America.

The experience that myself and my classmates have endured should be something that no child in America should ever have to experience.

Experiencing that sort of loss - in an environment where people expect to be safe - is one of the most traumatising memories a child can have.

School shootings have happened in America before.

I remember being in seventh grade and being told about Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut. Most of the 26 people killed were children aged six and seven.

I remember sitting underneath a table in sixth grade, practicing my first active shooter drill, and having our teacher tearfully tell us about the shooting at Columbine High School, before I was even born, where 13 people were killed.

After both of those incidents, government officials promised it wouldn't happen again. They promised they would take precautions.

Debates aired on every news outlet, featuring politicians and pundits talking about issues that they'd argued over for years.

And then, people forgot. They stopped caring, and Columbine and Sandy Hook became tragedies that we remember once a year and then forget again because it's too painful.

Not this time. We want to make sure the narrative is, finally, different.

We want people to know that we will not be silenced.

Unlike the pupils at Columbine, we have the power of social media and citizen journalism to tell our own story our own way.

Unlike those at Sandy Hook kindergarten, we have the age and composure to tell our story ourselves, and advocate for ourselves.

The voices of children cannot be ignored. The story of the students starts with Stoneman Douglas.
In that moment, I was so proud.

Not only that, I don't think it's possible to malign him.