Gun Owners Most Likely to Die from Suicide

The recent shootings at a civic center in Binghamton, NY, the police killings in Pittsburgh, and the father that killed his five kids in Washington state got me to thinking that maybe the U.S. has too many guns. I went over to the Nation Rifle Association (NRA) website to get some consolation. I was shocked to find people advocating for less restrictive gun laws. That didn’t seem to make any sense. Are they crazy? It turns out that yes, they are in fact, crazy.

I was amazed to find that one of the arguments for less gun control by the NRA included a story about the recent mass murders in Australia (where there is tight gun control). Their point was that the Australian mass murderers didn’t use guns to kill lots of people, but fire. Because some crazy people set massive fires, the NRA crazy people thought that justified not imposing gun controls because murderers will still kill people. And who wouldn’t want to be shot to death rather than burned to death? You have to love their logic.

But what are the facts? The statistics below are from the Brady Campaign website.

Gun Deaths and Injury - The United States Leads the World in Firearm Violence

In 2005, 30,694 people in the United States died from firearm-related deaths – 12,352 were murdered; 17,002 killed themselves; 789 were accidents; 330 died by police intervention, and in 221, the intent was unknown.

An additional 71,417 people were shot and survived their injuries -- 52,748 people injured in an attack; 3,190 people injured in a suicide attempt; 14,678 people shot accidentally, and 801 people shot in a police intervention.

In 2004, firearms were used to murder 56 people in Australia (not including the 173 people that died in the bushfires who would have preferred to have been shot, according to the NRA), 184 people in Canada, 73 people in England and Wales, 5 people in New Zealand, and 37 people in Sweden. In comparison, firearms were used to murder 11,344 in the United States (the number of bushfire murders is not know at this time in the U.S.).

In 2006, there were only 154 justifiable homicides by private citizens using handguns in the United States.

We have this argument in my very own house regularly. Shane wants to have a gun for protection, and I know that one night when I can’t sleep and I’m wondering around the house in the dark, he will wake up and shoot me thinking I’m a prowler. We don’t have a gun and we will not be getting one.

If I had just a nickle for every dead body that resulted from guns each year in the U.S., in 2005 I would've had $1,534.70. That's a lot of nickles.

New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #188

Remember folks, it's a goldfish bar, so don't be koi.

This is the New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest cartoon for this week. Click on the link to enter. That's my entry under the cartoon. Let me know if you come up with any captions also.

The Beloved Sing the Sun Rising -- Another Great Running Song

Here's another one of my favorite songs to listen to while running.  The beat on this one is infectious. 

Style Invitational Week 811 -- Rock-Bottom Lines

This week's challenge at the Washington Post Style Invitational is to come up with a sign that would indicate that the economy couldn't get worse.

The example they came up with is this: McMansions still lie vacant, but crowds gather at the grand opening of HooverVillas on the Potomac.  (Get it?  I guess you have to be familiar with Hoovervilles from the Depression.)

Winner gets the Inker, the official Style Invitational trophy. Second place receives a Nunchuck, which is not one half of a pair of nunchucks but a junky little toy consisting of a trigger-activated thing that "catapults nuns up to 15 feet!" -- the nuns being four tiny nun-shaped objects with their hands in the air. Warning: The package specifies that it is "not suitable for children under 3 years"; presumably it's okay for children 3 and older to shoot toy nuns.

For more information on entering, click on the link above.

Here's one idea from me:

Suze Orman's new book is a how-to guide on suicide. 

Let me know if you have any ideas.