Relapse wrote:

To tell the truth, I think the jury wanted to give him a medal.

 cincydooley wrote:
There are plenty of reasons I choose not to live in Europe.

The nose in the air towards Americans attitude is one of them.

Oh yeah, and I enjoy my rights.

 easysauce wrote:
"you are a jerk" and "i feel you are a jerk" are both insults.

Either way, you should be more positive, how about saying things like "I think being unarmed and defenseless is good because ______!" instead of insulting the others side as barbaric for wanting to be armed should they feel the need.


either way, plenty of people see guns as one of, if not THE most civilized way to defend yourself.

 Smacks wrote:
Barbaric could be defined as the opposite of civilized and sophisticated. If you can think of a decent example of a civilized sophisticated situation where one person is gunned down by another and killed, then I will happily apologize. However the closest situation I can think of is a modern execution (which is still barbaric IMO). Any other example such as fighting with burglars is a clear example of civilization not working at that moment (civilized people would surely talk it through, and not be burglarizing each other in the first place).

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:

The same goes for sports, etc.

By your logic, rugby, the single greatest team sport in the fething world, would cease to exist overnight.

 Smacks wrote:

 Smacks wrote:
Barbaric could be defined as the opposite of civilized and sophisticated. If you can think of a decent example of a civilized sophisticated situation where one person is gunned down by another and killed, then I will happily apologize. However the closest situation I can think of is a modern execution (which is still barbaric IMO). Any other example such as fighting with burglars is a clear example of civilization not working at that moment (civilized people would surely talk it through, and not be burglarizing each other in the first place).

I notice this got conveniently ignored too... I guess gunning someone down and having them screaming and bleeding all over your living room, so you have to clean up all the blood splatter,and then your whole house smells of bleach for a month. Just doesn't have that sophisticated ring to it. At least you can sleep better though, knowing their whole criminal family wants to kill you in retaliation.

 easysauce wrote:
also, "I feel your idea is barbaric" and "your idea is barbaric" are still insulting.

also, you are using loaded language to make it seem like I am pro violence or enjoy it or something... and no there is nothing appealing about splattered gore over a room... I could just as easily get all emotional and hyperbolic with a story about how its better to have a blood all over your room, then to get raped/robbed/killed.

 stanman wrote:
Best part about this thread is that Smacks can wriggle as much as he wants and spout off until he's blue in the face and none of it matters. Being in the UK means he has no say or voting weight to what goes on inside the US.

It's still cute watching him think his viewpoint is somehow relevant.

 stanman wrote:
Best part about this thread is that Smacks can wriggle as much as he wants and spout off until he's blue in the face and none of it matters. Being in the UK means he has no say or voting weight to what goes on inside the US.

It's still cute watching him think his viewpoint is somehow relevant.

 stanman wrote:
Best part about this thread is that Smacks can wriggle as much as he wants and spout off until he's blue in the face and none of it matters. Being in the UK means he has no say or voting weight to what goes on inside the US.

It's still cute watching him think his viewpoint is somehow relevant.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
The fact that you live in America has doesn't make your opinion any more relevant than anyone else here. This nationalistic wiener-measuring contest is getting pretty old.

So instead of just trying to pile on, try coming back with something constructive to add.

 stanman wrote:
If you're in Europe and don't plan to live here or even visit what's the point of arguing about our laws?

 dogma wrote:

 daedalus wrote:

I have had more people consumed by road rage literally try to run me off the road that I have had any one affect me with any of the above, and people don't even have the right to drive.

Or drink. Or use drugs. Or have abortions.

They're just not things which are illegal, in some cases.

and no there is nothing appealing about splattered gore over a room

 Smacks wrote:

 easysauce wrote:
also, "I feel your idea is barbaric" and "your idea is barbaric" are still insulting.

Do I really need to repeat it a fourth time? Try: "I feel, that situation is barbaric" oh look! It's not offensive to anyone.

 stanman wrote:
Best part about this thread is that Smacks can wriggle as much as he wants and spout off until he's blue in the face and none of it matters. Being in the UK means he has no say or voting weight to what goes on inside the US.

It's still cute watching him think his viewpoint is somehow relevant.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 stanman wrote:
Best part about this thread is that Smacks can wriggle as much as he wants and spout off until he's blue in the face and none of it matters. Being in the UK means he has no say or voting weight to what goes on inside the US.

It's still cute watching him think his viewpoint is somehow relevant.

The fact that you live in America has doesn't make your opinion any more relevant than anyone else here. This nationalistic wiener-measuring contest is getting pretty old.

So instead of just trying to pile on, try coming back with something constructive to add.

 Hordini wrote:

 Bullockist wrote:
Give it up smacks , eventually you will get past "the US is different" and "you're not in the us so you don't understand""( and quite possibly we understand better because we live in a society without so many guns)

Yes, I'll keep that in mind the next time an American poster equipped with superficial knowledge of the subject tries to tell you what's what in your own country.

I'm not saying an outsider's perspective can't be valid, and even valuable, but you have to actually know something about the subject. The majority of foreign posters here (not all), have very limited actual knowledge on the subject of guns and gun laws in the US, and tend to make some rather large assumptions. A lot of anti-gun Americans suffer from this same problem.

 cincydooley wrote:
I think you'll find that most responsible gun owners that are 2nd amendment advocates are also the quickest people to condemn irresponsible gun ownership.

I do not believe our rights should be infringed, but that doesn't mean I think we should be absolved of any accountibility when a gun owner is irresponsible with their firearm.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 Hordini wrote:

 Bullockist wrote:
Give it up smacks , eventually you will get past "the US is different" and "you're not in the us so you don't understand""( and quite possibly we understand better because we live in a society without so many guns)

Yes, I'll keep that in mind the next time an American poster equipped with superficial knowledge of the subject tries to tell you what's what in your own country.

I'm not saying an outsider's perspective can't be valid, and even valuable, but you have to actually know something about the subject. The majority of foreign posters here (not all), have very limited actual knowledge on the subject of guns and gun laws in the US, and tend to make some rather large assumptions. A lot of anti-gun Americans suffer from this same problem.

No assumptions from me. If Americans want to shoot the hell out of each other, that's their business. Good luck to you guys. Your country your rules.

I used to lecture Americans about guns on forums like these and then I changed. No, I wasn't shot by an American but something happened - Obama's healthcare bill.

As a result of the healthcare bill, the British health service got dragged into the American media spotlight. All of a sudden you had these two bit pundits on fox news, many of whom had never set foot in the UK, lecturing UBritain on our health system with all sorts of bizarre claims, including how we nearly killed Stephen Hawking!!! . . My reaction was feth off, you know nothing about it.

And then it occurred to me that American might feel the same about foreigners lecturing them on guns.

