(Freedom.news) Gun control is in the news – again – following the murders of 14 people in San Bernardino, Calif., earlier this month. And, once again, the issue has been tainted with false narratives, distortions of the truth, omissions of fact, the politicization of tragedy and outright lies, all of which Second Amendment advocates have learned to expect when this constitutional right comes under assault.
What’s utterly amazing about the latest “debate” is that it is premised on an act of terrorism – as if gun control measures, including outright bans of weapons (called for by none other than the Marxist puritans of The New York Times) are going to thwart Islamic jihadists, some of whom have managed to smuggle real assault weapons into even the most heavily gun-regulated cities in the world, like Paris (twice now) and Mumbai, India.
That said, you’ve likely heard a number of gun-death statistics especially from the likes of President Obama, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and all the other socialist-minded authoritarians who only seem to believe that guns in the hands of anyone other than police, federal agents and the military is an inherently bad thing.
From Obama’s lies about mass shootings only happening with frequency in the United States to the misleading figures thrown about by other Left-wing politicians, media outlets and pundits, what Americans are routinely denied is an honest conversation about a fundamental constitutional right.
So, in an attempt to set some records straight, here we go with some facts and figures that are all presented in the proper context:
— For those who say “guns kill more people than automobiles” – an average of about 33,000 people a year – that is absolutely correct. However, two-thirds of gun deaths are due to suicide, not homicide; only about 11,000 people per year are murdered (that’s a lot, but it’s not 33,000).
— Per InHomelandSecurity, “What nobody can say for sure, though, is how many mass killings would be prevented by stricter gun laws. And a bigger question is whether it makes sense to focus so much on how the nation’s gun policies would affect mass shootings — so rare and idiosyncratic that some researchers say you can’t formulate statistically sound observations about them.”
— “Mass shootings” which Obama and the hysterically anti-gun Left is fixated upon account for less than 2 percent of gun-related homicides, and no amount of politicization will change that statistic.
— There is “mass murder” occurring every week in portions of major cities like Chicago – which just happens to be the president’s home town, which just happens to be governed by his former chief of staff, and which just happens to be under investigation by the Justice Department for poor police practices.
— The evil, dreaded “long guns” targeted for restrictions and banning by the Left kill fewer people a year than hammers and other blunt instruments. In fact, handguns are, by far, used to kill humans much more often (and more often in suicides). The Washington Free Beacon noted that murders with long guns are “fewer than the number committed with knives, blunt objects, and fists or feet. Three percent of gun murders involved rifles,” according to FBI stats.
— The FBI has been reporting for years that gun murders and other violent crimes have been dropping steadily, blaring headlines aside.
No matter which statistic you use, mass shootings account for a tiny fraction — just a few percent — of gun-related homicides in the United States, much less gun-related deaths in general, notes InHomelandSecurity.
“In many ways, these events are a red herring,” said Jonathan Metzl, a professor of sociology and psychiatry at Vanderbilt who has published a paper in the American Journal of Public Health on why scholars focus too much on mass shootings.
“There are aspects of gun violence that are predictable,” he says. “Everyday violence is linked to alcohol use, it’s linked to past histories of violence. It’s linked to social networks of violence.”
Alan Gottleib of the Second Amendment Foundation, a gun-rights group, made this observation:
“The gun prohibition lobby and Michael Bloomberg and friends must be choking on this huge drop in homicides. They have been claiming that we have a ‘gun violence’ epidemic. What we have are a record number of new gun sales and owners over the past few years which has translated into more guns less violent crime.
“It is time for people like Barrack Obama and Hillary Clinton to admit that guns save lives.”
His point is well-taken; let’s stop doubling down on foolish public policies that obviously don’t work, leave more Americans vulnerable, and are constitutionally questionable at best.
If we could have an honest debate in proper context about this issue, there is little doubt reasonable Americans would come to the conclusion that guns are not the problem they are made out to be.
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