‘Yes,of course because things like Sandy Hook and Columbine were completely exaggerated.‘
Those were terrible events. No one is denying that whatsoever. However, yes you are using those events completely exaggerate the dangers of guns.
Guns help protect innocent lives FAR MORE OFTEN than they help to harm innocent lives. There are literally hundreds of thousands of defensive gun uses in this country alone every single year.
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/category/defensivegunuseoftheday/
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/cdc-study-use-firearms-self-defense-important-crime-deterrent
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/cdc-study-use-firearms-self-defense-important-crime-deterrent
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/02/defensive-gun-ownership-gary-kleck-response-115082.html#.VcYed_lRK1w
Now, let’s compare this to how often guns are used to harm innocent lives, rather than protect them.
Chances of being shot or killed based on firearm deaths and population count:
Death by gun, suicide excluded:
0.0032%
Death by gun, suicide included:
0.0095%
Death in a mass shooting alone:
0.000032%
Injury by gun, no death:
0.024%
Death of injury by gun including suicide:
0.033%
Gun deaths and injuries etc based off general stats used by anti gun people, rather than exact numbers from each year because its faster and easier to do. Going by exact yearly figures would result in very little change to the average numbers used above.
Guns compared to other ways you can die:
Unintentional fall deaths:
Deaths per 100,000 population: 8.4
Motor vehicle traffic deaths:
Deaths per 100,000 population: 10.9
Unintentional poisoning deaths:
Deaths per 100,000 population: 10.7
Deaths per 100,000 population: 13.9
All Drug poisoning deaths:
Deaths per 100,000 population: 12.4 (2010)
All firearm deaths (suicide included):
Deaths per 100,000 population: 10.3
All firearms deaths (suicide excluded):
Deaths per 100,000 population: 3.6
Firearm deaths broken down completely:
3.6 for homicide
6.3 for suicide
0.30 for unintentional
0.10 undetermined
10.3 for deaths total in general of 3.6 for homicide only. You are more likely to trip and die than be killed by a gun. Cars kill more than guns but are not even protected by the constitution and isnt a right, and are less regulated than guns!
[Sources are FBI and CDC]
Quite simply put, guns save innocent lives. And they do so far more often than they hurt them. When guns are harming more innocent lives than they are protecting, it could be argued that it might make sense to further limit guns.
But for now, it’s not even close.
‘I mean it’s not like gun control would radically decrease gun violence, that doesn’t add up at all does it?‘
Well, no. It doesn’t actually.
I keep hearing people say that we won’t try gun control simply because gun owners are ignorant and love their guns more than human life.
The fact is, WE HAVE TRIED STRICT NATIONAL GUN CONTROL.
Does the year 1994 or the name Clinton ring a bell to anyone? Anyone?
From 1994 - 2004, there were strict national gun control laws in place in America. They included most of the laws that are being proposed now. An “assault weapons” ban. Magazine capacity limits. All of that. Multiple reports, studies, and agencies came out with their findings on the effect the ban had on reducing murder rates, gun violence, and violent crimes.
IT WAS A COMPLETE FAILURE. It did not reduce these factors at all whatsoever.
I should also take a moment to note that you used an Onion article as a source. Do you not know that The Onion is a satire news site? Meaning it is a joke. It’s not real. But I digress.
‘But let’s take a look at my country’s gun laws and gun crime statistics.‘
Yes, let’s take a moment to do that.
Oh, look at that! Not only did your country’s gun laws do absolutely nothing to reduce murder rates and make your society safer, but things have actually continued to get consistently worse since they went into effect.
‘Now let’s look at the US, where there is easy access to firearms.’
Well, look at that. Our gun homicide rate, and overall murder rate I might add, is at a 20 year low, despite gun ownership being at an all time high.
Can you say this about your country? Oh, right. We already covered that and, no, you cannot.
So much for that theory of yours.
‘Since I’ve had to spell it out for you like a kid the fact of the matter is : easy access to guns equal more murder.‘
First off all, we’ve already proven that to be bullshit, but also that would imply that making access to guns more strict would lower murder rates as well, no?
Gun Control in Other Countries:
People have a habit of making the false assumption that stricter gun control results in lower violent crime and/or lower gun violence. This assumption is simply not true.
Gun Related Deaths per 100,000
Countries With Strict Gun Control:
^^^ [Visualization of the scale of firearms related death rates per 100K inhabitants by country. Note: suicides and accidental deaths are included.] ^^^
Yep. Nothing but rainbows and butterfly kisses in all of those countries. Nothing bad every happens in those countries since they have strict gun control.
But, Johnny! Those countries aren’t developed like America! You need to compare us to other developed countries like Australia and The UK! Gun control is clearly working for them!
