Timothy Birdnow

On Facebook an argument erupted over gun control and mass shootings.

Steven Chase observes:

In what could be THE grand prize, the Palme D'or for Hypocrisy, Hollywood goes anti-gun once again, as it cranks out more violence, deaths, and explosions per minute than ever seen in Human History. Specifically targeted to our youth.

Liberal Paul Easton says:

These films are seen globally, and yet America is the only country with this problem. Any excuse, any at all, to not deal with the problem at hand and work to find a reasonable compromise. It's the unlocked door, it's the video game, it's a thousand other things but let's not compromise. When they try and identify your grandkid whose head has been blown apart by a random bullet from an AR15 will you want to call out "hypocrisy" then? The majority of Americans, including responsible gun owners, agree on stricter gun laws yet one group of people is failing the voter becauase they are scared of the gun lobby and the extreme views of their base. And you try and point the finger elsewhere, ignoring the facts? Let's keep burying kids, right? Anything but our AR15s. It is somebody else's kid, somebody else's problem, until it's yours. Then what?

Ian Beveridge replies:

The following is a study published in 2003

"The most stunning statistic, however, is that the total number of deaths caused by conventional medicine is an astounding 783,936 per year. It is now evident that the American medical system is the leading cause of death and injury in the US. (By contrast, the number of deaths attributable to heart disease in 2001 was 699,697, while the number of deaths attributable to cancer was 553,251.5)"

http://www.webdc.com/pdfs/deathbymedicine.pdf

In contrast:
According to the FBI’s crime statistics for 2018, there were 14,123 murders committed with a weapon of some kind. Of the total, rifles claimed 297 victims, compared to 1,515 for knives and other cutting instruments, and 672 for "personal weapons” defined as hands, fists, feet and even pushing. Even blunt objects such as hammers and clubs caused more deaths than rifles.
(235 of the 297 rifle deaths were with shotguns)

Work it out!

Tim adds:

Sorry Paul but you are incorrect; the U.S. ranks a tepid 64th in terms of mass shootings, well behind such liberal utopia as Sweden and Switzerland.

https://crimeresearch.org/2018/11/new-cprc-research-mass-public-shootings-are-much-higher-in-the-rest-of-the-world-and-increasing-much-more-quickly/

This study shows the U.S. is solidly in the middle of the pack, not leading it. Yes, it IS a worldwide problem and not just an American one.

I would further add if you add in criminal gun violence you still wind up with the U.S. not in the lead - the leading country is Brazil, which has almost complete gun control.

Gun violence is ubiquitous and it is a symptom of the violence created by our secularist, radicalized left-wing culture. So many children are suffering in no small part because of policies and ideas stemming from such wonderful concepts as the sexual revolution, the welfare state, etc.

Let us look at the stats. https://www.insidermonkey.com/blog/10-countries-with-the-most-mass-shootings-in-the-world-666161/ The U.S. has a 1.15% mass shooting rate based on it's population relative to the crime. Switzerland comes in at 1.68%, for instance.

The Crime Prevention Research Center stated:

"Over the 18 years from 1998 to 2015, our list contains 2,354 attacks and at least 4,880 shooters outside the United States and 53 attacks and 57 shooters within our country. … Attacks in the US are not only less frequent than other countries, they are also much less deadly on average.”

So your basic premise is wrong.

"Out of the 97 countries where we have identified mass public shootings occurring, the United States ranks 64th in the per capita frequency of these attacks and 65th in the murder rate.”

Again Brazil, with almost complete gun control, ranks far higher than the U.S. for gun violence.

And it is quite doubtful the Middle East collects proper data on such shootings, or that, say, China reports on it. The U.S. keeps careful track via the FBI.

Remember, the U.S. is the third most populace country on Earth, and it is extraordinarily diverse and is an open society. It's bound to have higher rates than a country like Japan.

See also https://nypost.com/2018/08/30/america-doesnt-actually-lead-the-world-in-mass-shootings/ and https://fee.org/articles/the-myth-that-the-us-leads-the-world-in-mass-shootings/



I would add that most of these mass shootings would not have been impacted much with the "common sense" gun control your side advocates. The Uvaldi shooter, for instance, had no criminal record https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/texas-school-shooter-had-no-criminal-record-classmate-calls-him-loner/ar-AAXM4HZor even any warning signs - because school officials feared tainting him and so did not report the disturbing things they were encountering. In fact he HAD been arrested but it was kept off his permanent record because he was a juvenile. https://www.newsweek.com/salvador-ramos-arrested-4-years-ago-planning-attack-when-he-turned-18-1710867

And what of the guns themselves? You do realize he was already in violation of gun laws; as he brought the gun into a gun free zone illegally, for example. Do you really think restrictions on the purchase of AR15 firearms would make any difference to someone hell-bent on mass murder? You do realize it's easy to make thermite or some other incendiary which would work wonderfully in killing people. And you do realize there is a black market for weapons?

He also undoubtedly bought it with his grandmothers stolen credit card.

The fact is an armed teacher or security guard could probably have ended this quickly. So too could the police, who lollygagged for 75 minutes, probably because they wanted the Feds to handle it lest they shoot a kid by accident and get the full wrath of the Defund the Police types.

What happened at Uvaldi and elsewhere is a failure of liberal social and criminal policy, not a gun problem. You seek to fix a neck wound with a tourniquette.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 09:00 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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