October 10, 2009

The importance of gun control

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at 8:53 AM

8 comments:

  1. Kelly P.10/10/2009 10:56 AM

    The title caught my attention because it is SO not you......I wanted to see what you had to say. Loved the video! Miss you and your family......take care.

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  2. Richard D10/10/2009 2:06 PM

    I thought that title might confuse and confound those who know me. A friend sent me that video and I just had to post it on the blog.

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  3. Lydia McGrew10/11/2009 4:10 PM

    I put this up at my blog with a HT to you. Great video. My husband has quoted to me any number of times from a real conversation with a criminal in a book he read that sounds almost exactly like this.

    And I wonder if you saw any of the coverage of the pirate crises this summer, in which the AP sounded rather like this, interviewing the grievance-ridden families of Somali pirate "teenagers" (aka young thugs) who were killed by U.S. snipers when they were just about to murder a ship's captain. Very sympathetic stories.

    It's hard to have satire in a world that is morally insane.

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  4. Richard D10/12/2009 6:30 AM

    Yes, Lydia - I heard some of those interviews and especially remember one mother who was crying over how her son had been murdered by these nasty snipers while he was putting in an honest day's work. She even seemed to be implying that the U.S. snipers would hurt the work ethic of the Somalian youth. Incredible.

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  5. Anonymous10/20/2009 2:20 PM

    Hi Richard,

    I have to give it to the NRA. They have a tremendous marketing campaign! They have convinced people that they need to live in fear. (Even in their own homes.) They have even convinced people that owning one of their products will make you a patriot-a "REAL AMERICAN"

    In 2007 my step dad was going through a difficult time. His health was failing and he was tired of feeling like a burdon. So he went into his bedroom, grabbed his gun, like the true American he was, and he put a bullet right into his skull.

    Here a few facts on guns in the U.S.

    The number of children under the age of 17 shot by guns in America every year is greater than the gun-related deaths of children in all the industrialized nations of the world COMBINED.

    Here is the population of Japan: 127,463,611.

    Here is the number of children killed by guns in Japan every year: 0.

    A 2001 Centers for Disease Control (CDC) study found that in homicides among intimate partners, women are murdered more with guns than with all other means COMBINED.

    In 2004, guns were most commonly used by males to murder their female partners.

    A 2003 study found women living with a gun in the home were almost three times more likely to be murdered than women with no gun in the home.

    "If we ban handguns only criminals will have guns." Well then let's not have any laws in America at all. No drug laws, no traffic laws, no laws at all, right?

    "Cars kill people!!" Yes, cars kill people when something goes wrong. Guns are MADE to kill people. Handguns have one purpose, to kill people.

    With all that said, I'm not in favor of completely banning hand guns. I just can't go along with the NRA's goal of making hand gun ownership EASY. Personally I would feel more patriotic if I lived in a safe country without guns than in a country where everone could own a gun and people were being killed.

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  6. Richard D10/21/2009 3:17 PM

    Tim -

    I think the NRA actually holds and promotes a position that is the opposite of fear. An example of fear being used to promote an ideology would be the way the White House is currently promoting the universal health care concept--"adopt universal health care or else...." The NRA's position seems to be more one of empowering folks to not live in fear. Although I may be wrong about this since I actually don't have a lot of knowledge of the NRA, preferring to expend energy on political issues that seem to me to be more important.

    I'd find another use for whatever publication you took those statistics from as not a single one is correct. Cite your source and we can discuss that. However, the number 1 killer of women (and men) in our nation is abortion and yet the partisan gun control folks tend to be very supportive of decriminalized and freely accessed abortion.

    The simple fact is that all of the statistics you copied out of your gun-control lobbying pamphlet refer to things that are criminal acts. They are already outlawed. Outlawing guns because of those statistics is a bit redundant and useless.

    A crime of passion, such as murder, is typically committed with the most useful tool available. If a gun is nearby, that's the tool chosen. But that illegal act could just as easily be committed with a pencil or a paper clip if a gun was not available. Which is to say, using your methodology of parroting the pro-gun talking points, "guns don't kill people, gaping wounds in vital organs kill people." Okay, I paraphrased a bit.

    If we eject the political over-the-top rhetoric and just settle down on the issue of whether or not law abiding citizens should have the right to keep and bear arms I fall down on the side of our Constitution in saying that this current freedom should not be infringed. I also stand with the NRA in supporting very tough laws against the use of a gun in the commission of a crime.

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  7. Anonymous10/21/2009 5:31 PM

    Richard,

    First of all, I don't have a gun in my home and I'm not afraid. Honestly I would be more fearful if there was a gun in the house.

    I don't want to get off topic, but I really haven't seen that much fear mongering when it comes to health care. At least not from the White House. If anything this administration has been too willing to bend over backwards to water down ever piece of legislation on health care reform. The fear I see being generated is from those who are spreading lies about death panels and concenntration camps.

    The following data is from the National Safety Council, as sighted on the University of Michigan Health Systems website...http://www.med.umich.edu/yourchild/topics/guns.htm

    The 2002 edition of Injury Facts from the National Safety Council reports the following statistics [1] :

    In 1999, 3,385 kids ages 0-19 years were killed with a gun. This includes homicides, suicides, and unintentional injuries.
    This is equivalent to about 9 deaths per day,
    The 3,385 firearms-related deaths for age group 0-19 years breaks down to:
    214 unintentional
    1,078 suicides
    1,990 homicides
    83 for which the intent could not be determined
    20 due to legal intervention
    Of the total firearms-related deaths:
    73 were of children under five years old
    416 were children 5-14 years old
    2,896 were 15-19 years old

    According to the CDC, the rate of firearm deaths among children under age 15 is almost 12 times higher in the United States than in 25 other industrialized countries combined. American children are 16 times more likely to be murdered with a gun, 11 times more likely to commit suicide with a gun, and nine times more likely to die in a firearm accident than children in these other countries

    Let me know if you have stats from a publication that you feel is more fair. I'll also try to find stats on Children accidentally killed by pencils and paper clips. Maybe that will open my eyes to what the real killers are in our country.

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  8. Richard D10/21/2009 5:43 PM

    I have no problem with the stats you've given here. Although they differ significantly from the stats in your earlier post. And, again, they point primarily to deaths caused by illegal acts committed with a firearm.

    I imagine that there are far fewer deaths by automobile on Mackinac Island, due to the fact that no automobiles are allowed on that island. So using Mackinac as the foundation for a campaign against cars could go along way for folks who don't know any better. But in the real world, those statistics are essentially useless. Countries that ban private ownership of guns will have significantly fewer deaths caused by guns--especially if you're looking at static numbers rather than per capita statistics—always a sure sign of propaganda.

    I just fall down on the side of freedom, which puts me in the same camp as our founding fathers on the side of private gun ownership (and on the side of private health care).

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