So you see, Obama can be a force for good. Helped change my viewpoint


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 cincydooley wrote:
I think you'll find that most responsible gun owners that are 2nd amendment advocates are also the quickest people to condemn irresponsible gun ownership.

I do not believe our rights should be infringed, but that doesn't mean I think we should be absolved of any accountibility when a gun owner is irresponsible with their firearm.

Probably one of the most sensible posts I have ever read on dakka. Have an exalt!

 dogma wrote:

Relapse wrote:

To tell the truth, I think the jury wanted to give him a medal.

So it was a bad jury?

 cincydooley wrote:
I'm comfortable with some European calling us "slightly barbaric". Can't say it bothers me at all.

There are plenty of reasons I choose not to live in Europe. The nose in the air towards Americans attitude is one of them. Oh yeah, and I enjoy my rights.

 cincydooley wrote:
In trying to come up with a response to the previous two comments, but my incredulity is preventing me from it so far....

 Smacks wrote:

Don't like being drunk? Don't drink
Don't like being tattooed? Don't get one
Don't like being drugged? Don't use them
Don't like having an abortion? Don't get one
Don't like being shot? Err... Oh it doesn't work.

The problem is that for most of those things you have a fair amount of personal choice. Being drugged is a possible exception, but then the kind of drugs people would want to give someone against their will (such as date rape drugs) rightly should be illegal. Abortion could also become "don't like being aborted?" but that might be for another topic.

"Don't like being shot" is clearly different. While you might be doing something to deserve it, it also sometimes happens to people minding their own business out shopping or going to the cinema. And it can be quite senseless and unexpected, people just don't get a say in the matter when it comes to being shot, personal choice is gone. This is actually more extreme than things like car crashes, because on some level the risk of a crash is something people accept when they get in a car, or go near a busy road. The danger is not so hidden.

Crime and Guns
Basic to the debates on gun control is the fact that most violent crime is committed by repeat offenders. Dealing with recidivism is key to solving violence.

71% of gunshot victims had previous arrest records.
64% had been convicted of a crime.
Each had an average of 11 prior arrests. 1, 2
63% of victims have criminal histories and 73% of the time they know their assailant (twice as often as victims without criminal histories). 3
74% of homicides during the commission of a felony involve guns. 4
Most gun violence is between criminals. This should be the public policy focus.

Myth: Guns are not a good deterrent to crime
Fact: Guns prevent an estimated 2.5 million crimes a year or 6,849 every day. 5 Often the gun is never fired and no blood (including the criminal’s) is shed.
Fact: Property crime rates are dropping (especially burglaries). The chart shows the legal handgun supply in America (mainly in civilian hands) to the property crime rate. 6
Fact: Every day 400,000 life-threatening violent crimes are prevented using firearms.
Fact: 60% of convicted felons admitted that they avoided committing crimes when they knew the victim was armed. 40% of convicted felons admitted that they avoided committing crimes when they thought the victim might be armed. 7
Fact: Felons report that they avoid entering houses where people are at home because they fear being shot. 8
Fact: 59% of the burglaries in Britain, which has tough gun control laws, are “hot burglaries” 9 which are burglaries committed while the home is occupied by the owner/renter. By contrast, the U.S., with more lenient gun control laws, has a “hot burglary” rate of only 13%. 10
Fact: Washington DC has essentially banned gun ownership since 1976 11 and has a murder rate of 56.9 per 100,000. Across the river in Arlington, Virginia, gun ownership is less restricted. There, the murder rate is just 1.6 per 100,000, less than three percent of the Washington, DC rate. 12
Fact: 26% of all retail businesses report keeping a gun on the premises for crime control. 13
Fact: In 1982, Kennesaw, GA passed a law requiring heads of households to keep at least one firearm in the house. The residential burglary rate dropped 89% the following year. 14
Fact: A survey of felons revealed the following: 15
74% of felons agreed that, “one reason burglars avoid houses when people are at home is that they fear being shot during the crime.”
57% of felons polled agreed, “criminals are more worried about meeting an armed victim than they are about running into the police.”

Myth: Private guns are used to commit violent crimes
Fact: 90% of all violent crimes in the U.S. do not involve firearms of any type. 16
Fact: Even in crimes where the offender possessed a gun during the commission of the crime, 83% did not use or threaten to use the gun. 17
Fact: Fewer than 1% of firearms will ever be used in the commission of a crime. 18
Fact: Two-thirds of the people who die each year from gunfire are criminals being shot by other criminals. 19
Fact: 92% of gang murders are committed with guns. 20 Gangs are responsible for between 48% and 90% of all violent crimes. 21
Fact: Most gun crimes are gang related, and as such are big-city issues. In fact, if mayors in larger cities were more diligent about controlling gang warfare, state and nationwide gun violence rates would fall dramatically.

Myth: 40% of Americans have been or personally know a gun violence victim
Fact: This data was from an unpublished surpvey conductted by a political research organization . There own footnote reads “Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research for the New Venture Fund (Aug. 2011). Note this is not publicly available data.” 22

Myth: Interstate transportation of guns defeats local gun control
Fact: The BATF reports that the average age of a traced gun is 11 years [23], meaning that most guns moving from state to state were transported when legal owners moved.
Fact: Less than 5% of traced guns in California, many of which were not crime guns, came from neighboring Nevada and Arizonia. 24

Myth: High capacity, semi-automatics are preferred by criminals
Fact: The use of semi-automatic handguns in crimes is slightly lower than the ratio of semi-automatic handguns owned by private citizens. Any increase in style and capacity simply reflects the overall supply of the various types of firearms. 25

Myth: Banning “Saturday Night Specials” reduces crime
Fact: This was the conclusion of the Johns Hopkins University Center for Gun Policy and Research – and it is wrong. They studied firearm homicide rates from Maryland after passage of a Saturday Night Special ban in 1998. It seems the firearm homicide rate has not subsided and remained between 68-94% higher than the national average through 2008. 26
Fact: Even banning guns does not slow down criminals. In the U.K., where private ownership of firearms is practically forbidden, criminals have and use guns regularly, and even build their own. One enterprising fellow converted 170 starter pistols to functioning firearms and sold them to gangs. Hundreds of such underground gun factories have been established, contributing to a 35% jump in gun violence. 27

Myth: Criminals prefer “Saturday Night Specials” 28
Fact: “Saturday Night Specials” were used in less than 3% of crimes involving guns. 29
Fact: Fewer than 2% of all “Saturday Night Specials” made are used in crimes.
Fact: “What was available was the overriding factor in weapon choice [by criminals].” 30

