Quote:
Originally Posted by
jazzguru 
But, you see, the average citizen, with access to "so many guns", does not shoot up movie theaters. 100,000,000 gun owners have not murdered or harmed a single person with their guns. So why do you want to deprive them of their right to own a gun because a handfull of lunatics use them to commit heinous crimes?
It sounds as if you are afraid that anyone who owns a gun will eventually go on a shooting spree. That is simply not the case.
In fact, people can and do use guns to prevent crimes.
I know guns can save lives and prevent injury, I've never said otherwise. It's hard to argue though that the overall result of gun ownership saves lives when all OECD countries have a vastly lower murder rate than the US and have vastly lower gun ownership. It's a major problem even though most people only use them legally.
A few things to consider-
"With less than 5% of the world's population, the United States is home to roughly 35–50 per cent of the world's civilian-owned guns."
- "A quarter of robberies of commercial premises in the United States are committed with guns.[51] Fatalities are three times as likely in robberies committed with guns than where other, or no, weapons are used,[51][52][53] with similar patterns in cases of family violence.
- Criminologist Philip J. Cook hypothesized that if guns were less available, criminals might commit the same crime, but with less-lethal weapons.[55] He finds that the level of gun ownership in the 50 largest U.S. cities correlates with the rate of robberies committed with guns, but not with overall robbery rates.
- A significant number of homicides are the consequence of an unintended escalation of another crime in which firearms are present, with no initial intent to kill.
- Overall robbery and assault rates in the United States are comparable to those in other developed countries, such as Australia and Finland, with much lower levels of gun ownership." ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States#Homicide
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INTERNATIONAL COMPARISONS
Compared to other industrialized countries, violence and firearm death rates in the United States are disproportionately high. Of the approximately 50 upper- and middle-income countries with available data, an estimated 115,000 firearm deaths occur annually and the U.S. contributes about 30,000. Among industrialized nations, the U.S. firearm-related death rate is more than twice that of the next highest country. The firearm death rate for this period in the U.S. (14.24 per 100,000) is eight times the average rate of its economic counterparts. ~ http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/ficap/resourcebook/Final%20Resource%20Book%20Updated%202009%20Section%201.pdf
6.
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The correlation between firearm availability and rates of homicide is consistent across high- income industrialized nations: where there are more firearms, there are higher rates of homicide overall. The U.S. has among the highest rates of both firearm homicide and private firearm ownership.
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In 1995, the overall firearm-related death rate among American children younger than 15 years was nearly 12 times higher than for children in 25 other industrialized countries combined. ~ http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/ficap/resourcebook/Final%20Resource%20Book%20Updated%202009%20Section%201.pdf
"In the wake of the recent senseless death of an 8 year old with an Uzi automatic weapon at a gun club in Massachusetts, it's critical that we as a nation recognize that this child's gun death was just one of the 5 kids under 10 years old and 83 Americans total that died that day and every day from gun violence.
Roughly in 2007.
5 Average number of child deaths in gun-related accidents or suicide EVERY DAY
9 Number of kids under 19 years old killed by guns EVERYDAY
32 Number of states in the US that allow ANYONE to purchase firearms without an ID or criminal background check
40 Percent of gun sales in the US occur without an ID or background check requirement
40 Percent of American households that contain both children and guns
83 Average number of Americans killed by guns EVERYDAY
1,260 Average number of annual firearm homicides in the European Union (pop 376 million)
10,821 Average number of annual firearm homicides in the US (pop 282 million)
34,000 Average number of Americans killed by guns EVERY YEAR
$33,000 Average medical cost (80% uninsured) of a gun related death
$300,000 Average cost (80% uninsured) of a gun related injury
70,000 Average number of gun-related injuries EVERY YEAR
655,000 Number US service men and women killed in all Foreign Wars combined
1,035,000 Number of gun deaths in the US over the past 30 years
$4 million NRA contributions to George W. Bush's 2004 campaign"
$40 million NRA promised contributions to John McCain's 2008 Presidential campaign
$34 billion Annual US medical and productivity costs of gun injuries and deaths
~ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-rosenthal/us-gun-violence-by-the-nu_b_139879.html
Edited by Hands Sandon - 7/27/12 at 5:11pm
