End this love affair, please.

[lazarus]

Isn't it time the USA ends its love affair with the gun? It seems like every day some individual takes a gun and kills several innocent people. Its seems as if this country has come to accept this carnage as just the way things are. This love affair is far too expensive in terms of American lives.

Firearms are the second leading cause of traumatic death related to a consumer product in the United States and are the second most frequent cause of death overall for Americans ages 15 to 24. Since 1960, more than a million Americans have died in firearm suicides, homicides, and unintentional injuries. In 2003 alone, 30,136 Americans died by gunfire: 16,907 in firearm suicides, 11,920 in firearm homicides, 730 in unintentional shootings, and 232 in firearm deaths of unknown intent, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. Nearly three times that number are treated in emergency rooms each year for nonfatal firearm injuries.

How does the US compare with other countries around the world?

Accurate figures on firearms are scarce, but there are an estimated 200 million guns in circulation in the US, a country with a population of about 300 million.

According to a Harris poll conducted in 2001, approximately 39% of all American households own at least one gun.

The risk of being killed by a firearm in the US is higher than in any other Western nation. Of countries outside war zones, the risk is greatest in South Africa, according to a United Nations report.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6562529.stm

Here are latest victims of this dysfunctional relationship.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/03/04/memphis.killings/index.html

(CNN) -- Six people were killed, including two children, in a home Monday in Memphis, Tennessee, authorities said. Three other children were wounded.

Police and fire units responded Monday after six people were killed in Memphis, Tennessee.

The four dead adults were shot and the two children were stabbed, sources told CNN affiliate WMC-TV.

[Guest truthseeker007]

The American society is based on fear and irrationality, because that s the only way the government can maintain its role as undisputed authority.

The prisoners-dilemma:

IN a society:

A.nobody gets a gun

B. some get a gun, others do not

C Everybody gets a gun.

For an individual the best outcome is if he gets a gun while the rest do not. The second best alternative for an individual is if everybody gets a gun. The best situation for a society as a whole is A. Everybody thinks to himself, if i buy a gun and others don t i have relatively the most safety, if others buy guns it is also better for me to buy a gun or i ll lose relatively the most safety. So we end up with a fear-based society whereby everybody gets guns and because the weapon industry has very much influence in the government, the government promotes a culture of war by donating tanks etc. to Hollywood. And once a new shooting accident takes place the government says we need to take more liberties away in order to overcome the psychos, which they created in the first place. So everytime something terrible happens concerning guns, don t think that your goverment is emphatically crying for the victims, instead they are celebrating it as another oppurtunity to take your liberties away and centralize power. Many of the terrible things that happen in American society today could be overcome if the goverment started to become genuine and forbid the posession of weapons. But it doesn t matter what i ll say, untill the end times the US society will be a land of cowboys and pizza-eating, war-glorifying, sensational-lust overweight Americans. I hope i didn t hurt someones patriottic feelings but this is the way i see America as an outsiders point of view. It isn t personal, you are the only true bright lights of the US, not the Oprahs and the Dr Phils etc. YOU are chosen by God to uphold the bible as the basis of all reforms.

[Bravus]

/me backs carefully but quickly away from the gun debate. I agree wholeheartedly with Laz, but this is one more topic that just goes round and round, getting more heated and with no-one changing their position.

[David Koot]

Well, truthseeker, when the government took away guns, the Gestapo had no restraints. Millions perished. How about the KGB and the USSR? Look at what Stalin did during the '30's. America does indeed appear to be moving toward a totalitarian state.

Dave

[olger]

Guns are great (in the hands of honest people).

oG

[Bravus]

*cough*Diogenes*cough*

[bonnie]

Guns are great (in the hands of honest people).

oG

Maybe along with the hype over gun control and ownership, we should all lobby to make alcohol consumption illegal again.

In MN my chances of getting shot are quite small compared to getting hit by a drunk driver.

Many more viloations occur behind the wheel than behind the gun. Let's ban alcohol. We do not have 115 attempted shootings arrests per day, but we do have 115 arrests for drunk driving per day. Nor do we have over 4000 gun related accidents and 3500 injuries related to guns per year. This is not counting those killed.

