Guns Used.....cont

[Seth]

I can only imagine what that was about.

what, this?

You Socialists should not underestimate the determination of the people of the United States not to be disarmed. Doing so is a fatal mistake, or so I'm told by credible sources.

Pure bullshit, as usual.

Perhaps we could change Seth's rank to "Overactive Amygdala"?

Or "Needs Bullet in Amygdala"?

You first.

[Seth]

Two-thirds of US gun deaths are suicides. We have about the same number of traffic deaths annually, very few of which are suicides. Wonder why they don't make the headlines? Oh, that's not a hot-button political issue; would not increase readership or profits.

It's a bit less than two-thirds, more like 55-60% (but hard to know precisely due to how they're recorded).

But there are extremely good reasons why it is a hot-button issue and will remain so for the forseeable future. Auto-related deaths are almost entirely accidents; a negligible few are due to vehicular homicide. Gun-related deaths, not so much. But few people rant and rave about losing their freedoms when the gubment requires people to pass driving tests in order to get a license, posts speed limits, uses tax dollars to put up overhead street lights, obligates the auto industry to crash-test their cars up to certain standards, etc. Everyone knows there are excellent reasons for all of that stuff. But as far as gun laws go, they're not only lax, but those that exist are not enforced well either.

This is, as usual, a nonsense comparison. Highway safety efforts are intended to reduce ACCIDENTS involving motor vehicles, not murder attempts (and yes there are some) using vehicles.

Nor are gun laws "lax." Firearms are the single most closely regulated consumer product in existence. There are more than 50,000 laws nationwide regarding the acquisition, possession and use of firearms, and they are enforced vigorously...except for the federal law about lying on the Form 4473, which is a felony, which VP Biden says, and I quote, "We don't have time to enforce that."

Gun owners are hardly to be blamed for either felonious attempts to buy guns or for the abject failure of the federal government to vigorously enforce its own laws.

Fatal firearms accidents are actually quite rare, numbering significantly less than 1000 per year for the last 12 years:

In the United States, annual unintentional shooting deaths total

2011: 851
2010: 606
2009: 554
2008: 592
2007: 613
2006: 642
2005: 789
2004: 649
2003: 730
2002: 762
2001: 802
2000: 776
1999: 824
Source

Accidental gun deaths have dropped more than 95 percent since 1910, largely thanks to the NRA's educational programs.

Firearm Safety In America 2009

Posted on October 19, 2007

The number of privately owned guns in the U.S. is at an all-time high, and rises by about 4.5 million per year.1 Below, statistics from 1981 forward are from the National Center for Health Statistics; those prior to 1981 are from the National Safety Council.2 NCHS annual numbers, rates, and trends of common accidents and selected other causes of death, for the U.S., each state, and the District of Columbia, are available on the NRA-ILA website in spreadsheet format.3

The firearm accident death rate is at an all-time annual low, 0.2 per 100,000 population, down 94% since the all-time high in 1904. Since 1930, the annual number of such deaths has decreased 80%, to an all-time low, while the U.S. population has more than doubled and the number of firearms has quintupled. Among children, such deaths have decreased 90% since 1975. Today, the odds are more than a million to one, against a child in the U.S. dying in a firearm accident.

Firearms are involved in 0.5% of accidental deaths nationally, compared to motor vehicles (37%), poisoning (22%), falls (17%), suffocation (5%), drowning (2.9%), fires (2.5%), medical mistakes (1.7%), environmental factors (1.3%), and pedal cycles (0.7%). Among children: motor vehicles (41%), suffocation (21%), drowning (15%), fires (8%), pedal cycles (2%), poisoning (2%), falls (1.9%), environmental factors (1.5%), firearms (1.1%) and medical mistakes (1%).

Education decreases accidents. Voluntary training has decreased firearms accidents. NRA firearm safety programs are conducted by more than 62,000 NRA Certified Instructors nationwide. Youngsters learn firearm safety in NRA programs offered through civic groups such as the Boy Scouts, Jaycees, and American Legion, and schools.4 NRA's Eddie Eagle GunSafe program teaches children pre-K through 3rd grade that if they see a gun without supervision, they should "STOP! Don't Touch. Leave The Area. Tell An Adult." Since 1988, Eddie has been used by 26,000 schools, civic groups, and law enforcement agencies to reach more than 22 million children.5

The "cars and guns" myth. "Gun control" supporters claim that driver licensing and vehicle registration caused motor vehicle accident deaths to decline between 1968-1991, and that gun registration and gun owner licensing would reduce gun accidents. However, vehicle registration and driver licensing laws were not imposed to reduce accidents, and did not do so. Most were imposed between the world wars, but motor vehicle accident deaths increased sharply after 1930 and didn't begin declining until 1970. Also, between 1968-1991 the motor vehicle accident death rate dropped only 37% with vehicle registration and driver licensing, while the firearm accident death rate dropped 50% without registration and licensing. Anti-gunners want registration and licensing only to acquire records necessary to make confiscation of privately owned firearms achievable in the future. Handgun Control, Inc. (since renamed Brady Campaign) once said that registration was the second step in the group's three-step plan for the confiscation of all handguns.6

Also, the purchase and ownership of arms is a right protected by the constitution,7 whereas driving a car on public roads is a privilege. A license and registration are not required to merely own a vehicle or operate it on private property, only to do so on public roads. Similarly, a license and permit are not typically required to buy or own a gun, or to keep a gun at home, but are usually required when hunting or carrying a gun for protection in public places.