Myth: Gun shows are supermarkets for criminals
Fact: Only 0.7% of convicts bought their firearms at gun shows. 39.2% obtained them from illegal street dealers. 31
Fact: Fewer than 1% of “crime guns” were obtained at gun shows. 32 This is a reduction from a 1997 study that found 2% of guns used in criminal offenses were purchased at gun shows. 33
Fact: The FBI concluded in one study that no firearms acquired at gun shows were used to kill police. “In contrast to media myth, none of the firearms in the study were obtained from gun shows.” 34
Fact: Only 5% of metropolitan police departments believe gun shows are a problem. 35
Fact: Only 3.5% of youthful offenders reported that they obtained their last handgun at a gun show. 36
Fact: 93% of guns used in crimes are obtained illegally (i.e., not at gun stores or gun shows). 37
Fact: At most, 14% of all firearms traced in investigations were purchased at gun shows. 38 But this includes all firearms that the police traced, whether or not they were used in crimes, which overstates the acquisition rate.
Fact: Gun dealers are federally licensed. They are bound to stringent rules for sales that apply equally whether they are selling firearms from a storefront or a gun show. 39
Fact: Most crime guns are either bought off the street from illegal sources (39.2%) or through family members or friends (39.6%). 40

Myth: All four guns used at Columbine were bought at gun shows
Fact: Each of the guns were either bought through an intermediary or someone who knew they were going to underaged buyers. In all cases there was a purposeful criminal activity occuring and the actors knew they were breaking the law.

Myth: 25-50% of the vendors at most gun shows are “unlicensed dealers”
Fact: There is no such thing as an “unlicensed dealer,” except for people who buy and sell antique – curio – firearms as a hobby (not a business).
Fact: This 25-50% figure can only be achieved if you include those dealers not selling guns at these shows. These non-gun dealers include knife makers, ammunition dealers, accessories dealers, military artifact traders, clothing vendors, bumper sticker sellers, and hobbyists. In short, 50% of the vendors at shows are not selling firearms at all!

Myth: Regulation of gun shows would reduce “straw sales”
Fact: The main study that makes this claim had no scientific means for determining what sales at the show were “straw sales.” Behaviors that Dr. Wintemute cited as “clear evidence” of a straw purchase were observational only and were more likely instances of more experienced acquaintances helping in a purchase decision. No attempts were made to verify that the sales in question were straw sales. 41

Myth: Prison isn’t the answer to crime control
Fact: From 1960-1980, per capita imprisonment for violent crimes fell from 738 to 227. In the same period, violent crime rates nationwide tripled.
Fact: Why does crime rise when criminals are released from prison early? Because they are likely to commit more crimes. 67.5% were re-arrested for new felonies or serious misdemeanors within three years. Extrapolating, those released felons killed another 2,282 people. 42
Fact: 45% of state prisoners were, at the time they committed their offense, under conditional supervision in the community – either on probation or on parole. 43 Keeping violent convicts in prison would reduce violent crimes.
Fact: Homicide convicts serve a little more than ½ of their original sentences. 44 Given that men tend to be less prone to violent behavior as they age 45, holding them for their full sentences would probably reduce violence significantly.
Fact: Los Angeles County saw repeat offender and re-arrest rates soar after authorities closed jails and released prisoners early. In less than three years, early release of prisoners in LA resulted in: 46
15,775 rearrested convicts
1,443 assault charges 47
518 robbery charges42
215 sex offense charges42
16 murder charges42

Fact: In 1991, 13,200 homicides were committed by felons on parole or probation. For comparison sake, this is about ½ of the 1999 annual gun death totals (keep in mind that gun deaths fell from 1991 to 1999).

Myth: Waiting periods prevent rash crimes and reduce violent crime rates
Fact: The “time-to-crime” of a firearm ranges from one to 12 years making it rare that a newly purchased firearm is used in a crime. 48
Fact: The national five-day waiting period under the Brady Bill had no impact on murder or robbery. In fact, there was a slight increase in rape and aggravated assault, indicating no effective suppression of certain violent crimes. Thus, for two crime categories, a possible effect was to delay law-abiding citizens from getting a gun for protection. The risks were greatest for crimes against women. 49
Fact: Comparing homicide rates in 18 states that had waiting periods and background checks before the Brady Bill with rates in the 32 states that had no comparable laws, the difference in change of homicide rates was “insignificant”. 50

Myth: 86% of Americans, 82% of gun owners favor universal background checks
Fact: Those statistics came from a pair of surveys reported by gun control group Mayors Against Illegal Guns, who has been caught stacking survey responses by polling left-of-center mailing lists.

Myth: Gun makers are selling plastic guns that slip through metal detectors
Fact: There is no such thing as a ‘plastic gun’. This myth started in 1980 51 when Glock began marketing a handgun with a polymer frame, not the entire firearm. Most of a Glock is metal (83% by weight) and detectable in common metal and x-ray detectors. “[D]espite a relatively common impression to the contrary, there is no current non-metal firearm not reasonably detectable by present technology and methods in use at our airports today, nor to my knowledge, is anyone on the threshold of developing such a firearm.” 52

Incidentally, Glock is one of the favorite handguns of police departments because it is lightweight, thanks to the polymer frame.

Myth: Machine guns 53 are favored by criminals
Fact: In the drug-ridden Miami of 1980, less than 1% of all gun homicides were with machine guns. 54
Fact: None of over 2,220 firearms recovered from crime scenes by the Minneapolis police in 1987-89 were machine guns. 55
Fact: 0.7% of seized guns in Detroit in 1991-92 were machine guns. 56

Myth: Corrupt dealers sell almost 60 percent of crime guns
Fact: Only 0.5% of the reported traces were for original purchase three years of less before the trace was conducted. 57 Thus, 99.5% of retailer sales had left their control long before the gun was traced (and many traces are not for crime guns).
Fact: The average “time to crime”, the time between the retail sale of a firearm and its use in a crime is six years. A firearm can change hands and travel far in six years.

Guns and Crime Prevention
Myth: Private ownership of guns is not effective in preventing crime
Gun crimes and defensive gun useFact: Every year, people in the United States use guns to defend themselves against criminals an estimated 2,500,000 times – more than 6,500 people a day, or once every 13 seconds. 1 Of these instances, 15.7% of the people using firearms defensively stated that they “almost certainly” saved their lives by doing so.

