Define "major". There is a direct connection between the prevalence of guns and accidents with them, for example - that's just probability in action. Also suicides, although the connection there is problematic. You would agree, I think, that putting firearms in hotel lobby stands for passersby to use in case of riot, the way small axes are - or were - set out in glass cases for use in case of fire etc, would be unwise. So it is possible to have too many guns lying around, no? And if one's statistics did not reflect the undesirability of that situation, the fault would presumably lie with them rather than with the good judgment of sane observers. That entire approach overlooks the manner in which governmental oppression is normally established, and normally resisted. It's not usually imposed by an army - especially not if it's one's own government imposing it. Armies are inconvenient, because they are either unfamiliar with the population being oppressed or in suspect allegiance with it, and because they are too big to individually reward or monitor or conceal. Instead, the oppressor uses terrorism by cadres of favored folks within or neighboring the community, such as the police or the Tontons Macoutes. This should be familiar to Americans from the oppression of black people in the Confederate States, after the Civil War until quite recently. One can also draw examples easily known to Americans from all over the Caribbean, South America, Central America, Africa, SE Asia, the Middle East, European history, etc. And such means of oppression, the easiest and possibly even necessary means, are often and plausibly and effectively opposed by a generally and privately armed citizenry. Nobody needs to get shot - the mere presence of arms in the target population, taken into account by would be oppressors, forestalls. As in most actual self-defense by firearm, the gun is never fired, often not even at hand. And so the imposition of oppression is necessarily - not coincidently - prepared by disarming the target population. The Scotch Irish pioneers of the US were intimately familiar with that, at the hands of the British crown.
I think there are too many guns and don't recommend putting them in hotel lobbies. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! I don't agree with the NRA or identify with those in love with their guns or paranoid about what our government is going to do. The stats just don't bear out that this is a major problem however. There are gun accidents as well and accidents involved in floating down the river in an inner tube and skiiing, etc. The amount of gun deaths from accidents is about 3%. That's too many but it's not "major" in my opinion. The suicide rate is too high and 60% of gun deaths are as a result of suicide but again our suicide rate is about the same as that in the U.K. So again, not a major problem. Without guns it would probably be a bit lower but again not "majorly" so. Gang violence will be there gun or no gun. So, when you get down to guns used in crimes it's a concern but it's not something that is an overwhelming problem. If you take away all guns, you will reduce some deaths but not a lot and to do that requires a major action. It's not that there is no problem but it's a matter of perspective and most people don't seem to view this issue in perspective.
I found the source of that statistic: "The late senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said that in the United States there was a 200-year supply of guns but a four-year supply of ammunition." With supplies of ammo being quickly sucked up by DHS, that civilian ammo supply is now down to only about two years. The shots per kill would be comparable with kill rates in the Iraq war I think.
Without economic disparity and several axes of corrupt culture, it wouldn't matter how many guns they had.
250,000 rounds per insurgent killed. I suppose a lot of those were expended in training or providing cover fire or inflicting collateral damage on the enemy. But I see your point. If only we could make that the kill rate for private gun owners, they'd all go broke buying ammo, wouldn't they? Don't you waste any rounds at the local shooting gallery?
Skiers and innertubers seldom kill other people. If the people killed by gun mishap and misuse were only the people shooting the guns while having a good time, this would be an entirely different issue. That's 3% of a lot of people, however. But it won't kill passersby, or children sleeping in their own beds in houses half a block away - or police officers, EMTs, firemen, etc. One cannot do a driveby with a set of brass knuckles. You would probably reduce early death and trauma by many thousands of people per year in the US - if you somehow took away all the guns. I agree wholly with your observation of distorted perspective, exaggerated fears, etc. But one cannot establish a realistic perspective on gun violence in the US by simple body counts - the prevalence of guns in gang violence results in what is essentially the terrorization of entire neighborhoods, for example. Swimming pools don't do that. The effects spread far beyond the people actually shot. Likewise with the presence of a gun in domestic violence situations, or small arsenals in homes with mentally disturbed youths. And this stuff arises from what any sane person familiar with firearms recognizes as irresponsible behavior by gun owners. And this behavior can be held to account, curbed and discouraged, by the community, leaving the responsible owners undisturbed. A measured and moderate approach to a measured and moderate problem, and an improvement in all of our lives.
