The Times - UK (2022-02-23)

the times | Wednesday February 23 2022 31

more than three million registered fire-

arms in the American South, with

Texas and Florida topping the list.

The true number of firearms in

circulation is thought to be significant-

ly higher.

“The demand for total freedom and

the Second Amendment have resulted

in high access to firearms in this coun-

try ... [but this] has equated to magni-

tudes of death due to firearm suicides in

the same individuals demanding access

to firearms,” the report said.

Gun crime has continued to rise

since 2018, with last year bringing the

greatest spike in the US murder rate

since records began. The FBI reported a

29 per cent surge in gun murders last

year to 21,500.

Analysts have blamed the strain of

the pandemic and simmering mistrust

between the public and police after

George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis

in 2020, which triggered Black Lives

Matter protests throughout the coun-

try and a crackdown by the security

forces. A sharp rise in gun ownership in

many cities has also been ascribed

to the turbulent final months of

Donald Trump’s presidency: some

23 million Americans bought a gun in

2020, an annual rise of 64 per cent.

Police have blamed falling recruit-

ment, driven by the pandemic and de-

clining morale after several controver-

sial killings by officers.

Significantly, gun violence is easily

eclipsed by the opioid crisis as the lead-

ing cause of unnatural deaths across

the US. The country passed a grim

milestone of more than 100,000 deaths

from overdoses last year as America’s

epidemic of addiction rages on.

A Kenya Airways pilot has become an
overnight celebrity at home after mil-
lions marvelled at her cool wrangling of
a Boeing 787 Dreamliner on to the tar-
mac at Heathrow during Storm Eunice.
Ruth Karauri pulled off a near
textbook cross-landing in furious
winds of more than 70 knots (about
80mph) that had forced other pilots to
abort their descents.
Her feat was shown on Big Jet TV, the
YouTube planespotting channel, which
drew nearly seven million viewers for

Internet blown away by Kenyan pilot’s smooth storm landing

the nail-biting touchdowns as Eunice

raged, and the excitable commentary of

Jerry Dyer, the presenter.

“Look at that wing flex!” Dyer mar-

velled from the roof of a transit van out-

side Heathrow as Karauri’s flight KQ

100 cut through the gusts towards the

westerly runway.

As she prepared for her return flight

to Nairobi, Karauri recorded a video

from the cockpit, crediting days spent

in simulator training for being able to

hold her nerve as she made her

approach. “The flight conditions were

strong gusting winds and it was quite a

bumpy ride,” she said. “However, thanks

to the training we have had at Kenya

Airways, particularly in the simulator,

it prepared us for such a scenario.”

Jane Marriott, the UK high com-

missioner to Kenya, was

among those who praised

her achievement.

Karauri had dreamt of

becoming a pilot since

the age of eight after

seeing a TV advert.

However, she had to

wait until her twenties to

take her first flight, by

which time she had been

given a place on a Kenya Air-

ways training scheme, according to the

Who Knows Kenya website.

One of her training officers said he

doubted that she would master the

skills since she had never learnt to ride

a bicycle. Passengers still occasionally

voice concern that they are being flown

by a woman, the website reported.

Dyer, 58, the son of a pilot, settled on

making a living out of planespotting six

years ago, picking up viewers gradually

with mobile phone footage he had

snatched through the fence at Heath-

row. He is now in negotiations with Na-

sa to cover one of its rocket launches at

the Kennedy Space Centre.

Kenya
Jane Flanagan

Ruth Karaur, a pilot with

Kenya Airways, pulled

off a near textbook

landing during Storm Eunice

Jane Marr

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Trans child abuser mocks

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Page 34

Australia’s Antarctic

force fends off China

Page 32

Gunshots have surpassed car crashes as

the leading cause of death by trauma in

the US for the first time amid surging

violent crime and suicide rates.

A report by surgeons in New York

state suggests that more than 1.4 mil-

lion years of potential life are lost annu-

ally to gun crime and violence.

Motor vehicle crashes were the

single greatest cause of death for many

years but deaths from firearms acceler-

ated over the decade from 2009 to 2018.

New research by surgeons at

Westchester Medical Centre, published

in the medical journal Trauma Surgery

& Acute Care Open, found that gun

deaths rose by a yearly average of 0.72

per cent over the decade, to

38,929 deaths in 2018, while road acci-

dents deaths fell by 0.07 per cent each

year.

Gun deaths by suicide rose from

18,735 in 2009 to 24,432 in 2018, and

gun murders climbed from 11,493 to

13,958 over the same period.

The study found that suicide among

white men accounted for almost half of

total gun deaths, at 49 per cent, while

murders of young black men accounted

for 18 per cent. “Legal firearm interven-

tion deaths”, defined as gun deaths

caused by police or law enforcement in

the line of duty, rose from 333 in 2009 to

539 in 2018.

The researchers calculated the total

numbers of years of life lost to guns and

car accidents, based on subtracting

from the Centres for Disease Control

and Prevention base standard for the

year of death at 80. Deaths from fire-

arms accounted for 1.42 million years in

2018, against 1.34 million for vehicle

deaths.

In a stark illustration of the impact of

gun ownership and crime on different

racial groups, the report stated that

white men across America lost a total of

4.95 million years of life to suicide over

the decade studied in the report, while

black men lost 3.2 million years to

homicide.

Gun deaths were highest by far in the

South, where gun ownership tends to

be more common. In 2018 there were

More Americans

killed by guns

than car crashes

American trauma fatalities

54%

52

50

48

2010 2012 2014 2016 2018^46

Source: Klein J, Prabhakaran K, Latifi R, et al.

Trauma Surg Acute Care Open

Annual percentage change

Motor vehicle

crashes

Firearms

United States

Hugh Tomlinson Washington

episode since
February 2021,” said
Boris Behncke, a
researcher at Italy’s
National Institute of
Geophysics and
Volcanology.
During 12 months of
eruptions from its
southeastern crater,
Etna has fired out
“primitive” magma
from the Earth’s
mantle, which

contains high

levels of gas

and vapour,

making it

more

explosive.

When

activity

ceased last

October,

experts

thought Etna

had exhausted a

quantity of magma

that had

accumulated

after rising

from deep

below

ground. But

with two

eruptions

this month,

Behncke

said another

theory was

emerging. “Etna

seems to be getting

more efficient. There

is less accumulation,

so what comes in goes

straight out,” he said.

“Etna never sleeps.”

Behncke joined

colleagues on Monday

at an observation post

three miles from the

eruption. “We could

see enormous rocks as

large as SUVs crashing

down close to the

crater,” he said.

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a

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magma

that ha

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SALVATORE ALLEGRA/AP

The Sicilian city of Catania and

surrounding areas were covered

in a layer of black ash as Etna

belched out two million cubic

metres of lava, gas and debris