Fact: Even the governments estimate, which has a major methodology problem, 2 estimates people defend themselves 235,700 times each year with guns. 3
Fact: The number of times per year an American uses a firearm to deter a home invasion alone is 498,000. 4
Fact: In 83.5% (2,087,500) of these successful gun defenses, the attacker either threatened or used force first, proving that guns are very well suited for self-defense.
Fact: The rate of defensive gun use (DGU) is six times that of criminal gun use. 5
Fact: Of the 2,500,000 times citizens use guns to defend themselves, 92% merely brandish their gun or fire a warning shot to scare off their attackers.
Fact: Less than 8% of the time does a citizen wound his or her attacker, and in less than one in a thousand instances is the attacker killed. 6
Fact: In one local review of firearm homicide, more than 12% were civilian legal defensive homicides. 7
Fact: For every accidental death (802), suicide (16,869) or homicide (11,348) 8 with a firearm (29,019), 13 lives (390,000) 9 are preserved through defensive use.
Fact: When using guns in self-defense, 91.1% of the time, not a single shot is fired. 10
Fact: After the implementation of Canada’s 1977 gun controls prohibiting handgun possession for protection, the “breaking and entering” crime rate rose 25%, surpassing the American rate. 11

Myth: Only police should have guns
Fact: “Most criminals are more worried about meeting an armed victim than they are about running into the police.” 12
Fact: For kids in schools, police put an end to such attacks only 27% of the time. 13
Fact: 11% of police shootings kill an innocent person – about 2% of shootings by citizens kill an innocent person. 14
Fact: Police have trouble keeping their own guns. Hundreds of firearms are missing from the FBI and 449 of them have been involved in crimes. 15
Fact: People who saw the helplessness of the L.A. Police Department during the 1992 King Riots or the looting and violence in New Orleans after hurricane Katrina know that citizens need guns to defend themselves.
Fact: “In actual shootings, citizens do far better than law enforcement on hit potential. They hit their targets and they don’t hit other people. I wish I could say the same for cops. We train more, they do better.” 16

Myth: You are more likely to be injured or killed using a gun for self-defense
Fact: You are far more likely to survive violent assault if you defend yourself with a gun. 17

Myth: Guns are not effective in preventing crime against women
Fact: Of the 2,500,000 annual self-defense cases using guns, more than 7.7% (192,500) are by women defending themselves against sexual abuse.
Fact: When a woman was armed with a gun or knife, only 3% of rape attacks were completed, compared to 32% when the woman was unarmed. 18
Fact: The probability of serious injury from an attack is 2.5 times greater for women offering no resistance than for women resisting with guns. Men also benefit from using guns, but the benefits are smaller: Men are 1.4 times more likely to receive a serious injury. 19
Fact: 28.5% of women have one or more guns in the house. 20
Fact: 41.7% of women either own or have convenient access to guns. 21
Fact: In 1966, the city of Orlando responded to a wave of sexual assaults by offering firearms training classes to women. Rapes dropped by nearly 90% the following year.
Fact: Firearm availability appears to be particularly useful in avoiding rape. The United Kingdom virtually banned handgun ownership. During the same period handgun ownership in the United States steadily rose. Yet the rate of rape decreased in the United States and skyrocketed in the other countries, as shown in the table.
Fact: More Americans believe having a gun in the home makes them safer. This belief grows every year the survey is taken. 22
Fact: Arthur Kellerman, a researcher whose work is often cited by gun control groups, said “If you’ve got to resist, your chances of being hurt are less the more lethal your weapon. If that were my wife, would I want her to have a .38 Special in her hand? Yeah.” 23

Myth: Accidental gun fatalities are a serious problem

Accidental Gun Deaths - How Gun Accidents Compare to Other Types of Accidental DeathsFact: Firearm misuse causes only a small number of accidental deaths in the U.S. 1 For example, compared to being accidentally killed by a firearm, you are:

Five times more likely to burn to death
Five times more likely to drown
17 times more likely to be poisoned
17 times more likely to fall to your death
And 68 times more likely to die in an automobile accident
Fact: In 2007, there were only 54 accidental gun deaths for children under age 13. About 12 times as many children died from drowning during the same period. 2
Fact: In 2007, there were 999 drowning victims and 137 firearm-related accidental deaths in age groups 1 through 19. This despite the fact that firearms outnumber pools by a factor of more than 30:1. Thus, the risk of drowning in a pool is nearly 100 times higher than dying from a firearm-related accident for everyone, and nearly 500 times for children ages 0-5. 3

Accidental Gun Deaths in America - Trend LineFact: Medical mistakes kill 400,000 people per year – the equivalent of almost three fully loaded Boeing 747 jet crashes per day – or about 286 times the rate of all accidental firearm deaths. 4 This translates into 1 in 6 doctors causing an accidental death, and 1 in 56,666 gun owners doing the same.

Fact: Only 2% of gun deaths are from accidents, and some insurance investigations indicate that many of these may not be accidents after all. 5
Fact: Around 2,000 patients each year – six per day – are accidentally killed or injured in hospitals by registered nurses. 6

Myth: Handguns are unsafe and cause accidents
Fact: Most fatal firearm accidents involve long guns, which are more deadly. These are typically hunting accidents. 7
Fact: Handguns have triggers that are difficult for small (child) hands to operate, and are rarely the cause of accidents.. 8

Myth: Innocent bystanders are often killed by guns
Fact: Less than 1% of all gun homicides involve innocent bystanders. 9

Myth: Citizens are too incompetent to use guns for protection
Fact: About 11% of police shootings kill an innocent person – about 2% of shootings by citizens kill an innocent person. The odds of a defensive gun user killing an innocent person are less than 1 in 26,000 10 despite American citizens using guns to prevent crimes almost 2,500,000 times every year.
Fact: Most firearm accidents are caused by people with various forms of poor self-control. These include alcoholics, people with previous criminal records, people with multiple driving accidents, and people who engage in other risky behaviors. 11

Myth: Gun accidents are flooding emergency rooms
Fact: The rate of gun accidents is so low that the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission doesn’t even mention them in their annual safety reports.

Myth: “Junk” guns are dangerous and should be banned
Fact: In the history of the state of California, not one lawsuit against a gun maker had been filed (until 2003) based on a weapon being defective or poorly designed. 12

Myth: Guns should be made to conform to product liability laws
Fact: Guns are already covered under product liability laws. If you have a defective gun that does not operate properly, you can sue the gun maker.

