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[thesearemyguns]

Americans own nearly half world's guns in civilian hands: survey

“Americans make up 4 percent of the world's population but owned about 46 percent of the estimated 857 million weapons in civilian hands at the end of 2017, a survey showed on Monday.”

And, yet, year in and year out, only around 35,000 of the 2,500,000 deaths in this country are by firearm.  And, nearly 60% of those are suicides.  And, all of this within a population of 325,000,000.  And, as you have seen me show before, non-fatal numbers are similarly statistically small.

But, apparently, we have some major health crisis/epidemic/apocalyptic scenario, due to all of these firearms.

As always, my numbers are taken from the CDC WISQARS System and/or the FBI Uniform Crime Reports.

The full story is here:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/americans-own-nearly-half-worlds-guns-in-civilian-hands-survey/ar-AAyOzqW?ocid=spartandhp

[thesearemyguns]

Hypocrisy 2

I find it quite perplexing that these “crusaders” can say the most vile things about guns owners and supporters of the Constitution, calling us killers, and saying we have the blood of children on our hands.

They can spout the most wildly inaccurate statements that fly in the face of all known facts and data.

They can say our entire Constitution is outdated and needs to go.

They can completely fail to articulate a definition for something that they are trying to ban

When faced with actual facts and statistics, they can simply dismiss them, responding “well that is the way I feel”.

And, they can go on violent expletive riddled tirades, that get dismissed as “passion”.

But, if anyone mocks them, challenges them, or tries to explain actual facts to them, they turn violent; accuse you of “cyber-bullying, while actually doing it themselves; they state they want to destroy you; and say they want you dead.

All while claiming they are just looking for peace, love, and safety for all.

And the news media, and liberal left, and Hollywood, actually encourage this behavior and continue to give these “peaceful crusaders” air time and exposure.  And, anyone who get a few minutes of airtime to dispute this farce, gets shouted down and mocked.

[thesearemyguns]

Why It Shouldn’t Matter If We Repeal The Second Amendment

http://thefederalist.com/2018/03/30/shouldnt-matter-repeal-second-amendment/

This is an excellent summary of the Constitution and the process that created it. In my book, I devote an entire chapter, Chapter 1, to this topic thus setting the foundation for the entire book.

There is no guess work, or ambiguity here.  Our Founding Fathers were very clear in both the document itself, and in their copious writings and letters, that their intent was not to convey rights, but to enumerate pre-existing “natrual rights”, and to preserve all rights and protections for the People, and against the Government.

The rights of subsistence and self preservation were at the top of the list, and no Politician, or radical demonstrator, or ignorant and uniformed citizen, can take these rights away.

That many perceive the concept of these rights to be “outdated” or “unecessary” is quite concerning.

[thesearemyguns]

The NRA’s narrative about Maryland school shooting collapses

https://thinkprogress.org/nra-narrative-shooting-great-mills-maryland-falls-apart-loesch-c2e702cf867c/

This article displays the absolute disingenuous nature of the anti gun movement, and their absolute blind and irrational obsession and hatred for the NRA, and all who support it.

To summarize, in the Maryland school shooting, an armed School Resource Officer immediately ran toward the sound of gunfire, confronted the gunman, traded fire with said gunman, and 31 seconds later, the incident was over and the gunman dead.  Of course, this incident has been widely touted as an example of the “good guy with a gun”, pro firearm story.  As well it should.

This article, however, claims that the entire story has “collapsed”.  Why?  Becasue the Officer “only” hit the kid in the hand as the kid was shooting himself in the head.

Are you kidding me?  How do you even try to reason with people like this?  They outright lie and fabricate and misrepresent data, and then call out the NRA because of the semantics of the kid killing himself after being confronted by the Officer as opposed to the Officer killing the kid?

These are the same people that refuse to acknowledge firearm self defense unless someone actually gets killed, completely ignoring the fact that the vast majority of incidents end after the firearm is produced, without a shot even being fired.  But in their mind if the bad guy does not get killed, it does not count as firrearm self defense.

I can’t even find the words.......

[thesearemyguns]

Praise for The Student “Protesters”

Last night on Stephen Colbert’s show, Sean Penn had the following to say about the wonderful student “protesters”:

“Within days of that not only are they stating their case with incredible sobriety and articulate words but in such an inclusionary way,” said Penn. “You feel like there are reasonable people who have been on the other side of this conversation who are gonna listen to these kids.”

Please take a look at this atricle and associated interview video:

http://insider.foxnews.com/2018/03/26/second-amendment-outdated-march-our-lives-college-protesters-gun-control

So, one says the second amendment is outdated, another says that the entire Constitution itself is outdated, and after unanimously stating that “assault weapons” should be banned, not a single one of them could tell the interviewer what an “assault weapon” even is!

