Alabama's Morning News with JT
Rory O'Neil discusses firearms and busiest travel days
Well, recently the Surgeon General of the United States put a call out for label warnings when it comes to social media for young people. And now he's declared firearm violence a public health crisis. So what prompted this announcement? What does it really mean? Roy O'Neill, our correspondent here. Good morning Roy. Hey, JT. Good morning. Right. The Surgeon General points to numbers that show an increase in mass shootings, also an increase in suicides with firearms, a significant increase in the last three years. And the statistic that shows young people, teenagers and juveniles are more likely to die from gun violence than from car crashes, gun violence, the leading cause of death for teens. Yeah, I don't know how crime is in your neck of the woods. It's been pretty bad around here. It seems to be up in our area with young people. Now what does this exactly mean when the Surgeon General declares this? What will happen? What's the action now on that? Well, there isn't a whole lot he can do. Instead, just sort of use the bully pulpit here. He wants to get more critical research investments, you know, try to figure out just how bad the problem is. Some of the causes for this gun violence, a lot more mental health care out there for people, especially those contemplating suicide. I'm trying to find a nice way to say this, but the problem is when a person tries to take their life with a gun, they're pretty successful at it. Whereas if they try to drug overdose or something else, oftentimes, fortunately, they're unsuccessful. And then there is a help that's available. But he's also talking about those old school gun restriction things like universal background checks, ending assault weapons for civilians and things like that. Well, you know, once again, the gun issue is always a debatable issue on, you know, what's the purpose of putting more laws out there when the current laws are enough, whether or not it's all based on family upbringing, you know, in Montgomery, recently, we had over a thousand people pile into the streets this past weekend at a house party. And next thing you know, gunfire everywhere, nobody was killed, thank God, but I think nine or 10 people were hit by bullets, 600 rounds fell onto the street and the shell casings. Now, I mean, what goes from an argument to, hey, I'm going to pull out my gun and start shooting people. Yeah, that's a problem. But to get into the root of the issue, you know, a lot of times people don't really want to look at the cause. So, yeah, well, I'm glad he's brought the attention to it, you know, what will change with it? The other ending battle and continues, he can start that drum beat, you know, like they do with putting the labels on cigarettes didn't fix the problem overnight, but you know, people smoking cigarettes is way down from when that label first appeared 40, 50 years ago. All right. Also busy time of the year is families travel for vacations in Fourth of July right around the corner. And apparently now the TSA is predicting that this Thursday is going to be the busiest travel day of the year. We're not even into the week of Fourth of July. Why this Thursday? What's going on? A busiest travel day ever tomorrow. Well, and think of it this way, you take a week's vacation right Thursday, Friday and then Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, the boss is probably giving you Thursday and Friday off next week for Fourth of July and the day after. So you only use five vacation days, but you get this extended vacation. So a lot of people are flying out tomorrow, about three million, which would be a record high, three thousand flights are scheduled for tomorrow, according to the FAA. Yeah, I'm actually doing the opposite of that. I'm doing it on the other end. We've got next Thursday and Friday off, so I'm going to take this. You are welcome. Yeah. You are welcome, by the way. That's right. Roy will be filling in. I appreciate you very much and shout outs to our audience would be appreciated for sure. And then I'll be out the following week. So looking looking forward to the beach, but Fourth of July week at the beach these days is just, I mean, you can't even move. So we're going to try and avoid the Fourth of July. We can go the following week. So all right, Roy, well, I appreciate you, buddy.