Gun control supporters' "children" deception: Gun control supporters claim that firearm accidents take the lives of a dozen or more children daily, or 5,000 yearly, or one every 90 seconds. The Handgun Epidemic Lowering Plan (HELP) Network (dedicated to "changing society's attitude toward guns so that it becomes socially unacceptable for private citizens to have handguns") put the figure at nine per day. Some gun control supporters count anyone under age 24 as a "child," to get even higher numbers,8 by adding the relatively small number among children to the much larger number among juveniles and teenage adults, and calling the total "children." In fact, on average there is one such death among children per day, including one accidental death every seven days.

The CAP law myth: "Gun control" supporters point to a study (produced by the Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center, a group active in the HELP Network) claiming that so-called "Child Access Prevention" (CAP) laws (which make it a crime, under some circumstances, to leave a gun accessible to a child who obtains and misuses it), imposed in 12 states between 1989-1993, decreased firearm accident deaths among children.9 Its flaws: Firearm accident deaths among children began declining in the mid-1970s, not in 1989, when "CAP" laws were first imposed. Also, such accidents have decreased nationwide, not only in "CAP" states. And it fails to note that also in 1989, NRA's Eddie Eagle GunSafe Program was introduced nationwide.
Source

So, sorry but your argument is utter shite...again.

[FBM]

...
Nor are gun laws "lax." ... they are enforced vigorously...the abject failure of the federal government to vigorously enforce its own laws.
...

Are you contrasting state and local laws with federal ones here? If not, I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around these parts of your post when juxtaposed.

[FBM]

I meant that "many" internationally.

Well, most of the international critics of your gun laws and gun culture are also realists. We may view the continued clinging to the second amendment as a historical anachronism, cultivated as patriotic spin by selfish gun nutters. However, we well understand that any program of gun reform with more than a snowflake's chance in hell won't go much further than Obama's current proposals.

I may be giving too much weight to the vocal minority abroad.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

You guys should sit in the waiting rooms at the VA and listen to those guys argue about guns.

[mozg]

...
Nor are gun laws "lax." ... they are enforced vigorously...the abject failure of the federal government to vigorously enforce its own laws.
...

Are you contrasting state and local laws with federal ones here? If not, I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around these parts of your post when juxtaposed.

Well, the federal government has made it a felony to lie on the BATFE 4473 (background check form) and for a prohibited person to attempt the purchase of a firearm, and they will tell you how many millions of purchases were 'stopped' by the NICS checks.

What they can't point to are prosecutions based upon those attempted purchases, because they don't actually prosecute these crimes. They're both felonies carrying 10+ year federal prison sentences, if the federal government would stop using all their time to illegally sell firearms to Mexican cartels and prosecute the crimes here in the US.

[Seth]

...
Nor are gun laws "lax." ... they are enforced vigorously...the abject failure of the federal government to vigorously enforce its own laws.
...

Are you contrasting state and local laws with federal ones here? If not, I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around these parts of your post when juxtaposed.

Correct. State and local laws are vigorously enforced, just ask any resident of Chicago who is caught with a gun. Federal prosecution, on the other hand, is extremely infrequent given the 70,000 or more people each year who commit federal felonies by lying on the Form 4473.

[FBM]

Interesting. Maybe the Feds could afford to correct that if they'd give up that white elephant "War on Drugs."

[JimC]

Interesting. Maybe the Feds could afford to correct that if they'd give up that white elephant "War on Drugs."

I know that many people have said that, if various drugs were made legal, a major market for crime would be lost, and criminal cartels, and their street gunmen would have been dealt a major blow. The flow-on implication is that street gun crime would fall away...

However, are cashed up drug cartels, and their heavily armed street enforcers going to quietly fade away, and get jobs at McDonalds? It would be nice of they did, but I rather suspect they will use their clever little minds to find another way to use ruthless gun violence to commit crimes for fun and profit...

[FBM]

Most likely. Then we'll just have to legalize that. That'll show 'em!

[FBM]

Not sure if this will be anything new to anybody here, but here it is, anyway:

[Jason]

"assault weapons" SCARY BLACK GUNS!!!!1111!1!1



Idiots.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Some weapons are dolled up. Unfortunately, the dangerous ones are still out there.

[Jason]

I've seen a pink M4 and a Hello Kitty M16..

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I've seen a pink M4 and a Hello Kitty M16..

We have pictures of LP holding a pink rifle.