P mitch
I have to ask this as I'm the only non-American in this discussion and I know before I ask this it not a fair question but - How many children have to be murdered before as a country you say "Enough", or is it OK as long as they aren't your children?
Honestly, this is an overly emotional and ridiculous question. And unchecked emotions really are the problem with this whole debate.
Let's try to look at this objectively, ok? According the the US Department of Justice, approximately 10,000 to 12,000 Americans are murdered by firearms every year. The population of the US is approximately 340,000,000. That means that .00003% of the population are murdered by firearms every year. And they estimate that two thirds of those murders are criminals killing other criminals, i.e. drug deals gone bad or gang shoot outs. So now about .00001% of the innocent civilian population are murdered every year. Yeah, that number is gonna have to be quite a bit higher before I say "enough."
Now, according to the National Safety Council, about 16,000 people die every year in the US from falling down! Yes, that's right! Now, we can all agree that it would be ludicrous for you to say something like "How many people have to fall before as a country you say enough?" Yet more people die as a result of falling that being murdered by firearms. Where's your outcry over all of the senseless deaths from falling?
There are an estimated 230,000,000 firearms in the US and 200,000,000 automobiles, yet 55,000 people die every year in the US in automobiles. Should we say "enough" to cars?
I could go on and on listing other items that kill more people that firearms but it would take me all day to post it and you all day to read it.
According to a study by Dr. Gary Kleck, a criminologist at the University of Florida in 1997, Guns prevent an estimated 2.5 million crimes a year, or 6,849 every day. Often the gun is never fired and no blood (including the criminal’s) is shed.
In my research I came across this Oct 5th, 2003 article from The Guardian titled "Gun crime spreads 'like a cancer' across Britain": "Even banning guns does not slow down criminals. In the U.K., where private ownership of firearms is practically forbidden, criminals have and use guns regularly, and even build their own. One enterprising fellow converted 170 starter pistols to functioning firearms and sold them to gangs. Hundreds of such underground gun factories have been established, contributing to a 35% jump in gun violence." Thought you might like that one. So much for that gun free British utopia.
I live in Arizona, which is a very gun friendly state. We have always had open carry and we've had concealed carry for a long time yet we have very few firearms related murders (if you exclude the illegal alien drug trade and human trafficking, i.e. criminals killing other criminals). Yet when we legislated conceal carry here all the anti-gunners warned us that every argument and bar spat would turn into the shoot out at the OK Corral. It didn't happen here or in any other state that has concealed carry. Why do you suppose that is? The overwhelmingly vast majority of shootings are justified shooting of some criminal with intent to do harm.
Look, the bottom line is that we live in a world that has some pretty messed up people. There's not really anything we can do to prevent that. All we can do is be prepared to deal with these people when they rear their ugly heads. Many people I know choose to carry their pistols...and you'd never know it. They don't flash them, they don't talk about it and they don't go around looking to be vigilantes. They just want to be prepared to defend themselves if God forbid they ever need to. To me this is wise. In reality there's only one person who is truly going to look after you...and that's you! If you chose to walk around like a sheep and hope that someone else will protect you that's your right to do so but you really have no one to blame but yourself if you chose to be defenseless.
I like what Thomas Jefferson said..."I would rather have complete liberty, and accept the fact that some people will abuse that liberty, then to not have liberty at all." Very well said TJ!