Minnesota DWI Statistics

Total incidents of drunk driving in Minnesota for 2006.

The Minnesota Department of Public Safety has released its annual report of Minnesota DWI statistics, outlining total number of drunk driving arrests and alcohol related accidents. According to Minnesota Impaired Driving Facts for 2006, the latest year of records, 41,951 motorists were arrested for driving while intoxicated in Minnesota. That is the highest number ever recorded, and averages 115 driving while impaired arrests a day.

Drunk drivers were involved in 4,688 alcohol related accidents, resulting in 3,500 injuries. The number of people killed by impaired drivers was 166, a 16 percent decrease from the previous year’s total and the lowest count on record. Drunk driving fatalities represented one third of the total traffic deaths in the state.

Demographically, males were responsible for 76% of all Minnesota DWI arrests. The 20-29 year old age group accounted for half of the arrests, and under-age motorists were involved with 10%. Those figures mirror the historical averages outlined by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

One in eight, or roughly 12%, of all Minnesota motorists have an arrest record for drinking and driving. During 2006, 60 percent of those arrested were first-time offenders, while 38 percent had multiple arrests for drunk driving. The average blood alcohol content of first offenders charged with drunk driving was 0.14%.

Almost half of the DWI arrests in Minnesota were made by law enforcement on Saturday and Sunday. The legal limit for being charged with driving while intoxicated in Minnesota is 0.08%.

The report was compiled by the Office of Traffic Safety of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety.

Posted Friday, February 08, 2008

Filed in Minnesota DUI | Statistics | Permalink | Comments (0)

[bonnie]

Firearm Statistics for MN

Virginia Firearm Deaths

Ages 0 to 19, 1999-2004

All Races, Both Sexes

(2004 is the most recent data available*)

2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000

Accidental

0-4 0 1 0 2 2 1

5-9 0 1 1 0 0 0

10-14 0 1 0 1 0 0

15-19 1 1 1 1 1 2

Subtotal 1 4 2 4 3 3

Suicide

0-4 0 0 0 0 0 0

5-9 0 0 0 0 0 0

10-14 4 3 3 3 1 2

15-19 18 18 19 14 22 24

Subtotal 22 21 22 17 23 26

Homicide

0-4 2 3 0 1 2 0

5-9 0 1 8 3 0 3

10-14 7 6 3 4 4 11

15-19 45 40 47 42 44 27

Subtotal 54 50 58 50 50 41

Undetermined/Other

0-4 0 0 0 0 0 0

5-9 1 0 0 0 0 0

10-14 0 0 0 1 0 1

15-19 2 0 1 0 2 2

Subtotal 3 0 1 1 2 3

All Intents/TOTAL

0-4 2 4 0 3 4 1

5-9 1 2 9 3 0 3

10-14 11 10 6 9 5 14

15-19 66 59 68 57 69 55

TOTAL 80 75 83 72 78 73

[John317]

How many are killed by cars? Many more are killed on the roads than are killed by guns.

How many killed by lung cancer due to smoking? Many more than are killed by guns. But does that mean we want a government forcing people to stop smoking?

You can be sure that if people had the right to carry weapons into the colleges, you wouldn't have murderers going into schools thinking they can go hunting for victims without fear of being shot.

I don't want to live in a society where the only people with weapons are the police, the military, and the criminals. That's the way it is in Mexico. It's a terrible situation there. The regular citizens are helpless because the police are are often on the same side as the criminals and there are battles between different police agencies. All the unarmed citizens can do is run and hide or get shot like rabbits.

History shows that governments only respect its citizens when it knows they are armed.

Having said that, I do favor making it harder for citizens who have mental and emotional illnesses to purchase weapons.

[Woody]

Quote:

You can be sure that if people had the right to carry weapons into the colleges, you wouldn't have murderers going into schools thinking they can go hunting for victims without fear of being shot.

What we have seen in college shootings is that the killers have no fear of death. They want to die and usually end of killing themselves if someone doesn't do it for them.

[John317]

Quote:

You can be sure that if people had the right to carry weapons into the colleges, you wouldn't have murderers going into schools thinking they can go hunting for victims without fear of being shot.

