White House looking at new Gun Control measures
“Never let a good crisis go to waste.”
In the wake of the Arizona shootings the White House “team” is looking at Gun Control. Both of the articles below mention “assault weapons,” the generic term that the anti-gunners always use to apply to weapons they want banned. My understanding was that the nut case Jared Loughner used a Glock with a 33 round magazine. I didn’t think that a Glock is an assault weapon, but apparently it is now.
I still fail to understand why the Progressives go after the instrument rather than the individual that committed the crime? What happened to personal responsibility? Why don’t we enforce the laws on the books before we make new ones? Why did Jared Loughner’s mental background not come up when he tried to purchase a weapon?
Richard Cohen of the Washington Post in a recent article (link) seems to think the gun is to blame. Mr. Cohen references a study from the Brady Campaign that states that more Americans were killed by gun violence (651,697) in the 18 year period from 1979 to 1997 than were killed in wars (650,858) since 1775.
However, in the 651,697 figure there were 334,870 suicides (the largest category in the study) 278,865 homicides, 28,964 accidental shootings, and 8,998 from Unknown causes. The only reason I can think of that you would include suicide in these figures is that you want to inflate the numbers. I would think that if someone is going to do their self in and there was not a gun available, they would certainly find a way. Maybe they would get in their car and crash it into a bridge abutment. Over the same period of 1979 to 1997, there were 844,175 deaths in automobile accidents. Mr. Cohen says that America is a violent society but maybe we are even more a society of poor drivers!
Medical malpractice in some form has become the third highest cause of death in the United States. It is estimated that approximately 12,000 people die from unnecessary surgery, 7,000 die from medication errors, 20,000 people die from various other errors in hospitals, 80,000 people die from infections acquired in hospitals, and an amazing 106,000 deaths occur every year bad effects of medications. Using these estimates, that would say that 3,936,660 people would die over an 18 year period. Compare that to the 28,964 deaths that are attributed to accidental shootings in the 18 year period from 1979 to 1997, and it pales in comparison.
These statistics suggest that if I got in my car and went for a drive I would be four times more likely to be killed in an automobile accident than being the victim of a homicide. I don’t even want to think about driving to the hospital!