Dumbest Thing I've read today, via the internet......
garyt1957 I know we've done some sinister things throughout the world, through the years.
Probably so, but if it weren't for us, the whole of Europe would likely be speaking German right now and the majority of the Pacific region would be speaking Japanese.garyt1957 I'd like to see the U.S. become more isolationist and quit trying to change everyone to our way of thinking. Keep our money at home and use it for Americans.
Af'nmen. We need to worry about our house before helping out those who choose not to help themselves.
The world in general is a much more accepting and tolerant place than it was 30-40-50 years ago. I'd say this is a good thing, mostly....human rights issues at the forefront of that. At the same time the world is also more F'd up with all these horrible acts of violence and terrorism be they domestic or foreign in nature. Media and social media make everything known and available instantly and everyone can have their say which certainly fans the fire . We live in different times, some better, some worse .
candukid your country is falling behind because of backward thinking people like you.
The U.S. fell behind because of liberal idiots like Barry Soetoro and his sheep. We're in the process of turning around now and are starting to make headway.
candukid You cannot go back to the 50's and apple pie and sock hops.
Would definitely be difficult to "go back" since I was never there. I'm a little too young to remember the 50's.
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"Having a highly developed society and culture. 2. Showing evidence of moral and intellectual advancement; humane, ethical, and reasonable: terrorist acts that shocked the civilized world. 3. Marked by refinement in taste and manners; cultured."
Here's the thing. Some nut tries to blow up a plane with his shoe or underwear and we do all kinds of things to try to prevent it from happening again. From 2005 -2015 we've had over 300,000 gun deaths. The equivalent of over ten 9-11's. Yet we do nothing. Zippo.
Even that late great liberal (
) Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said in the Heller (5-4) decision that individual states and the country as a whole can put limits on the Second Amendment.
In other words the Second Amendment is not limitless. For example you cannot own a bazooka or a tank. So, if the country wanted to we could ban these type weapons that can slaughter large crowds of people in a few minutes. We choose not to.
Most gun owners are for common sense gun safety laws like enhanced background checks etc.. Yet we can't even get something like that passed.
A small minority are keeping the majority from moving to where the rest of the 'civilized' world is regarding guns. So, the slaughtering will continue unabated.
Sneakylong
You seem to be leaving out some details about those deaths.
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300,000 is a huge, scary number. Take away the 60% that are suicides and it's still a big number but not nearly as scary. That leaves 120,000 "preventable" gun deaths (I could go further and take out bad guys killing bad guys i.e. Gangbangers, drug dealers, etc. but I don't have time). Break that down by % of population and it doesn't look nearly as scary as it did. .04% and like I said, you take out gang violence and drug violence and that number goes down even more.
I'm not saying there's not a problem. But if you're going to throw around big numbers at least put them in the proper context.
PA-PLAYA sign of the times
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Bill all good points, trying to prevent a suicide by gun is vastly different then a terrorist/lone wolf gunmen from opening fire in a crowd.....I have a huge problem with some of the weapons that are available to any Joe blow, including a prop/gizmo that turns a firearm into a continuous fire weapon....apologies to the gun owners for my ignorance on the terminology!
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Sneakylong
So do you exclude countries who routinely opress, enslave, discriminate against and murder certain races, genders, religions and sexual preferences/orientations that differ from their mainstream?
Sneakylong.... There are 30,000 gun related deaths per year by firearms, hence the 300,000 deaths over a 10 year span you reference, and this number is not disputed. The U.S. population as of Wednesday, June 22, 2016, when this was originally researched and written, was 324,059,091. Do the math: 0.000000925% of the population dies from gun related actions each year, granted, a tragedy; but, Statistically speaking, this is insignificant! What is never told, however, is a breakdown of those 30,000 deaths, to put them in perspective as compared to other causes of death:
• 65% of those deaths are by suicide which would never be prevented by gun laws
• 15% are by law enforcement in the line of duty and justified
• 17% are through criminal activity, gang and drug related or mentally ill persons – gun violence
• 3% are accidental discharge deaths - stupidity
So technically, "gun violence" is not 30,000 annually, but drops to 5,100. Still too many but, how are those deaths spanned across the nation?
• 480 homicides (9.4%) were in Chicago
• 344 homicides (6.7%) were in Baltimore
• 333 homicides (6.5%) were in Detroit
• 119 homicides (2.3%) were in Washington D.C. (a 54% increase over prior years)
So basically, 25% of all gun crime happens in just 4 cities. All 4 of those cities have strict gun laws, so it is not the lack of law that is the root cause.
This basically leaves 3,825 for the entire rest of the nation, or about 75 deaths per state. That is an average because some States have much higher rates than others. For example, California had 1,169 and Alabama had 1.
Now, who has the strictest gun laws. California or Alabama? California, of course, so it is not guns causing this. It is a crime rate spawned by the number of criminal persons residing in those cities and states. So if all cities and states are not created equally, then there must be something other than the tool causing the gun deaths.
Are 5,100 deaths per year horrific? Absolutley; but, How about in comparison to other deaths? All death is sad and especially so when it is in the commission of a crime but that is the nature of crime. Robbery, death, rape, assault all is done by criminals and thinking that criminals will obey laws is ludicrous. That's why they are criminals.