This is articulate?!  This warrants being listened to?  Well, at least they are very sober and inclusionary in their ignorance, I guess.

[thesearemyguns]

Hypocrisy

Teen shoots girl in Maryland school

Boy, 16, accused of beating friend to death with baseball bat

Fla. Boy Stabbed to Death at a Sleepover on His 13th Birthday

Each one one of these events happened in March of 2018.  Yet in only one of these cases does the news story appear daily for weeks on end.  In only one case is there a cry for new laws and the curtailing of a basic constitutional right.  In only one case are law abiding citizens who own, use, and support the right to possess the item used, called crazy and murders and baby killers and wackos. 

Why?  In each case one person killed one other person with an item.  Why the different treatment?  Why no calls to restrict bat and knife ownership?  Why no calls to sue the store that sold them and the manufacturer that made them?

Becasue one is “more deadly”?  Yet we have seen numerous times a person kill numerous others with a knife (in Japan, for instance).  So, that does not hold water.  Becasue one’s “only purpose is to kill”?  What difference does that make?  The other items are still used to kill as well, regardless of intended purpose.

Why, then?  If someone has a rational answer, I am all ears.

[thesearemyguns]

Emma Gonzalez: 'One Of The Biggest Threats' To Teens Today 'Is Being Shot'

https://www.yahoo.com/news/emma-gonzalez-apos-one-biggest-153956763.html

Really??

Out of 82,125,690 kids in the 0-19 age range, a grand total of only 16,547 suffer a firearm injury, in a given year.  Of those, only 2,824 are fatal injury. That includes both violent and accidental and it includes all locations.

Total deaths and injuries are 8,116,463 (13,300 fatal and 8,116,463 non-fatal).

So firearms account for 0.20% of all deaths and injuries (21% of deaths and 0.17% of injuries).  And, please keep in mind that these numbers include suicides.  So, getting shot is the biggest threat to kids today?

And, with regards to the statement that firearms are the third leading cause of child deaths, click on that link.  You will see an article with exactly zero references to the data used or what the other two causes are.  Not that it matters, as only 2,824 fatalities a year are from firearms, in the first place.  It does not really matter what the other 10,476 deaths are caused by.

It is very sad that someone who is trying to be an activist, or whatever she is trying to do, is given air time, yet is completly uneducated in the topic that she is discussing.  The even sadder thing is that you will start to see her quoted as if what she is saying is fact.

As always, my data comes from the CDC, WISQARS, fatal and non-fatal databases, 2015 (the latest complete year for both).

[thesearemyguns]

“6 Reasons Gun Control Will Not Solve Mass Killings”

https://www.dailysignal.com/2018/03/16/6-reasons-gun-control-will-not-solve-mass-killings/

This article sums it up nicely.  No emotion, no propaganda, no wild claims.  Just simple provable facts.

[thesearemyguns]

“Our editorial: Keep focus on student safety”

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/editorials/2018/03/15/editorial-keep-focus-student-safety/32ad980333/

Well, this pretty much sums it up.  A national anti-gun organization used our children to further their political cause, costing time, money, and the kid’s learning time.  And everyone followed along like little lemmings.

[thesearemyguns]

So my middle school step-daughter "walked out” today.   We knew she was going to since there has been a build up to this.  We have asked her who was organizing it and she said the Teachers.  We have asked her if she knew what it was about and she said she did not.  We asked why she and her friends were doing it then, and she said “to get out of school”.

When she came home today, we asked what she did and she said they stood there.  We asked if there was anything else and she said they jumped up and down to stay warm and while they jumped they shouted “enough is enough”.  We asked if she knew what that meant and she said no.  She said some people shouted about the NRA and we asked if she knew what that was and she said no.

I have no doubt that this is a fairly common case.  It should bother each and every one of us that adults with a political agenda are using our children to further a political cause.  Middle School Children simply do not have the knowledge to have any idea what they are doing in something like this.  If they did, then they would know that out of 82,125,690 kids in the 0-19 age range, a grand total of only 16,547 suffer a firearm injury, in a given year.  Of those, only 2,824 are fatal injury.  That includes both violent and accidental and it includes all locations.

Do you think any of these kids have any clue of these actual facts?  Do you think they have any idea at all what they are “protesting”?

Our kids are being used as pawns and that should anger every one of us.

(CDC WISQARS System, 2015, fatal and non-fatal databases)

[thesearemyguns]

“Gun background check system riddled with flaws”

https://apnews.com/b71d50adeb6e428d85b0955dbab45bc5/Gun-background-check-system-riddled-with-flaws

This is a very typical example of how our government has become so dis-functional, ineffective, and exploitative.

