Quote:
Originally Posted by Schroeder
The US has a different culture and is in a different situation than Europe. The US is flooded with weapons and no one can remove them again. Therefore every thug has a gun and I can understand that people don't feel safe anymore. What are they supposed to do? Ban weapons? Impossible as everybody has one and can hide them. One would never be able to find all guns and remove them so I guess it's just normal that people are gearing up in order to not be out gunned by thugs.
On the other hand here in comparatively quiet Europe we see these facts:
~30,000 gun related fatalities in the US every year. At roughly 320 million people it averages a 0.009 % likelihood to get killed by a gun per year. In 2013 3,340 people got killed in traffic related accident in Germany. With 80.7 million people the chance to get killed in traffic was 0.0041 % in that year.
That makes it about twice as likely to get killed by a gun in the US than to to be killed in traffic in Germany (calculated that myself with Wikipedia data so it's not dead accurate). That's why we are glad that our continent isn't flooded with weapons.
So guys, please have a look at both sides and the preconditions on both sides before getting into the eternal "Guns make us all safe, we need more guns to end death" vs. "You are all trigger happy idiots!" arguments.  |
Well said. You've mentioned this 30,000 number a few times, perhaps we need to examine it. Of those 30,000 gun related deaths, 2/3 of those deaths are suicides. We both know that suicide is attainable by many methods other than guns; and in general, suicides only kill the person using the gun, so yours and my safety is not greatly affected by this portion of gun related deaths.
In 2012, there were approximately 8,896 homicides by guns, which is a lot more than anyone would like to see. In a population of 320 million, that means we have a 0.00003 chance of being shot and killed. What I would like to know (couldn't find it anywhere) is the breakdown of that 8,896 number by people killed in the commission of a crime vs killed by someone they know, crime of passion, etc. And it bears pointing out, of those 8,896 gun related deaths, don't you think many of them would have been carried out with a knife, club, or other weapons of force? Saying there are 9000 gun deaths does not focus on the fact that there were 9000 instances of violent crime, guns are just part of it.
MH said that firearms are too easy to obtain, and I agree; firearms are way too easy to get, just like driver's licenses and voting. What is the solution? Stricter laws regarding sales? Ok. Registering and cataloging weapons? I would be in for that, although I know many gun owners would fight it. Longer prison sentences for people found in possession of a firearm illegally? Many criticize the US for having the largest prison population, but I say screw 'em, we need more people in prison. When the day comes that gangs and street crime is as rare here as it is in Japan and Europe, then we have too many criminals on the wrong side of the bars. Like that guy in Australia, he had been arrested several times and was on bail for murdering his wife--he should have never been released until after the trial. And Eric Garner in NY, with all his arrests, he was still walking the streets, resisting arrest, and it cost him his life.
Guns are part of the problem, but the bigger issue is the entitlement class that the Democrats have created and the failure of the war on poverty. When I was in high school, it was typical to see several student's pickup trucks with gun racks, with .22 and shotguns, in the parking lot. It's a small, concentrated, disfunctional part of our society that causes the majority of gun crimes, and it's that part of our society that needs fixing.
PS: Not sure about your calculations but 320,000,000 / 32,000 = 0.00010, right?