Government, Laws, Social Costs
Myth: Gun control reduces crime
Fact: There are more than 22,000 1 gun laws at the city, county, state, and federal level. If gun control worked, then we should be free of crime. Yet the U.S. government “found insufficient evidence to determine the effectiveness of any of the firearms laws or combinations of laws reviewed on violent outcomes” 2 and also concluded in one study that none of the attackers interviewed was “hindered by any law – federal, state or local –that has ever been established to prevent gun ownership. They just laughed at gun laws.” 3
Fact: Violent crime appears to be encouraged by gun control. Most gun control laws in the United States have been written since 1968, yet the murder rate rose during the 70s, 80s and early 90s. 4
Fact: In 1976, Washington, D.C. enacted one of the most restrictive gun control laws in the nation. The city’s murder rate rose 134 percent through 1996 while the national murder rate has dropped 2 percent. 5
Fact: Among the 15 states with the highest homicide rates, 10 have restrictive or very restrictive gun laws. 6
Fact: Maryland claims to have the toughest gun control laws in the nation and ranks #1 in robberies and #4 in both violent crime and murder. 7 The robbery rate is 70% more than the national average. 8 These numbers are likely low because one of their more violent cities, Baltimore, failed to report their crime levels.
Fact: In 2000, 20% of U.S. homicides occurred in four cities with just six percent of the population – New York, Chicago, Detroit, and Washington, D.C. – most of which had a virtual prohibition on privately owned handguns at the time. 9
Fact: The landmark federal Gun Control Act of 1968, banning most interstate gun sales, had no discernible impact on the criminal acquisition of guns from other states. 10
Fact: Washington, D.C.’s 1976 ban on the ownership of handguns (except those already registered in the District) was not linked to any reduction in gun crime in the nation’s capital. 11
Fact: New York has one of the most restrictive gun laws in the nation – and 20% of the armed robberies. 12
Fact: In analyzing 10 different possible reasons for the decline in violent crime during the 1990s, gun control was calculated to have contributed nothing (high imprisonment rates, more police and legalized abortion were considered the primary factors, contributing as much as 28% of the overall reduction). 13

Myth: California’s tough gun laws reduced gun deaths
This myth, promoted primarily by the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence and covering years 1993 through 2013, has three major flaws:
Suicides, which are 61% 14 of gun deaths, fell much faster in California than the rest of the nation.
At the starting point, California’s criminal gun death rate was much higher than the national average.
California passed the first of two “three strike” laws in 1994, which began the process of incarcerating repeat violent offenders.
Thus none of the decline in California gun deaths is attributable to the state’s gun control laws.

Myth: Guns should be registered and licensed like cars
Fact: You do not need a license to buy a car. You can buy as many as you want and drive them all you like on your own property without a license.
Fact: Cars are registered because they are (a) sources of tax revenue, (b) objects of fraud in some transactions, and (c) significant theft targets. Thus we ask the government to track them.
Fact: There is no constitutionally guaranteed right to keep and bear automobiles, and thus they are subject to greater regulation than guns.
Fact: There are more guns in the U.S. than cars (228,000,000 guns and 207,754,000 automobiles). Yet you are 31 times more likely to be accidentally killed by a car than a gun according to the National Safety Council 15 … despite cars having been registered and licensed for almost 100 years.

Myth: The Brady Bill caused a decrease in gun homicides
Fact: All violent crime (including gun and non-gun murders) fell during the same period, 1992 to 1997. However, the percent of homicides committed with guns stayed the same. In 1992, 68% of murders were committed with guns; in 1997, it was still 68%. 16 Thus, the decreased gun homicide rate was part of an overall declining crime rate, not an effect of the Brady Bill.
Fact: Gun possession by criminals has risen in the post-Brady years – 18% of state prisoners (was 16% before Brady) and 15% of federal prisoners (was 12% before Brady) were caught with firearms. 17
Fact: The Brady Bill is not enforced. In 2006, of 77,000 Field Office referrals for instant background check violations (25,259 of which NICS identified as buyers with felony records), 0.4% (273) were ever charged with a crime and 0.1% (73) were convicted. 18
Fact: The Brady Bill has so far failed to appreciably save lives. 19
Fact: Violent crime started falling in 1991, three years before passage of the Brady Bill. The Brady Bill did not apply in 18 states, yet violent crime in those states fell just as quickly. 20
Fact: A majority of Americans agree that the bill is worthless. 51% believe the act has been ineffective at reducing violent crime, and 56% believe it has had no impact on reducing the number of homicides in the U.S. 21

Myth: Gun laws are being enforced
Fact: During the Clinton administration, federal prosecutions of gun-related crimes dropped more than 44 percent. 22
Fact: Of the 3,353 prohibited individuals that obtained firearms, the Clinton administration only investigated 110 of them (3.3%). 23
Fact: Despite 536,000 prohibited buyers caught by the National Instant (Criminal Background) Check System (NICS), only 6,700 people (1.25%) have been charged for these firearms violations. This includes 71% of the violations coming from convicted or indicted felons. 24 None of these crimes were prosecuted by the Federal government in 1996, 1997, or 1998. 25
Fact: In 1998, the government prosecuted just eight children for gun law violations. 26 In that same year, there were only:
8 prosecutions for juvenile handgun possession.
6 prosecutions for handgun transfer to juveniles.
1 prosecution for Brady Bill violations.
Fact: Some of the reasons listed for not prosecuting known gun criminals include “minimal federal interest” and “DOJ/U.S. Attorney policy”. 27
Fact: Half of referrals concerning violent criminals were closed without investigation or prosecution. 28
Fact: The average sentence for a federal firearms violation dropped from 57 months to 46 months from 1996 to 1998. 29
Fact: 18-20 year olds commit over 23% of all gun murders. 30 None of these criminals are allowed by law to purchase a handgun, but the Federal government under Clinton rarely enforced this law. 31
Fact: Project Exile in Richmond, Virginia prosecutes felons caught with guns, and prosecutes them using Federal laws that require mandatory imprisonment. The first year result was a 33% drop in homicides for the Richmond Metro area in a year where the national murder rate was climbing. 32 This shows that enforcement works. And according to Andrew McBride of the Richmond Justice Department Office, these cases are as easy to prosecute as “picking change up off the street.”

Myth: Federal gun crime prosecutions increased 25%
Fact: 1992: 9,885 BATF referrals for federal firearm purchase violations

1998: 4,391 (a 56% drop)

1999: 5,489 (a fictitious “25% increase”) 33

Fact: 1992: 12,084 BATF referrals for all firearm law violations

1998: 5,620 (a 53% drop)

Myth: The social cost of gun violence is enormous
Fact: Because guns are used an estimated 2.5 million times per year to prevent crimes, the cost savings in personal losses, police work, and court and prison expenses vastly outweighs the cost of criminal gun violence and gun accidents. The net savings, under a worst-case scenario, is about $3.5 billion a year. 34
Fact: Guns are used 65 times more often to prevent a crime than to commit one. 35
Fact: The medical cost of gun violence is only 0.16% of America’s annual health care expenditures. 36
Fact: Drunken drivers killed 15,935 people in 1998 37 while homicides with guns were 12,102 for the same year. Drunken drivers continue to kill people randomly despite a decade of increased strictness and social pressure against drunk drivers.