Okay, let’s talk about those countries then.
[this segment brought to you by lee-enfeel]
People die Australia as a result of firearms violence at almost the same rate they did prior to the firearms act, and some sources state that more than a quarter million illicit firearms exist in Australia currently.
The total firearms death rate in 1995 - the year before the massacre and the laws introduced - was 2.6 per 100,000 people. The total firearms murder rate that year was 0.3/100,000. From 1980-1995, Australian firearms deaths dropped from 4.9/100,000-2.6/100,000 without the implementation of firearms laws. This is a rate of decline that has remained fairly constant; Looking at 1996-2014, in which the rate has dropped from 2.6-0.86, it shows that the decline has been slower in a longer period of time since the law’s passing. Likewise, homicides declined more quickly in the 15 years prior to the firearms laws (0.8-0.3) than in the 18 years since it (0.3-0.1). This just indicates that firearms deaths haven’t been noticeably affected by the legislation you’ve claimed has done so much to decrease gun crime.
It should also be noted that around the same time, New Zealand experienced a similar mass shooting, but did not change their existing firearms laws, which remain fairly lax; even moreso than some American states like California, New York, or Connecticut. Despite this, their firearms crime rate has declined fairly steadily as well, and they haven’t experienced a mass shooting since.
The “australia banned guns and now they’re fine” argument is really old and really poorly put together. Gun control is little more than a pink band-aid on the sucking chest wound that is America’s social and economic problems. It’s a ‘quick fix’ issue used by politicians to skirt around solving the roots of the violence problem in the United States, which are primarily poverty, lack of opportunities, and lack of education.
You could ban guns tomorrow nationwide and gun violence and overall violent crime would not be reduced at all.
[this segment brought to you by cerebralzero]
In 2005 the head of the New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, Don Weatherburn,[37] noted that the level of legal gun ownership in NSW increased in recent years, and that the 1996 legislation had had little to no effect on violence
In 2006, the lack of a measurable effect from the 1996 firearms legislation was reported in the British Journal of Criminology. Using ARIMA analysis, Dr Jeanine Baker and Dr Samara McPhedran found no evidence for an impact of the laws on homicide.[40]
A study coauthored by Simon Chapman found declines in firearm‐related deaths before the law reforms accelerated after the reforms for total firearm deaths (p=0.04), firearm suicides (p=0.007) and firearm homicides (p=0.15), but not for the smallest category of unintentional firearm deaths, which increased.[43]
Subsequently, a study by McPhedran and Baker compared the incidence of mass shootings in Australia and New Zealand. Data were standardised to a rate per 100,000 people, to control for differences in population size between the countries and mass shootings before and after 1996/1997 were compared between countries. That study found that in the period 1980–1996, both countries experienced mass shootings. The rate did not differ significantly between countries. Since 1996-1997, neither country has experienced a mass shooting event despite the continued availability of semi-automatic longarms in New Zealand. The authors conclude that “the hypothesis that Australia’s prohibition of certain types of firearms explains the absence of mass shootings in that country since 1996 does not appear to be supported… if civilian access to certain types of firearms explained the occurrence of mass shootings in Australia (and conversely, if prohibiting such firearms explains the absence of mass shootings), then New Zealand (a country that still allows the ownership of such firearms) would have continued to experience mass shooting events.”[44]
At this point I should also probably point out that Australia’s gun laws have not even reduced gun ownership in Australia. In fact, gun ownership in Australia is actually higher now than in 1996.
All of these inconvenient facts aside, we haven’t even touched on the cost of implementing Australian style gun control in America.
I keep hearing people say that the US should adopt Australia’s gun control policy and I don’t think they have really thought about the big picture of that plan.
Australia had far less guns per person and people in their country did not live in a society that was brought up respecting The 2nd Amendment. The culture of Australia is very different than that of the culture of America when it comes to gun ownership and self defense.
Because of this, the Australian government was able to buy back 631,000 guns at the estimated price of about $500,000,000. You read that correctly, 500 MILLION.
And even after all of that, it still did nothing to prevent violent crime and criminals in Australia still have access to illegal guns, despite being an island country that isn’t bordered by other countries with high violent crime rates and rampant with illegal drug cartels.
There are over 360,000,000 legally owned firearms in America. If we go by Australia’s numbers ($792.39 per gun), these guns would cost our government $285,261,489,698.89 to buy back. Almost 300 BILLION dollars, assuming that every gun owner voluntarily turns in their guns… Which is a very slim to nothing chance.
Who’s going to pay for that? Anti-gunners? I think not.
So, in closing, you want America to put in place gun legislation that will cost the country hundreds of billions of dollars AND has already been proven time and time again to be completely ineffective at protecting innocent lives or creating a safer society?
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