But what about other deaths each year?
• 40,000+ die from a drug overdose–THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR THAT!
• 36,000 people die per year from the flu, far exceeding the criminal gun deaths
• 34,000 people die per year in traffic fatalities(exceeding gun deaths even if you include suicide)
Now it gets good:
• 200,000+ people die each year (and growing) from preventable medical errors. You are safer in Chicago than when you are in a hospital!
• 710,000 people die per year from heart disease. It’s time to stop the double cheeseburgers! So what is the point? If we focused our attention on heart disease, even a 10% decrease in cardiac deaths would save twice the number of lives annually of all gun-related deaths (including suicide, law enforcement, etc.). A 10% reduction in medical errors would be 66% of the total gun deaths or 4 times the number of criminal homicides......Simple, easily preventable 10% reductions!
So you have to ask yourself, in the grand scheme of things, why the focus on guns? It's pretty simple - it's an emotional issue that can be ramped-up any time there is a tragedy. No one gets to "amped-up" about the Big-Mac problem.
The founders of this nation knew that regardless of the form of government, those in power may become corrupt and seek to rule as the British did by trying to disarm the populace of the colonies. It is not difficult to understand that a disarmed populace is a controlled populace.
Thus, the second amendment was proudly and boldly included in the U.S. Constitution. It must be preserved at all costs.
So the next time someone tries to tell you that gun control is about saving lives, look at these facts and remember these words from Noah Webster: "Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword, because the whole body of the people are armed and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States. A military force at the command of Congress can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power."
Remember, when it comes to "gun control," the important word is “control," not “gun."
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Wow, that's some interesting math! Hate to tell you, but 30,000 out of 324,059,091 is actually 0.00926%. Rounded reasonably, it's 0.01%. You were only off by 4 orders of magnitude (for the mathematically challenged, 4 orders of magnitude is 10,000 times. In other words, the percentage is 10,000 times higher than you said it was).
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Oh, and I think the reason people get pretty riled up is that 58 people all died in a span of hours, with the damage done in a span of minutes, rather than having the deaths spread out pretty evenly (as is the case with, for example, cardiothoracic disease).
If 58 people died at a single McDonalds from burgers all purchased within a 10-minute window, you can bet it would get a lot of attention. So I don't think it's is ALL due to the fact that the issue is politicized. The event is much more dramatic, too.
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Thanks for taking the time for your rational and detailed post. In fairness statistics can be used to support both side of the argument. I've read articles that show that the states with tighter gun control laws have fewer gun related deaths and that the states with higher gun ownership have higher gun related deaths. The US has way more guns per person compared to other countries and also has way more gun deaths ( adjusted for population size) whether they be suicides, gang related or the average of more than 1 mass shootings a day in the US ( defined as 4 or more persons shot) more guns unfortunately does translate to more gun related deaths because they are more readily accessible. Stats also show that countries with Less guns have less deaths.
So relating to this comment
"Remember, when it comes to "gun control," the important word is “control," not “gun."
IMO, it's both We have a lot of guns up here , hunters, gun clubs, collectors and we have relativel strict guidelines and laws but nobody feels that there is a control issue at hand ,we can use our guns to hunt , range shoot etc. One big social and cultural difference is that we don't feel a need to have to Carry a gun around and it's not permitted. It's not to say we are better but the end result is a low death rate by guns.
Gun deaths won't stop , but I think Sneaky hit the nail on the head, it's the super powered weapons capable of rapid multiple casualties in a short period of time which ar most often used in the mass killings such as LV. Are these really needed to be something essentially anyone can own.
As for all the other sources of preventable deaths you cited, these are issues we all deal with as well but are for another discussion. The statistics Are not different in other countries , like gun deaths are.
Controversial and emotional topic that will forever be debated especially when events like Sandy Hook occur......there deep rooted social and economic underpinnings which makes it a complex issue for sure
raggmann54 Well shit, with those minor 'gun violence' stats I might just as well go off a couple people I don't particularly don't care for. No one would even notice.
I do have to be careful that everyone on my block does not do the same thing though. At that point, my crime would become major.
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LBlack14 I don't believe it is the same, death by suicide is 1 death by their own hands. I have no idea what the firearm of choice is, but seems unlikely it's a rapid fire, continuous fire weapon, whereas these mass killings do have those kinds of weapons and then they are either taken out by the first responders or they turn the weapon on themselves, but the decision to take their own life is after they have taken many lives.
Bumpstock? Assuming that's the term for the gizmo that turns a firearm into a auto fire?
I would.love to know info from the countries that have a significantly lower death by gun rate then we do, why others in despair, with mental health, or situational stressors....why are these people less prone to go on a rampage and kill....or are there just as many homicidal folks percentage wise, that just don't have access to guns that are rapid fire and therefore it rarely happens or does their homicidal rage get carried out in some other fashion? There has to be some research/theories, coming from other countries. I dunno if this even a relevant question, but I'm interested in the info if it's out there.
Edit...not sure why the bumpstock paragraph got bolded, but it did.
Nevermind, bumpstock-
Jesus....that is pretty slick, but also damn scary the difference!