Myth: The social cost of gun violence is $20-100 billion
Fact: One “study” 38 included the lifetime earnings of people that die from guns, not just the true social costs. This included lost incomes of criminals killed by law-abiding citizens, costs associated with suicides, the “emotional costs experienced by relatives and friends of gunshot victims, and the fear and general reduction in quality of life … including people who are not victimized”. If the same methodology were used to calculate the social savings from private gun ownership, we would see a benefit to society of half a trillion dollars, or 10% of the 1999 US Gross Domestic Product.
Fact: Another “study” 39 started by polling people how much they would be willing to have their taxes raised in order to reduce firearm violence by 30%, and then projected these bids to the entire U.S. population. This seriously flawed methodology does not measure the “cost” of the problem, just what people are willing to spend to reduce the problem.
Fact: Social saving from private ownership is not used in these studies. One study 40 indicated between 240,000 and 300,000 defensive uses of firearms, as described by the victim, “… almost certainly had saved a life.”

Myth: Gun “buy back” programs get guns off the streets
Fact: According to the federal government, gun ‘buybacks’ have “no effect”. 41
Fact: “Buy backs” remove no more than 2% of the firearms within a community. And the firearms that are removed do not resemble guns used in crimes. “There has never been any effect on crime results seen”. 42
Fact: Up to 62% of people trading in a firearm still have another at home, and 27% said they would or might buy another within a year. 43
Fact: More than 50% of the weapons bought via a gun buy back program were over 15 years old, whereas almost half of firearms seized from juveniles are less than three years old. 44
Fact: 81% of police surveyed believe buybacks are ineffective in reducing gun violence. 45
Fact: According to a variety of sources, the actual effect is that gun buy back programs:
Disarm future crime victims, creating new social costs
Give criminals an easy way to dispose of evidence
Are turned in by those least likely to commit crimes (the elderly, women, etc.)
Results in cheap guns being bought and sold to the government for a profit
Cause guns to be stolen and sold to the police, creating more crime
Seldom return stolen guns to their rightful owners
Fact: “They do very little good. Guns arriving at buy backs are simply not the same guns that would otherwise have been used in crime. If you look at the people who are turning in firearms, they are consistently the least crime-prone [ed: least likely to commit crimes]: older people and women.” 46

Myth: Closing down “kitchen table” gun dealers will reduce guns on the street
Fact: 43% of gun dealers had no inventory and sold no guns at all. Congressional testimony documented that the large number of low-volume gun dealers is a direct result of BATF policy. The BATF once prosecuted gun collectors who sold as few as three guns per year at gun shows, claiming that they were unlicensed, and therefore illegal, gun dealers. To avoid such harassment, thousands of American gun collectors became licensed gun dealers. Now the BATF claims not to have the resources to audit the paperwork monster it created.
Fact: Reforms of the Federal Firearm Licensing program – mainly focused at small volume retailers and traders – produced no significant results in firearm crime rates. 47

Myth: Only the government should have guns
Fact: Only if you want criminals to have them as well. Loose inventory controls are notorious in government agencies, as shown by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) that has “misplaced” 539 weapons, including a gas-grenade launcher and 39 automatic rifles or machine guns. Six guns were eventually linked to crimes (two guns had been used in armed robberies, one confiscated in a raid on a drug laboratory and two others during arrests. One was being held as evidence in a homicide investigation). 48 And in July of 2001, it was reported that the FBI lost 449 weapons, including machine guns.

Myth: “Safe storage” laws protect people
Fact: 15 states that passed “safe storage” laws saw 300 more murders, 3,860 more rapes, 24,650 more robberies, and over 25,000 more aggravated assaults in the first five years. On average, the annual costs borne by victims averaged over $2.6 billion as a result of lost productivity, out-of-pocket expenses, medical bills, and property losses. “The problem is, you see no decrease in either juvenile accidental gun deaths or suicides when such laws are enacted, but you do see an increase in crime rates.” 49
Fact: Only five American children under the age of 10 died of accidents involving handguns in 1997. 50 Thus, the need for “safe storage” laws appears to be low.
Fact: In Merced California, an intruder stabbed three children to death with a pitchfork. The oldest child had been trained by her father in firearms use, but could not save her siblings from the attacker because the gun was locked away to comply with the state’s “safe storage” law. 51

Myth: Local background checks reduce gun suicides 52
Fact: The research reports only a change in the “firearm suicide rate” and not the total suicide rate. No strict correlation between overall suicides and background checks exists.
Fact: The report did not explain the disparity between states that all had local background checks and radically different suicide rates (Hawaii with 2.82/100,000 and Washington with 9.28/100,000). Nor did it explain how states with different levels of background checks have nearly identical suicide rates (Hawaii has local checks and a 2.82 firearm suicide rate while New York uses state checks and has a lower 2.72 rate).
Fact: The report was a two year snapshot, which makes trending impossible. Proper analysis would have examined change in suicide rates in states before and after background check policy changed.
Fact: Researchers split homicide and suicide propensity controls by age (65+ for suicides and 15-29 for homicides).

Assorted Myths
Myth: 30,000 people are killed with guns every year.
Fact: 61% of these deaths are suicides 1 (80% in Canada 2). Numerous studies have shown that the presence or absence of a firearm does not change the overall (i.e., gun plus non-gun) suicide rate. This 30,000 number also includes justifiable homicides (self-defense) and accidents.

Myth: 1,000 people die each day from guns
Fact: 25% of this unreliable figure 4 includes “direct war deaths,” and another 14% are suicides. The bulk of the rest come from violence-prone and near-lawless localities.
Fact: The source for this raw data admits, “A complete dataset on people killed in conflict—directly or indirectly—does not exist. All published figures are estimates based on incomplete information.” 5
Fact: Indeed, the definition of “gun” seems to be very broad: “… revolvers and self-loading pistols, rifles and carbines, assault rifles, sub-machine guns, and light machine guns.” Light weapons are “… heavy machine guns, hand-held under-barrel and mounted grenade launchers, portable antitank and anti-aircraft guns, recoilless rifles, portable launchers of anti-tank and antiaircraft missile systems, and mortars of less than 100mm caliber.” And they admit to the problem of a broad definition: “The Survey uses the terms ‘small arms,’ ‘firearms,’ and ‘weapons,’ interchangeably. Unless the context dictates otherwise, no distinction is intended between commercial firearms (e.g. hunting rifles), and small arms and light weapons designed for military use (e.g. assault rifles).” 6

Myth: High capacity magazines lead to more deadly shootings
Fact: Much of this myth comes from the fact that the general availability of high-capacity handguns briefly preceded the rise in the crack cocaine trade, which brought a new kind of violence in local drugs wars. 7
Fact: The number of shots fired by criminals has not changed significantly even with the increased capacity of handguns and other firearms. Indeed, the number of shots from revolvers (all within 6-8 round capacity) and semi-automatics were about the same – 2.04 vs. 2.53. 8 In a crime or gun battle, there is seldom time or need to shoot more.
Fact: The average clip swap time for an non-expert shooter is 2-3 seconds. In the case of the Newtown Sandy Hook massacre, the murderer performed 10 magazine changes, or about 30 of the ~600 seconds that lapsed from him entering the building to when the police arrived. A 10 round restriction would have raised it to only 46 seconds and thus saved nobody.
Fact: Fatal criminal shootings declined from 4.3% to 3.3% from 1974 through 1995, when the increase in semi-automatics and large capacity handguns were rising at a fast rate. 9 Fatal shootings of police officers declined sharply from 1988 through 1993. 10
Fact: Drug dealers tend to be “more deliberate in their efforts to kill their victims by shooting them multiple times.” 11
Fact: At least 61% of mass public shooters showed signs of mental instability in the days, weeks or months before their massacres. 12 The rate might be higher because privacy laws prevent fully exploring the mental health history of some killers.

