Confronting the Gun Carnage in the US

To be clear, I do not share your opinion that anyone should be able to sell or give an arsenal of AR-15s to a known felon, convicted of multiple shootings and, after serving his incarceration, is still making death threats against the public.

 

You can dismiss a child killing himself with his father's gun if you want to.

I am talking about firearm fatalities, and it is one example of an inordinately high number that occur in the US.

 

Why make stuff up? I have never said anything resembling that.

Again. State in simple terms how you lower run death rates. Universal background checks won't do it. Elimination of AR-15s and the NRA won't do it.

 

Natty Bumpo. Was there supposed to be an answer there?

 

Perhaps I was confused by your repeated refusal to answer the question. I'll try once more:

"If you oppose universal background checks, do you think that it should it be perfectly legit for anyone to sell or give an arsenal of AR-15s to a known felon, convicted of multiple shootings and after serving his incarceration, but still making death threats against the public?
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You have expressed your opinion that universal background checks, supported by the vast majority of Americans, are futile. We shall know whether you are correct, of course, after they have been legislated.

I think that this is illustrative of why so many mayors, police chiefs, and others concerned for public safety - including the American public - are supportive of such background checks being mandatory and universal:

Also, you seemed eager to dismiss the vast difference in firearm fatalities in some states compared to others. You may want to take a look at how state laws and firearm-per-capita rates in the states with the highest firearm fatality rates differ so widely from those with the lowest.

The difference is quite striking:

1. Alaska - Firearm deaths per 100,000 people: 23.0 per 100,000

2. Alabama - Firearm deaths per 100,000 people: 21.4 per 100,000

3. Louisiana - Firearm deaths per 100,000 people: 21.2 per 100,000

4. Mississippi - Firearm deaths per 100,000 people: 19.8 per 100,000

5. Oklahoma - Firearm deaths per 100,000 people: 19.6 per 100,000

6. Montana - Firearm deaths per 100,000 people: 19.0 per 100,000

7. Missouri - Firearm deaths per 100,000 people: 18.8 per 100,000

8. New Mexico - Firearm deaths per 100,000 people: 18.2 per 100,000

9. Arkansas - Firearm deaths per 100,000 people: 17.7 per 100,000

10. South Carolina - Firearm deaths per 100,000 people: 17.7 per 100,000


... and the states with the least:


50. Massachusetts - Firearm deaths per 100,000 people: 3.4 per 100,000

49. Rhode Island - Firearm deaths per 100,000 people: 4.0 per 100,000

48. New York - Firearm deaths per 100,000 people: 4.4 per 100,000

47. Hawaii - Firearm deaths per 100,000 people: 4.5 per 100,000

46. Connecticut - Firearm deaths per 100,000 people: 4.6 per 100,000

45. New Jersey - Firearm deaths per 100,000 people: 5.5 per 100,000

44. Minnesota - Firearm deaths per 100,000 people: 7.6 per 100,000

43. California - Firearm deaths per 100,000 people: 7.9 per 100,000

42. Maine - Firearm deaths per 100,000 people: 8.2 per 100,000

41. Washington - Firearm deaths per 100,000 people: 9.0 per 100,000

https://247wallst.com/special-report/2018/02/20/states-with-the-most-gun-violence-2/
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Objectively assessing empirical data is preferable to expressing an ideological bias.

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That is a rather stupid remark. I oppose universal background checks for the simple reason that they will be impossible to accomplish effectively. You have failed to show where I am wrong.

Because buried within those statistics, there are further statistics that deaths per state brush over.

Within most, if not all, of those low gun death states as well as the high gun death states, there are extremely high gun death areas. You can google about any city and they will be identified. The high gun death rates are not spread evenly across states. They tend to be localized. Some areas in the low gun death states are dangerous and some areas in the high gun death states are safe. The state itself means virtually nothing.

 

Your belief would result in it being perfectly legit for anyone to sell or give an arsenal of AR-15s to a known felon, convicted of multiple shootings and after serving his incarceration, but still making death threats against the public.

The vast majority of Americans do not share your belief that such a sale or gift should be legal.

The striking disparities between state firearm laws and stark differences in their firearm fatality rates should be objectively assessed, not summarily dismissed by those with ideological biases.

 

The vast majority of Americans do not understand the ramifications. And you still have not shown me where I am wrong.

Objectively evaluated means the underlying causes should be investigated and that means more than just lumping a state as if the state is homogeneous.

 

Gun carnage is a bunch of baloney. Lefties want power without resistance. Sorry lefties, not happening.

 

The question is whether or not government is the answer. Society produces lunatics that shoot folks and now a bloated organization is supposed to step in and correct it? Not gonna happen.

 

CDC Causes of Death 2014

Heart Disease

Number of deaths: 614,348
Deaths per 100,000 population: 192.7
Cause of death rank: 1

Cigarette smoking

Cigarette smoking is responsible for more than 480,000 deaths per year in the United States, including more than 41,000 deaths resulting from secondhand smoke exposure. This is about one in five deaths annually, or 1,300 deaths every day.*

All injury deaths

Number of deaths: 199,752
Deaths per 100,000 population: 62.6

All poisoning deaths

Number of deaths: 51,966
Deaths per 100,000 population: 16.3

Death rates for drug poisoning and drug poisoning involving opioid analgesics and heroin**

Number of deaths: 50,000 (approx)
Deaths per 100,000 population: 16.3


Motor vehicle traffic deaths

Number of deaths: 33,736
Deaths per 100,000 population: 10.6

Alcohol Use

Number of alcoholic liver disease deaths: 19,388
Number of alcohol-induced deaths, excluding accidents and homicides: 30,722

Firearm homicides

Number of deaths: 11,008
Deaths per 100,000 population: 3.5

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/default.htm
*https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fast_facts/index.htm
**https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/2016/027.pdf

 

Why the focus upon firearms fatalities? You know that this number includes all sorts of things like suicides and people using guns to protect themselves.

You know that conservatives like myself look at this clumping everybody who died because of a gun into the same basket isn't going to ruffle any skirts, so...

Why continue conflating all of these firearm deaths together, and refusing to include all of those deaths that aren't firearms related?

Personally, I think you're just lying because you don't like people having guns, so you conflate everything you can, and leave everything out that you can because... well, lefty.

 

Why are so many Americans determined to address the firearm carnage from suicides, homicides, and accidental shootings that far exceed the rate of all other advanced nations? Because they believe that many of those deaths are preventable and want to prevent them. (I have no figures concerning fatalities resulting from "people using guns to protect themselves," but would be happy to see any empirical data that you can cite.)

If your impotence in confronting the majority of Americans hoping to reduce the inordinate level of firearm carnage in America makes you lash out with such ad hominem attacks, that is what you will do.

Most Americans, including gun owners, support sensible legislation to reduce the firearm carnage.

Some gun-dependent nervous nellies have been infected with a paranoidal delusion of a Big Blue Meanie taking all their shooties away, but it's not a rational fear. Otherwise, you would not see so many gun owners supporting sensible legislation.

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Which has nothing to do with firearm crime

 

It looks to me like you just hate fat people, judging from the photo.

 

Maybe we should teach kids. Not to steal, lie kill or cheat,
Oh wait, we used to but it was deemed a violation of church and state