Over the past few years, the media and political coverage of guns and gun violence has skyrocketed. Many of these news stations and politicians have raised the claim of a 'Gun Epidemic' in America. Before we begin, let's review some facts for this article;
- There is no such thing as an assault weapon. There is semi-automatic, automatic, bolt action, single-shot, muzzle-loaded, breech-load, pump-action, bullpup, revolver, and lever action firearms. (Please refer to them as such) Any of these can be used for self defense and in the military, as well as for illegal purposes. Fun fact, in the name AR-15, the 'AR' stands for Armalite, the name of the company that designed the rifle.
- There is an estimated amount of 270,000,000-310,000,000 guns legally and illicitly owned in America. The population of the U.S. is 313.9 million. There is a reported amount of 110,000,000 rifles, 86,000,000 shotguns, and 114,000,000 handguns. About 33% of households in America own more than one gun. About 20% own a rifle, 21% own a shotgun, 21% own a handgun. U.S. defense forces have around 2,700,00 firearms and the police forces in America have around 1,150,000.
- There was about 15,000 homicide by any means in the U.S. in 2012. That was a 25% drop (5,000 cases) from 1995, and is steadily declining. There was 9,000 gun homicides in America that same year, about 2.83 homicides per 100,000. This trend is also declining.
- The minimum age to buy rifles and shotguns is 18 years of age, minimum age to buy handguns is 21. The average minimum age to obtain a concealed carry permit is 21 year of age. You do not need a permit for NFA weapons, just a CLEO sign-off, ATF authoriation, and a $200 transfer tax to the BATFE.
- Due to the Castle Doctrine and Make my Day law, self-defense with a firearm can not be counted as gun violence, as well as haven't completely different motives.
- The definition of epidemic is a wide-spread disease that is infectious at a particular moment in time.
Now, on to the point. In a country of 313,900,000 people, with a firearm for almost every man, woman, and child, there is only 9,000 gun homicides per year, with a steadily declining rate over the past decade? And that is considered to be an epidemic. Gun violence is not wide-spread, as less than 0.0003% of the population dies every year. It is also not a sudden development, as gun violence has been around for decades and is actually falling in recent years.
Here are some visuals to show the nature of guns and homicides in the world and the U.S.
I have included the hyperlink to the website I used to gain this information below. Feel free to check it out yourself, there was a lot of information that I couldn't have included for the sake of time.
What are your thoughts on gun violence in America, and other topics such as gun control, magazine restrictions, etc.? I look forward to your responses.
Alpers, Philip. "Guns in the United States - Firearms, Gun Law and Gun Control."
Guns in the United States - Firearms, Gun Law and Gun Control.
University of Sydney, 2014. Web. 31 Aug. 2014.
http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/united-states
Replies
Excellent job with this post and great job replying and being respectful in the process! You also provided sources when spitting out numbers which is very important.
I think that to be able to get a gun, you should have to have a very thorough background check, a psych evaluation, and everyone living in your home has to have a psych evaluation. The real criminals won't care if we make guns illegal, that's what the black market is for.
Gun violence really isn't as big a problem as people are making it out to be. Notice how if a school shooting takes place some where in America, it's all over the news, meanwhile murders with knives and muggings take place multiple times everyday, and it's not even a side bar conversation, or on the text box at the bottom of the TV when you're watching the news.
And better yet, when an attempted mass shooting is stopped in it's tracks like the ones I posted in response to Alexis below, no-one in politics or media cares to mention it. Thank you for your comment.
Gun violence is nearly unavoidable considering how many weapons there are in the united states. Gun control is fine the way it is, the only possible things that could be done would be psychiatric evaluations.
And in most cases a psyche eval would be a perfectly fine addition, though I would use it as a standard test early in the year that you have to take annually, not necessarily tied to just buying firearms. That way if someone tries to buy a gun, the firearms dealer can check the evaluation that they have already have. While gun violence is unavoidable, it is still rare and hardly a problem. 269,991,000-309,991,000 firearms are not used in crimes every year.
Thank you for your comment.
I think that we should be able to have guns going to the amendment... The right to bear arms..... We should have restrictions against them though. Such as different tiers for people. Such as civilians, they should have the right to shotguns,pistols etc. They should not be able to hold a light machine gun in there house. If you are a military personnel then you should be able to hold bigger guns.
I can understand the reasoning behind what you think. I can agree to the tier idea, but not with the not being allowed to have LMGs and that sort of thing, mostly on the fact that it would fail in practice. The largest reason is because LMG type weapons are not that common and are not that practical. The second is that it would be in vain, for example a handgun could in many cases be more effective in the fact that it is a larger calibre weapon (It hits with more force) has more variation in ammo and more lethal types as well, and can send as much if not more lead down range in the same amount of time. So in review, the taking away the privilege and right of owning a gun based on what you do is a good idea, the specific banning of any one type of firearm due to a perceived threatening appearance is bad.
Thank you for your comment.
I'll post one simple question as a response - are those 9,000 deaths not worth saving by removing guns from civilian hands?
I'll post one simple question as a response - are you aware that those 310,000,000 firearms in the hands of civilians stop and prevent 800,000-2,500,000 crimes each year?
-
1
-
2
of 2 Next