Myth: “Universal” background checks will reduce crime
Fact: With nearly 40% of crime guns coming from black-market street dealers peddling stollen and recycled guns, and another 40% coming from “acquaintance” purchases 13 (friends, other criminals, ilegal straw sales) expanded background checks won’t stop these already off-theradar transfers.
Fact: Police don’t think so. 80% surveyed reject the notion. 14

[u]Myth: The “powerful gun industry” stops all gun control legislation
Fact: The firearms industry is composed of “small, marginally profitable companies,” with combined revenues of $1.5 billion to $2 billion per year, making it politically ineffective. 15
Fact: Total political contributions from firearm industry members, PACs and employees was under $4.4 million in the 2002 election cycle, which made the industry the 64th ranked contributor. Compare that to $33 million from the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees. 16
Fact: Perhaps the “gun industry” being referenced is the 100+ million adults who peacefully own firearms and do not want their civil rights restricted.

Myth: Access to guns increases the risk of suicide
Fact: The rate of suicide is not affected by the presence of a firearm. This is true in either a time-series analysis (like the chart at right showing the change in handgun supply in the U.S. over time), 17 or through cross-national analysis. For example, Japan has no private handgun ownership (aside from an extremely limited number of licensed Olympic sport shooters), and yet had a suicide rate more than twice that of the United States in 2002. 18

Myth: Individuals who commit suicide are more likely to have had access to guns 19
Fact: This is a classic causal effect. If someone decides to commit suicide, and they choose to use a gun, they will first acquire a gun. As noted before, the total rate of suicide does not change when a gun is present because the victim will choose a different method.

Myth: The only purpose for a gun is to kill people
Fact: Guns are used for self-defense 2,500,000 times a year in the United States. 20
Fact: Guns are used as a deterrent to crime even when no rounds are fired. 21
Fact: Guns are used in sports including hunting, target practice, practical pistol, scenario simulation, skeet, etc.

As the anniversary of the Newtown shooting approaches, the usual gun control advocacy organizations are gearing up their propaganda campaigns to try and convince us that guns make us less safe, and that the only “common sense” solution to the “gun violence epidemic” is gun control. But as we’ve proven time and again here on this website (and cataloged for you in our Gun Facts section), that’s just not the case. Every claim that gun control advocates make trying to link the existence of guns to violence falls flat on its face when you add a splash of context and some verified numbers. But in preparation for this weekend, I wanted to bring together some of those hard and fast facts, based on verified numbers from the U.S. government (rather than surveys or flawed studies), that illustrate the truth about guns and violence in the United States. This way you’ll have a single post to link to when you come across one of these pro-disarmament articles . . .


Gun Ownership On the Rise

Over the last decade, the number of guns being purchased in the United States has skyrocketed. Just over the last two years, there really hasn’t been a month where the NICS checks (the background check required to buy a firearm from a firearms dealer) has dropped under a million checks per month. The NSSF tracks the number of NICS checks reported by the FBI, and while the numbers are slightly lower than last year around this time (artificially high due to Obama’s re-election) sales are still through the roof. And that doesn’t even count the number of new (factory fresh) gun sales in states where a concealed handgun license exempts the holder from having to pass a NICS check, such as Texas and Virginia.

Ruger is shipping over 1.2 million firearms this year, and that’s just one gun manufacturer — and not even the largest one. Some companies have backlogs of gun orders that will take them up to 2 years to fill, and when those guns do hit the market they’re quickly sold out in stores. Even without the new sales, guns are “durable goods” which means that they last a long time and the existing number of guns in the United States is (by some estimates) enough for eight guns for every ten people in the country.

All this is to say that guns are prevalent, and more guns are being sold every year in this country. The standard cry from gun control advocates is that more guns equals more death and more crime, so if their assertion is correct we should see a direct correlation between the number of guns being sold and an increase in the death rate in this country. But the numbers say otherwise.

Firearms Related Deaths On the Decline

If the gun control activists are right, then more guns must equal more crime. However, even in this graph that shows the overall homicide rate in blue and the firearms related homicide rate in red, you can clearly see that the phrase “steady” is the worst you can use to describe the current state of affairs in the United States, and the phrase “decline” might be more appropriate for the years since 2005. These numbers are from the U.S. Government Center for Disease Control, which tracks all deaths in the United States, and I personally pulled them yesterday when researching this article. .

Gun control activists constantly clamor that there’s a “gun violence epidemic” in the United States, but the numbers don’t reflect that statement. In fact, the argument could be made that as the firearms ownership rate increases there’s a correlation to a decline in the murder rate. So perhaps, more guns equal less crime? That’s the position taken by a recent study from Virginia that showed a decrease in violent crime as the number of firearms being sold increased, and while it’s an interesting possibility there’s no good way to decisively prove it. On the other hand, this data does decisively disprove the gun control hypothesis that “more guns = more crime.”

To give you a little context on where these crime rates are compared to historical data, take this chart which shows the murder rate over a much larger period. The last time the United States was this peaceful was 33 years ago, according to the CDC. The United States has seen a decline in the murder rate ever since the peaks of the 1990s, and yet the gun control advocates claim that there’s now a “gun violence epidemic.” I’m not buying it.

Accidental Deaths On the Decline

While crime prevention is one claim of gun control advocates, another popular statement is that more guns mean that more people will accidentally shoot themselves. Well, again, the CDC disagrees with that assessment. Even as gun ownership is on the rise, and more people than ever are carrying concealed firearms, the number of people (raw number, mind you) accidentally killed with firearms each year continues to drop. The accident rate shows an even more marked decline.

Let me put this into context a little bit more. There are, according to the CDC, 308 million people in the United States. That’s 308,745,538. Of those 308 million people, only 600 were accidentally killed with a firearm. That’s a 0.000194% chance that you will be accidentally killed with a gun in any given year. According to the National Safety Council, over 12,000 people die every year simply by falling down.

