Horrifying stats, turq but good to know so thanks for posting. Closest I've gotten to gun culture is finding out that my step Mom has a handgun. Her daughter, my half sister, has even taken lessons! Ok, I sort of understand in the former case because my Dad travels and they live in a wooded area and are obviously wealthy and she's in her 80s. But I wonder if she's ever considered the possibility that one of the great-grandkids might accidently find that gun and cause a tragedy.
PS Was also horrified, though in a different way, by Wendy's subliminal advertising. Wonder if they'll change it now that the cat is out of the bag. ________________________________ From: turquoiseb <no_re...@yahoogroups.com> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, July 17, 2013 2:48 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Trayvon Martin was a Homophobic bigot --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "salyavin808" wrote: > > Has *anyone* in America stopped to ponder whether the problem > here is easy availability of guns rather than race or whatever problems? And they actually *believe* that totin' a gun will make them safer. The facts are somewhat different. The states with the highest gun ownership have a gun murder rate 114% higher than those with the lowest gun ownership. The number of mass shootings stopped by gun-toting civilians in the last thirty years is ZERO. For every time a gun is used in self-defense in the home, there are 7 assaults or murders, 11 suicide attempts, and 4 accidents involving guns in or around the home. 43% of homes with guns and kids leave their guns unlocked, and in one experiment, 1/3 of 8-12-year-old kids who found a handgun pulled the trigger. In 2011, nearly 10 times more people were shot and killed in argu- ments than by civilians trying to stop a crime. One study found that the odds of an assault victim being shot were 4.5X greater if he carried a gun, and his odds of being killed were 4.2X greater. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/01/pro-gun-myths-fact-check The last time I was in America (back in Santa Fe to renew documents), out of curiosity I dropped in to a local gun show. I was offered handguns, rifles, shotguns, and in four cases semi-automatic rifles that had been converted to full automatic (e.g., machine guns) *over the counter*. I would have had to show no ID, and no "background checks" would have been performed. If I had bought them, I would have walked out of the show fully equipped to become a mass murderer, requiring only a short stop at Walmart to stock up on ammo first. America is not only an insane asylum, its inmates are armed.
