10-04-2017, 06:40 PM
(10-04-2017, 10:04 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: I had the pleasure of hearing Mark Kelly speak last night. I wanted to share some of his words on all of this. This is from an article in my local paper, which is behind a paywall. http://www.dnronline.com/news/local/astronaut-says-america-has-problem-with-guns/article_f5643194-a8b2-11e7-8efc-e77bfbd5e122.html
Respect the man's service, but how strong is your argument when you open it with a blatant lie. About 2/3's of gun related deaths are suicides. A suicide is not gun violence any more than hanging yourself is rope violence or taking a fistful of Xanax is pill violence. This kind of disingenuous debate on this subject is why gun owners or pro 2A types have zero trust in the other sides position or motivation.
(10-04-2017, 06:12 PM)Millhouse Wrote: Over 30,000 Americans a year die due to guns. Roughly more than half of that is due to gun violence.
This year alone there are already just under 12000 violent gun deaths in America. (almost four times the number killed on 9/11 in just over 9 months)
Yet when a fraction of those numbers, like a really small fraction, are killed by terrorists, the country goes apeshit and pours billions & billions into fighting it.
When over 400,000 have died with a gun being used (homicides, suicides, and accidents) since 2001, the country does squat to bring those numbers down.
But hey, lets beef up the military and bans on travelers and all this other stuff when only a few 1000 have been killed in the same time by terrorists.
It's actually a third that die due to gun violence. Of that third the vast majority of the victims of gun violence are criminals being targeted by other criminals. It is contradictory, at best, to discuss the need to reduce gun violence while at the same time reducing prison sentences for violent offenders. We actually do something to bring down those numbers, it's called imprisoning criminals. Consequently, the numbers have dropped steadily pretty much every years since 1992. The now rise in crime can be directly attributed to soft on crime laws and politicians. It cannot be a coincidence that a 25 year trend is suddenly no longer in effect after pro criminal laws are passed in many left leaning states. Maybe Jimmy Kimmel should have been railing against all the Democrats who drafted these soft on crime laws?