Accidental Death Rate High, but Guns are Not the Problem

The accidental death rate in the United States is about twice that of other countries, like the United Kingdom (18/100,000 versus 39/100,000). And while that may seem like a vote against guns, in reality the number of firearms related accidental deaths are so small that they’re barely visible in this chart (source: CDC). The main issue in the accidental death rate is traffic accidents, but when gun control advocates talk about their topic of choice they make it seem like the only thing keeping us from having the same lower statistics as the UK is gun control. It’s a lazy analysis of the situation, and even if we eliminated all firearms related accidental deaths it still wouldn’t bring us any closer to eliminating the gap in overall accidental deaths.

Interesting side note: the difference in accidental death rate is actually based on the way we commute to work. Cars are basically death traps, and the United Kingdom relies more on public transportation to get to work than the United States. We love our cars, even though we have an extremely high likelihood of dying in them. And yet we still drive, even though there’s a 0.012% chance we’ll die in one every year. For comparison, I have a 0.0002% chance that I’ll accidentally kill myself with my gun. So in reality, my gun is safer than my car. Go figure. Maybe I can somehow shoot my way to work, circus clown style…

Proportion of Guns Used in Crimes: Very, Very Low

Going back to that original point of the gun control advocates, that guns directly cause crime, then we should expect that a large percentage of the guns in this country would be used in a crime. However, that’s just not the case.

This chart shows the number of guns in the United States (using a LOW estimate from Wikipedia) versus the total number of victims of violent crime involving a firearm every year (source: Bureau of Justice Statistics numbers for 2012). If we assume that a different gun was used for every robbery, murder and assault, then that number comes out to 460,718 firearms. That’s 0.185% of all guns in the United States. For reference, every year 2.13% of all motor vehicles are involved in a collision. So again, guns are safer than cars.

Concealed Carry: Safer and More Law Abiding than the Police

With the increasing popularity of concealed carry, there was a common thread among the gun control advocacy groups’ opposition: the statement that concealed carry would bring “blood in the streets.” That these “gun nuts” who carry guns everywhere they go are just “looking for trouble” and itching to kill someone. Well, again, that’s just not right.

Thanks to some sleuthing, we know that concealed carry holders are actually less likely than even the police to commit a murder. According to the Violence Policy Center, Florida has the highest murder rate among concealed carry holders, and Dean figured out that those numbers put the murder rate at somewhere around .58/100,000. Counting domestic homicides only, police officers committed 1.85/100,000 over the same time period. Nationally, the murder rate in the United States sits right around 4.5/100,000. Therefore, you’re over three times less likely to be killed in a room filled with concealed carry holders than police officers.

Cool, huh?

Firearms and Children: Declining Murders and Accidents

The last refuge for those without a logical leg to stand on is “think of the children!” OK, let’s think about the children for a second in terms of guns.

According to the CDC, the number of firearms related fatalities for “children” has been steadily falling over the last two decades even without more restrictive gun control laws. I put children in quotation marks because, while some people consider 24 year old people to still be children, my cut-off is the age at which the state lets you operate a 2-ton moving death machine unsupervised in public (16). The reason that this age bracket is used by gun control advocacy groups, as I outlined in this article, is that this is the age range in which most gang related crime is committed. Some estimates put the percentage of gang related murders in the United States at around 80%, indicating that the issue isn’t the availability of guns but the prevalence of gangs and the related violence.

Let’s move away from the murders for a second. Gun control advocates love to use the image of a child who accidentally shot themselves or someone else and died after “playing” with a gun. It evokes a parental response, making you feel like you need to “do something” to prevent such tragedies. And while those incidents do happen, it’s extremely rare — and getting rarer by the year.

Notice that distinctive downward trend? Yeah, I did too. Nevermind the fact that this happens to less than 150 kids every year, the fact of the matter is that the “problem” of kids accidentally killing themselves or others with a gun is one that is disappearing. Instead of increasing as more guns are being sold to the U.S. population, not only is the raw number of kids being killed in this matter staying relatively stable but it even seems to be declining.

Public Support for Increased Gun Control Measures

The gun control activists like to make the claim that “90% of Americans” support whatever new gun control scheme they’re pushing that week. However, if you look at the results of a reputable polling organization (like Gallup) the truth is very, very different.

The facts of the matter are that the hunger for stricter gun control in the United States is like a fad that has run its course — fewer and fewer people every year believe that gun control is a good idea. The numbers of supporters have been steadily dropping since 2002, and with the exception of a small spike in 2012 (just after the Newtown shooting) that trend has been steady. The real surprise is that the percentage of people who think gun control laws should be less strict has been steadily on the rise, and in 2014 that number tripled to 16%.

Gun control advocates claim that the vast majority of Americans support new gun control laws. In reality, 56% of Americans either want gun laws to stay the same or become less strict. “Common sense” indeed.

Conclusions

The burden of proof is on the gun control activists. Their assertion is that more guns equal more crime, that concealed carry means “shoot-outs in the streets” and deranged “gun nuts” looking to kill people, and that there’s a “gun violence epidemic” that needs to be addressed. But looking at the numbers from the CDC, I don’t see it. Gun sales have gone through the roof in the last six years, and at worst the numbers for firearm related deaths are stable. At best, they’re declining. Not one single metric that I could find indicated that gun owners were anything less than model citizens, and that gun ownership is not the root of all evil.

The best confirmation of this comes not from any study or calculation, but from the opinions of the American people themselves. Support for gun control is at an all time low. I’d like to think that it’s because people are finally understanding that the object is not the problem but instead it’s the behavior that needs to be changed. However, some people still don’t see the light. Hopefully with enough proof we can change their minds as well.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
Someone who dealt in nothing but conjecture wanted facts, so I duly obliged him

 d-usa wrote:
We need to add cancer deaths of gun owners to get a true idea of the deaths caused by guns!

 Frazzled wrote:

I know ists hard to believe, but I've never had an abortion either.

 dogma wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

I know ists hard to believe, but I've never had an abortion either.

I've paid for 3.

 Frazzled wrote:

er...ok...I'm just going to go walk...over here...

 d-usa wrote:
We need to add cancer deaths of gun owners to get a true idea of the deaths caused by guns!

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
We need to add cancer deaths of gun owners to get a true idea of the deaths caused by guns!

In the same way that "school shootings" also include accidental discharges by officers near schools, and gangbangers shooting each other near schools also.
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2013/11/foghorn/debunking-moms-demand-action-twitter-facts/
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2014/06/foghorn/even-cnn-can-find-15-valid-school-shootings-bloombergs-list-74/


And including teenage gangbangers as child victims of gun violence when they get involved in a shoot out, or counting the suspected Boston Bomber as a child victim of gun violence (at least they backtracked from this)
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/bloomberg-s-gun-group-apologizes-for-calling-boston-bombing-suspect-a-victim

And I wish the above examples were in jest