I don't disagree with any of that. I'm just trying to get the proper perspective of the problem (for myself) by doing a little more research into this lately. One more "statistic" that I've come across, just for perspective, is that changing gun laws for the most part is only going to affect those legal guns that were used in crime and that number is pretty low. One estimate based on the numbers available was that no more than 850 people are killed (out of the 30,000 number for gun deaths) with legal guns. So passing more laws, rather than enforcing existing ones, can only affect that smaller number. Again...perspective. Gangs are going to have guns even if all guns are outlawed. It's easy to make a gun. The problems in inner cities really isn't about guns. Income inequality is much more the problem along with conflicting cultures. Guns are more dangerous to others than swimming pools of course but life isn't accident free. Cars are dangerous to others. Again, sometimes the perspective is that many law abiding gun owners are causing a lot of problems or that most gun owners aren't law abiding and that just isn't the case (even though it could be). On the other hand the "war on crime and the war on drugs" just isn't working and the justice system is more out of whack potentially than the gun culture. Not only does the U.S. own more guns than anyone else but we lock up far, far more people than anyone else and it isn't because violent crimes have gone up and they have actually gone down. One question that I would be asking (and I don't know the answer) is are there more school shooting now than in the past (or is reporting just better now) and if so what has changed? When I was in public school and college I don't recall any shootings except Kent State (government) and the Texas tower shooting. Violence and crime aren't higher now, there aren't more guns now, it's like suicide bombers, it's hard to say what changed.
So... We should just release everyone from prison and lock up all the guns in their place? That could actually work.
You could lock up all the guns, ban all the guns or distribute more guns and it wouldn't change things much one way or the other. Not locking up a large portion of the population would be helpful however. Prison should be for violent offenders and that's it.
In the first place, I don't believe that 90% of the gun suicides are with "illegal guns"(what that stat would require). But taking the principle under advisement rather than the number, we still have: passing different laws, that are easier or more congenial to enforce, might very well greatly reduce the number of "illegal guns" in circulation. And cars are very heavily regulated - for that very reason. A truer perspective is that a very small proportion of the gun owners are causing the majority of the problems - so there should be a way to address them, legally, without disturbing the large majority in the least. One breakdown I recall from a couple years ago said that the number of shootings per capita hadn't risen much but the number of victims per shooting had. One reason advanced was weapon capability - faster fire, more rounds in the magazine, more weapons brought to the scene. I don't know whether it made sense - didn't check the numbers. The first of the mass school-asociated shootings was also the first to have involved an arsenal of rapid fire weapons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Whitman This one appears otherwise to have been aberrant - not a loser, not a loner, not a social misfit, not acting personally against the school or students there, etc - but as with several others, in possession of a small arsenal of guns and a recent history of seeking psychiatric help. So intervention would have been possible, via commonly suggested gun control/mental health policies not notably restrictive otherwise. And in this case one possible benefit might have been the absence of a contagious example - the contagious effects of these shootings, while disputed, may as well be forestalled if possible.
Wow 250,000 rounds per kill-----------------jeezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz (I have tags for 4 deer this year, and expect to use 4 rounds) as/re; "shooting gallery" .long ago and far away, I spent some time and ammunition practicing. More recently, i only use a few rounds to zero each new weapon, then use one round per kill------------------(no body is perfect, i missed once in the last 50 shots and hope to not miss again in the next 50). because some mention was made of having 200 years worth of "guns' and 2 years worth of bullets. assumed to be based on ammunition expended in Iraq. ergo; "kill rates" bracket those numbers. Wasting that much ammunition, I think, is really stupid. If you miss the target with the first bullet, the second is as likely to miss also. "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?" 250,000 rounds per kill seems to be a serious gun problem--------where did the other 249,999 rounds go?
