HM-PuFFNSTuFF wrote:Public health research has shown that firearms violence is directly related to firearms availability and density. What separates America from other Western, industrialized nations is not our overall rate of violence, but our rates of lethal violence�which can be directly traced to gun availability. In 2004 alone, 29,569 Americans died by gunfire: 16,750 in firearm suicides, 11,935 in firearm homicides, 649 in unintentional shootings, and 235 in firearm deaths of unknown intent, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. More than twice that number are treated in emergency rooms each year for nonfatal firearm injuries.
Most Americans are surprised to learn that most gun deaths are not homicides, but preventable suicides. Even in homicide, the vast majority stem not from criminal activity, but are the result of arguments between people who know one another. Less than eight percent of all gun deaths are felony related. The most common scenario for homicide in America is an argument between two people who know one another.
Gun violence places a tremendous burden on America's health care system. Direct medical costs for gunshot wounds total more than six million dollars a day. Nonfatal gunshot wounds are the leading source of uninsured hospital stays in the United States, with an estimated half of such costs borne directly by the public. These numbers reveal that while most Americans view gun violence solely as a crime issue, it is, in fact, a broad-based public health issue of which crime is merely the most recognized aspect.
from http://www.vpc.org/
Marshall Mcluhan (the Sheriff in this town [see what I did there?]) agrees with me on this so I must be right. Now if you'll excuse me I'm going back to watching Magnum Force.
You know, as much as I'd like to think otherwise, it seems that we're just going to keep going around and around about this issue. Note that I don't disagree with some of the things that you say about guns. It is rather easier to kill someone with a gun than with a knife or a chainsaw, and yes gunshot wounds cause a significant burden on the healthcare system. I just get the feeling here that you aren't even considering my point of view.
I contend that guns are not either good or bad, they are simply objects. Are there lots of freaks that use these objects to cause great harm? Sure. But there are reasons why people do these things, just as there are reasons why people do drugs. Don't sit there and tell me that heroin and cocaine abuse and overdoses cause less financial burden than gunshot wounds. Do you hold forth on the evils of coke and smack? No. Do you campaign for the eradication of these substances from the face of the earth as you do guns? No. I think that if you were presented with a case where someone had overdosed you'd say that they should have gotten treatment or rehab and not rail on about how drugs should be removed from the planet or that there should be more anti-drug laws.
I've said before that there are a host of issues that lead people to make that poor decision that ends up with them taking someone else's life or their own with a gun. Poverty, mental health issues, alcohol abuse, etc., etc. You deal with these things, and there won't be a gun violence problem. Every person that I know, and I fall into this category, that has ever touched a firearm has been trained to use them or at the very least to treat them with respect. I learned how to shoot as a kid at camp, most of my family hunted and had multiple firearms, including handguns. The majority of my friends did the same and had lots of guns around. We haven't killed anyone and only two people I knew in high school committed suicide with guns. One was a steroid freak (not the gun's fault) that lost it when his gf dumped him, and the other was deeply emotionally disturbed due to a physical handicap (again, can't blame the gun). Both of those kids could have been helped, and both of them would have found other ways to off themselves if they didn't have access to guns. In the case of the steroid freak, I say good riddance, because he was a fucking moron, but that's beside the point. No one's disputing the fact that it's easier to kill people with a gun than with a knife. But if you remove all the guns from the equation, that's what's going to happen. Do not treat the disease, new symptoms will appear.
New gun laws will not fix these problems. Hamstringing legitimate, law-abiding gun owners won't keep crazies from killing people with stolen firearms, and it won't keep little Billy from blowing his dome off with daddy's .45. There are tens of thousands of gun laws on the books right now, and what have they done? Not much.
I think the question's already been posed in this thread and I may have missed your answer, but what's your solution? Within the bounds of my Constitutional rights, how do you propose to "fix" things?
In regards to the statements that have been made regarding carrying a concealed handgun: Unless you work the graveyard shift in a Kwiki-Mart, odds are you don't need one. I've thought about getting one myself, but I just can't see the need. Shit, I got held up by a guy with an Uzi when I worked at a gas station and I can't see the need to get one. I might if I pumped gas at night, but I don't. But, I won't tell anyone they can't have one if they meet the legal criteria.
