You Know Less Than You Think About Guns

©2018 Reason Foundation ^ | February 2016 | Brian Doherty

[Behind Liberal Lines]

More guns do not necessarily mean more homicides. More gun laws do not necessarily mean less gun crime. Finding good science is hard enough; finding good social science on a topic so fraught with politics is nigh impossible. The facts then become even more muddled as the conclusions of those less-than-ironclad academic studies cycle through the press and social media in a massive game of telephone. Despite the confident assertions of the gun controllers and decades of research, we still know astonishingly little about how guns actually function in society and almost nothing at all about whether gun control policies actually work as promised.

[Tax-chick]

Personally, I think I have a pretty accurate idea of what I know about guns and what I don’t know.

[rightwingcrazy]

The Mongols killed off 10% of the world’s population without firing a single shot. More recently, 70% of Tutsis were slaughtered in the Rwandan genocide, mostly with machetes.

[OttawaFreeper]

In the discussion regarding gun death rates being higher in states that have weaker laws versus the stricter ones, an interesting point to consider is that if you take cities like Atlanta, Dallas, New Orleans, Memphis, Miami, St. Louis, and other big cities in the South run by corrupt Dems with a large black underclass and the accompanying high black on black violent crime rate out of the equation, you likely get Southern states that tend to look more like New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine that have more casual laws but are that great deal less violent than DC, Chicago, and New York City.

[IamConservative]

If all non-members of the NRA would stop shooting people, deaths from gun violence would be reduced by 100%.

Here’s an idea:

- Commit a crime using a gun, mandatory life sentence, no parole.
- Commit a crime using a gun resulting in death, hang from the neck until dead.

[Delta 21]

There is just no telling what you dont know, but agree fully with the first half of your statement.

[Lurker]

If you factor out 13 or 14 neighborhoods Chicago, and Illinois for that matter, become almost as safe as Vermont, too.

Now if we could get only figure out what it is that makes those neighborhoods so dangerous.

L

[RightGeek]

If all non-members of the NRA would stop shooting people, deaths from gun violence would be reduced by 100%.

Good one

[JoeFromSidney]

I agree. It's the gun-haters who know so many things that just aren't so.

[Delta 21]

Thats a pretty good idea.

[Yogafist]

Nineteen men killed 2985 people in a matter of minutes without using a single firearm.

[ichabod1]

Why waste a bullet when la guillotine she can chop all day and all night with just a leeetle honing.

[DJ Taylor]

There are 30,000 gun related deaths per year by firearms. That is not disputed. What is never shown, though, is a breakdown of those deaths to put them in perspective; as compared to other causes of death.

• 65% of those deaths are by suicide which would never be prevented by gun laws

• 15% are by law enforcement in the line of duty and justified

• 17% are through criminal activity, gang and drug related or mentally ill persons

• 3% are accidental discharge deaths

So technically, “gun violence” is not 30,000 annually but drops to 5,100.

Still too many? Well, first, how are those deaths spanned across the nation?

• 480 homicides (9.4%) were in Chicago

• 344 homicides (6.7%) were in Baltimore

• 333 homicides (6.5%) were in Detroit

• 119 homicides (2.3%) were in Washington DC (a 54% increase over prior years)

So basically, 25% of all gun crime happens in just 4 cities. All 4 of those cities have strict gun laws so it is not the lack of law that is the root cause. This basically leaves 3,825 for the entire rest of the nation or about 75 per state.

That is an average because some States have much higher rates than others. For example, California had 1,169. Alabama had 1.

Now, who has the strictest gun laws by far? California of course but understand, it is not the tool (guns) driving this. It is a crime rate spawned by the number of criminal persons residing in those cities and states. So if all cities and states are not created equal, then there must be something other than the tool causing the gun deaths.

Are 5,100 deaths per year horrific?

How about in comparison to other deaths?

All death is sad and especially so when it is in the commission of a crime but that is the nature of crime. Robbery, death, rape, assault; all are done by criminals to victims and thinking that criminals will obey laws is ludicrous. That’s why they are criminals.

But what of other deaths?

• 40,000+ die from a drug overdose – THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR THAT!

· 36,000 people die per year from the flu, far exceeding the criminal gun deaths

• 34,000 people die per year in traffic fatalities (exceeding gun deaths even if you include suicide)

Now it gets good

• 200,000+ people die each year (and growing) from preventable medical malpractice.

• You are safer in Chicago than you are in a hospital!

• 710,000 people die per year from heart disease. Time to stop the cheeseburgers!

So what is the point? If Obama and the anti-gun movement focused their attention on heart disease, even 10% a decrease would save twice the lives annually of all gun related deaths (including suicide, law enforcement, etc.).

A 10% reduction in malpractice would be 66% of the total gun deaths or 4 times the number of criminal homicides. Simple, easily preventable 10% reductions!

So you have to ask yourself, in the grand scheme of things, why the focus on guns?

It’s pretty simple.

Taking away guns gives control to governments. This is not conspiracy theory; this is a historical fact.

Why is it impossible for the government to spill over into dictatorship? Why did the Japanese not even attempt to attack California in WWII? Because as they put it, there is a gun behind every blade of grass.

The founders of this nation knew that regardless of the form of government, those in power may become corrupt and seek to rule as the British did. They too tried to disarm the populace of the colonies because it is not difficult to understand; a disarmed populace is a controlled populace. Thus, the second amendment was proudly and boldly included in the constitution. It must be preserved at all costs.

So the next time someone tries to tell you that gun control is about saving lives, look at these facts and remember these words from Noah Webster

“Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power.”

[Tax-chick]

There is just no telling what you don't know ...

I disagree. For example, I know that I don't know anything about the practical use of guns in almost any situation. I recognize the names of various brands and models of guns, but I don't know why any in particular is better or worse than another.

[1_Inch_Group]

Gun suicides I’ll never understand...well, never understand more than suicides.

We know what guns do to meat...

Why isn’t a plastic bag tied around the neck the most chosen form of suicide?

Painless, assured...

Is that why the lefties banned all the plastic bags at the grocery stores here in CA? (Can still get as many suicide bags as you’d like at Home Depot).

[RipSawyer]

“Now if we could get only figure out what it is that makes those neighborhoods so dangerous.”

I thought everybody knew the answer to that, it’s evil, racist, white people who refuse to bake wedding cakes for same sex “marriages”, isn’t that right?

[Truthoverpower]

Exactly
The gun nuts will always blather on and on and on
On BOTH SIDES. the don’t take em and the banners
I brought up the fact that ISIS is now using trucks to run over people with some fool the other day same happened in NYC
Should we ban trucks ?

[RipSawyer]

“Why isn’t a plastic bag tied around the neck the most chosen form of suicide?

Painless, assured...”

Apparently you have never been in a situation where there was a shortage of oxygen, asphyxiation (suffocation) is one of the most hideous ways to die. If it were painless a person could simply hold his breath until dead, try that sometime. Drowning is far quicker and less agonizing. There was a history special on the “Hunley”, a confederate submarine, on TV and it was stated that the men who volunteered for that duty agreed that if they came to a situation where they could not get out of the sub for any reason they would open a valve to let in water because drowning was much better than suffocation.

[1_Inch_Group]

Well, I’m glad that suicide is not in my game plan...obviously I’d suck at it.

[trebb]

I have over 60 years of personal experience with guns and know that when good people have them, they don’t tend to harm others with them unless the others are in the act of trying to do grave harm to innocents - nobody in our family ever shot anyone and we all had ready access to a number of them evil assault weapons...