I think the statistic about legal guns was probably just related to homicides other than suicides. Cars and guns are regulated but increased regulation doesn't necessarily involve increased safety. Much of the regulation regarding cars involves raising revenue. People worry about "assault weapons" and rightly so in some of the recent mass shootings but most crimes don't involve rifles but rather handguns. Rifles are hard to conceal. I'm not sure how much difference it makes to reduce a magazine clip from 15 rounds to 10 rounds however. I think any additional regulations should be well thought out and based on facts rather than just trying to nickle and dime in order to say that you passed additional gun controls. It does appear we need to have more armed guards in more public areas until this current trend ends. That's the solution that Congress, court houses, banks, etc. take and unfortunately it appears that more public places will have to follow suit.
snowball fight gone bad: February 14, 1883: Florence, Nebraska, As some children were playing and throwing snowballs outside the Ponca Creek school house, three young men pulled up in a wagon. They engaged the children in a snowball fight. When they were leaving, one of the men pointed his 45 caliber pistol at the children, accidentally shooting and wounding three of them. Harbaugh surrendered to police. Kids fight for school: February 28, 1884: Danville, Virginia, As Allen Wamack, a fifteen-year-old boy, drove by a "negro" school house, he called out "school butter." The school students ran out and attacked him; they fired several shots at him and he returned fire, hitting two students. No one died: March 30, 1891: Liberty, Mississippi, During a school exhibition and concert given at the Parson Hill schoolhouse, where the large audience was composed of blacks and whites: teachers, pupils, and spectators, an unknown gunman fired a double barreled shotgun into the assemblage. 14 people were wounded, some seriously. Likely Noisy kids: April 9, 1891: Newburgh, New York, James Ferguson, 70, fired a shotgun at a group of students in the playground of St. Mary's Parochial School, causing minor injuries to several of the students Surprising number of teachers killing the students or going after them with axe's back in the good old days. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States
When you're shooting at humans, it's a little different. Your emotions (fear, hate, etc.) may impair your aim.
If my aim were impaired 249,999 times, i'd find another activity---------maybe: Run like the very hounds of hell were chasing me. ("But sarg, i can't shoot women and chldren"-----------"Sure you can, just don't lead them as much")
Then the number should have been much less than 30,000. How about from 100 rounds to 10? http://thinkprogress.org/justice/20...-was-thwarted-by-a-limited-number-of-bullets/ If you think Americans are going to consent to live under continual armed police surveillance so that mentally disturbed teenagers and violent domestic abusers and convicted violent felons and people ejected from the military for psychiatric disorder can accumulate arsenals without even the most trivial of government interference - I hope you are wrong. In combat, you may not be "aiming" per se at all. Certainly not each round individually. Ammo is a tool, in the military, and its free. Chris Rock - in 1999, iirc, 16 years ago: “You don’t need no gun control, you know what you need? We need some bullet control. Men, we need to control the bullets, that’s right. I think all bullets should cost five thousand dollars… five thousand dollars per bullet… You know why? Cause if a bullet cost five thousand dollars there would be no more innocent bystanders. Yeah! Every time somebody get shut we’d say, ‘Damn, he must have done something ... Shit, he’s got fifty thousand dollars worth of bullets in his ass.’ And people would think before they killed somebody if a bullet cost five thousand dollars. ‘Man I would blow your fucking head off…if I could afford it.’ ‘I’m gonna get me another job, I’m going to start saving some money, and you’re a dead man. You’d better hope I can’t get no bullets on layaway.’ So even if you get shot by a stray bullet, you wouldn't have to go to no doctor to get it taken out. Whoever shot you would take their bullet back, like "I believe you got my property.”
Yes, bullet control might be the answer. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Guards have to be the short-term answer to mass shooting problem...what else is there as an immediate solution. It's not that it's something that anyone wants to do but neither is taking off our shoes at the airport. It still is a matter of perspective however. Those crimes committed by illegal guns are less than the homicides committed by knives. I do agree that effective gun controls (if there are any) would make the numbers even better.