What we have seen in college shootings is that the killers have no fear of death. They want to die and usually end of killing themselves if someone doesn't do it for them.

I agree. But if teachers and others were armed, they could stop these kinds of people before they were able to shoot as many. And I am sure there are others who would think twice before they walked into a situation where they believe it was likely people would be able to defend themselves by shooting back. But maybe not-- some of these people might like the idea of dying in "blaze of glory".

[David Koot]

*cough*Diogenes*cough*

[Bravus]

Heh, nah, our hearts are filled with blood, rather than stone, downunda too.

But that was just a very direct response to olger's 'honest people' comment.

[Bravus]

The whole logic of 'we need guns to defend ourselves from people with guns' position just makes me laugh.

[Dottie]

I'm not sure of the actual statistics, but I heard that in Kennesaw, Georgia, several years ago, a law was passed which required every household to have at least one person who owned and was trained in the use of a firearm. Amazingly, the number of killings by gun, and the overall crime rate, went down.

Just what I heard. . .

[John317]

People are free to carry loaded weapons in Arizona and I understand that the murder rate is down from what it was before they changed their laws.

[Bravus]

Scroll down to 'Kennesaw' in this page, or search for it:

http://www.guninformation.org/

[Gerr]

We don't have a gun in our house. We are afraid that some late night that I am coming home, my wife might accidentally shoot me for a burglar.

The honest, peace-loving gun owners will argue thus:

Do we ban cars because they kill thousands of people?

Do we ban knives because they kill people?

Do we ban alcohol and cigarettes because they kill people?

Do we ban marriage because of so much divorce?

If honest citizens can not legally get guns, would the criminal elements be able to obtain them illegally?

I tend to lean towards the idea that it is not the gun that's a problem; it's the person with the gun who IS the problem.

Gerry

[Bravus]

Three more quick points, then I promise I'm out of this thread:

1. If guns are far rarer in society as a whole, it's also far harder for criminals to get them. Perhaps organised crime people will have them, but it's usually the 'disorganised crime' people who kill citizens - the more organised ones are much more likely to kill other crims. Guns are rare in Australia, and so are gun crimes.

2. For every heavily armed US county with relatively low murder stats that you show me, I'll show you a whole unarmed country with much lower murder stats than the whole US. http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-crime-murders-per-capita&int=-1

3. Care to count the number of multiple-fatality shootings that have occurred in the US this year (just over 2 months) alone? And the number that have occurred in the rest of the developed world in the past decade?

[David Koot]

Oops! Duplicate post! Didn't show up here until a couple of hours later.

[Neil D]

I love shooting guns.....Not to long ago, I spent the day target practicing....Ah, the power of the shot...

That's why I do NOT own guns....Yes, I would use it and probably would be one of those statistics that either shot my neighbor over some petty arguement or from some self inflicted wound....

No, I would rather rely on the Angels rather than a gun...

[lazarus]

Can someone explain why gun crime is so low in western countries that have strict gun control laws?

[Bravus]

You mean relative to America's right? Well, there are two possible answers: (1) it's the guns and (2) it's the people. I'd have thought the former was kinder to Americans.

[lazarus]

You mean relative to America's right?

Sorry, yes!

I remember how amazed we were when we shopped at Walmart for the first time and saw the guns for sale next to the fishing rods. I could buy soya milk, diapers and a shotgun from the same store! That basic cultural difference in American society exists at a high price.

Coming from the UK where many police officers do not carry guns its simple to me. At the risk of being simplistic, more guns = more gun suicides/murder/violence.

[Neil D]

I remember Lawrence of Arabia... In the movie, he had to execute someone....When he told his superiors about it, in a shocked state, he said that he liked it....

.....I imagine that is the way it is with a lot of people...when they shoot someone....even the soldiers....

.....I still say, don't give me a gun....I know myself well enough to know that I just might like killing someone...

...I don't think too many of you would admit to that...too embarrassing...not right..not with the "thou shalt be a non-combatant in the army" attitude.

...I am sorry, but this is about character...sometimes I feel that some of us are a bunch of hyprocrites if we just don't admit to our character defects....and too many of us on this board are just too proud to admit that we might have a character defect.....especially where guns are concerned...