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.
We went to the Barnes and Noble recently and took a gander at the magazine rack. Good Lord! It looks like everyone who has lost their jobs in the bad economy has decided to start a magazine. There are magazines on any and everything. I would imagine that Hobby Farm magazine isn't exactly flying off the shelf in the DC metropolitan area, but I could see where it might have some appeal nationwide.
Flying Disc magazine, on the other hand, seems to be quite a niche market. I would love to sit in on their editorial meetings and listen to them pitch ideas for articles. How about another article on disc golf? Jeez, we covered that in the last six issues. Do we have any more photos of dogs catching discs? 
Now, there are lots of magazines related to horses. This one was the oddest I saw. I guess there is a sport that centers around shooting things while on a horse. I would think this would scare the bejesus out of the horse, but I suppose they get used to it. I'm sure they have lots of confused readers that must think that the horse is doing the shooting, which explains the cover photo. Another thing, doesn't that horse look a little lopsided?
This is my nomination for the most boring magazine ever. Oh Joy! My new issue of Watch Time is finally here. Don't these people know about porn?
For breakfast this morning I had Post Honey Bunches of Oats 
