Posted on 08/05/2012 7:36:06 AM PDT by marktwain
In the wake of the horrific mass shooting in an Aurora, Colo., many are urging a new conversation on gun control while others acknowledge with bitter resignation that no meaningful action to restrict guns will be taken because the will for it just isn’t there.
Support for tighter gun laws has dropped sharply over the past 20 years, and gun rights groups have far more political clout than gun control advocates.
Liberal and left-leaning websites are full of comments lamenting America’s barbaric gun culture and Americans’ irrational attachment to firearms.
Yet a closer look at the facts shows that it’s even more irrational to think that gun laws will keep us safe.
Gun control supporters point out that the United States has far higher gun homicide rates than other developed countries as well as far more guns in the hands of the population (89 for every 100 people) and far fewer restrictions.
But that does not necessarily prove a cause-and-effect relationship.
Writing on CNN.com, Fareed Zakaria cites Switzerland as an exemplary country with low gun homicide rates.
Indeed, the total homicide rate in Switzerland in 2010 was 0.7 per 100,000 inhabitants, compared with 4.2 in the United States.
But Switzerland actually has widespread gun ownership (with an estimated 2 million to 3 million guns in a population of fewer than 8 million) and a thriving gun culture rooted in a tradition of a citizen militia.
Meanwhile, in the Philippines, gun laws are considerably more restrictive than in the United States and civilian gun ownership is a paltry five per 100 people yet the homicide rate is more than double ours.
(Excerpt) Read more at m.jacksonville.com ...
Gun control laws passed "reasonable" about 75 years ago. What is "reasonable" about preventing people from having gun mufflers?"
I think that if they would just let people have full 2nd Amendment rights, we would probably not have any mass murders. Although I am not sure how the rights were in 1963 when President Kennedy was shot....everyone had guns around him and it did not protect him at all. But in most other circumstances we would probably save lives. The government should stay out of this too. Why must they always get involve in things that really do not advance our country? Instead of concentrating on this why not concentrate solely on the 15 trillion dollar debt. If I was running for President, that would be my one and only priority besides doing way with abortion and getting rid of gay marriage. Everything else is secondary.
Let me be politically incorrect here for a minute...... The one thing left out of our current discourse is the elephant in the room.
If we removed from statistics, gun crimes committed by blacks and latino’s (think gangs here), we probably wouldn’t be having this discussion in the first place, or at least it would be radically different.
We don’t need to dwell on guns or gun laws. We need to address criminals (regardless of race/ethnicity).
As for the mentally impaired...... I don’t know how to fix that, except to say that mass murders, while horific and heart wrenching, actually only produce a fraction of deaths that our criminals do.
You’re dead on. (pun intended) Chicago kills about 40 a month; over three times what the mass murderer did, and thats EVERY month, and its not Boy Scouts.
You are correct, the discussion would be different, but the purpose would be the same.
In Switzerland the crime with guns is so low that they do not even have statistics on it. Yet, there is a strong effort by the leftists to impose strong gun control in a nation that has some of the lowest crime rates in the world. The hat they try to hide under are the few suicides with guns that occur, and the few guns that make their way to the rest of Europe where people are far less free than Switzerland.
The push for strong measures to remove guns from one of the most gun-freindly societies on earth cannot be discounted. It has already resulted in a number of restrictions that never existed before on the federal level.
The push has nothing to do with crime. Crime is merely a useful “false front” in order to push an agenda that disarms the people. Leftists, or Statists generally, hate an armed people because it both physically and mentally makes them harder to control. A person does not disarm you with the intention of helping you. Let the governments disarm first, if they are so insistent that people cannot be trusted with arms. After all, they are people as well.
Just an observation. Go look over at the statistics of various countries...like Finland or Denmark. Then break the US up into fifty different statistics, which the news media hates to see.
It’s an odd thing. Iowa, Rhode Island, and North Dakota suddenly look safer than Finland. States like Illinois, California and Florida...look like Nigeria. Toss in the District of Columbia...which really looks bad for all it’s gun episodes.
You have a problem....but it’s urban centers...like Chicago, DC, Philly, and Miami....that make the problem bigger than what it ought to be. Toss in the dopers and their statistics....and I think you can guess the real extent of the problem.
gun control in Australia not working, It’s having an opposite effect.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8RDWltHxRc&feature=player_embedded
“everyone had guns around him and it did not protect him at all.”
Triangulating a shot on a changed route at a near standstill will do that.
I remember that day. I was young.
If you look at the number of people killed in Chicago this year ... about 250? (7 yesterday! ... there is a mass killing CONTINUING in Chicago, daily, where some of the strictest gun laws in the nation are “in force”. Only 12 died in Colorado, how many in Chicago? How many bodies does it take to add up to a “mass murder?”
Cut out the surrounding counties of the major cities in America and you’ll see that even the states with the worse violent gun problems are better than Europe.
Democrats control all of those major counties. They contain massive income disparities, low business formation, low or negative job creation, high poverty rates, high out-of-wedlock birthrates, and terrible corruption.
Look at what they’ve done in the places they have complete control over. Why not vote for a Democrat?
Give in an inch and they’ll take a mile.
NO INCHS. NO WAY!
Two other similar aspects left out of the discussion: First, if killings that occurred in “gun-free” zones were excluded, we probably wouldn’t be having the discussion. It is beyond the pale that killings in victim-disarmament zones are cited as a reason to disarm more potential victims in more places. Second, if we excluded killings by convicts out on parole, or otherwise under the supervision of authorities, we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation. It is also beyond the pale that as a result of people who could or should be in prison are instead out killing others, that additional restrictions on we, the law-abiding, should be enacted. (Especially when it’s the people on the same side of the aisle who both seek to let out more violent criminals on parole, and also further restrict the rights of the law-abiding.)
It'll be OK now. Rahmbo of Chicago has politely asked the gang members not to kill each other any more, and if they do have to murder each other, not to do it around children.
I'm sure the gang leaders will take it to heart, hold hands, and have a Kum-By-Yah moment, ending the murders.
Mark
There is no doubt that gun control is needed. Just look at Mexico for proof!
Sarc/
There were 2 Black ladies on FOX last night. One said the murder rate in Chicago was no higher in than in the rest of the country. She also said that gun crime was no higher in Dem cities (Chi, DC, etc) than the rest of the major cities.
I believe this to be pure BS. (wishful thinking?)
It would be an interesting statistic to chart gun violence by Republican control vs Democrat control. My guess is that clearly we should have Democrat control.
True. But don’t expect the anti-gun nuts to concede that point.
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