Every time a firearm is used in a crime, politicians use that event as a tool to achieve their political ends.  On the liberal side, they continue to push the socialistic narrative of “only we can take care of you, let us handle it”.  They want us to give up our firearms, our primary means of self defense, and depend on them to take care of us.  On its face, of course, this is ludicrous, unless they intend to give each one of us an armed escort 24/7/365.

And when we point this obvious flaw in their thinking out, they then say “Well we don’t want your guns, we only want common sense changes.”  And then they immediately propose to ban certain types of firearms and accessories.

Then they scream that it is way too easy to get firearms, and that we need a “universal background check system”.  Well, news flash, we already have a universal background system.  (With only one exception, that being private transfers.)

The headline above says it all, however.  Here we have a system run by the federal government that relies on all of the other governmental agencies to report the vital information that will help the background check system screen out the people that we, as a society, have determined should not be able to own firearms, having received their due process.  And, as we have seen quite a few times lately, and as the above article describes, this system is deeply flawed and is not working as it should.

Here is a suggestion:  Instead of proposing new laws, which will be completely useless and ineffective, why don’t they try fixing the existing ineffective system?  Would that not be more effective and actually accomplish something?  Rhetorical question, as we know for fact that at least 4 or 5 of the recent mass shootings may very well have been stopped if the existing had functioned as it is supposed to. 

[thesearemyguns]

“The Facts Are Difficult to Ignore” - Part 2

Further to my previous post, here is a bit more detailed breakdown:

Per the CDC, WISQARS System, 2015:

Total Population:  321,418,820

Total fatal and non-fatal Injuries  (i.e. non-disease related): 31,774,062 (all intents, all causes, all age groups)

Total fatal and non-fatal firearm related injuries: 121,249 (all intents, all age groups)

Fatal Firearm Injury

Total Fatal Injury 36,252

Unintentional 489

Violence Related 35,763

Violence Self Inflicted 22,018

Non-Fatal Firearm Injury

Total Non-Fatal Injury 84,997

Unintentional 17,311

Violence Related 67,685

Violence Self Inflicted 3,878

So, a grand total of 77,552, out of 31,774,062, fatal and non-fatal injuries, were a result of non-self inflicted, violence related firearm use.  How much further will this number reduce if you do some additional research in the FBI crime statistics, and pull out gang on gang and other criminal on criminal related violent firearm use?  How much less will these numbers seem if you look at the handful of large inner city areas where firearm violence, and violence in general, is much higher than the majority of the country?

The simple truth is that there is no “firearm epidemic”, nor it is a public health crisis, or a threat to our children, or any other clever, scary, talking point the anti-gun side uses to whip up fear and hysteria to achieve a political goal.  

And I don’t need a $10M study, by anyone, to tell me that the United States has more gun related deaths and injuries, by any metric that you choose to use, than a country such as Japan or Australia, which have virtual bans on private firearm ownership.  Is “Captain Obvious” around anywhere?  What relevance is this?  Does this mean these places have no murder, no violence, no crime?  Of course not.  Murder and injury, including suicide, simply happen another way.  This fantasy of eliminating firearms and, thus, eliminating pain and suffering and death and injury, is just that, a fantasy.

It is all a great lie.  And that, my friends, is a fact that is impossible to ignore.

[thesearemyguns]

“The Facts Are Difficult to Ignore”

Yet another wonderful piece of “journalism”, from that bastion of journalistic excellence, The Cheat Sheet:

Gun violence in the United States is rampant. This epidemic of gun violence is particularly unique to the United States, and the facts are difficult to ignore.  

Yes, as a matter of fact, the facts are difficult to ignore:

Per the CDC, WISQARS System, 2015:

Total Population:  321,418,820

Total fatal and non-fatal Injuries  (i.e. non-disease related):  approx. 32,000,000 (all intents, all causes, all age groups)

Total fatal and non-fatal firearm related injuries:  approx. 121,000.               (all intents, all age groups) (note: of that number, at least 26,000 were self inflicted)

So, 0.378% of all fatal and non-fatal injuries had anything to do with a firearm.

Can any rational thinking human being actually argue that .0378% represents a “rampant” problem, or an “epidemic”?

Yes, the facts are difficult to ignore, but the anti-gun cadre have absolutely no problem ignoring them routinely, as a matter of course.

[thesearemyguns]

Why Do We Refuse to Make Schools Safer??

Bill restricting gun purchases goes to Florida Senate

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — The Florida Senate agreed to advance a bill that would increase school safety and restrict gun purchases during a rare weekend session that often turned into a debate on gun control and arming teachers in the aftermath of last month's Parkland school shootings. 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/bill-restricting-gun-purchases-goes-florida-senate-035155929.html

So, let’s increase the age to by an AR-15 from 18-21, even though we know, from FBI Uniform Crime Reports, that the number of murders committed by 18-20 year olds, with their own legally purchased AR-15, is no more than a handful.  With regards to schools specifically, as far as I know, the number is exactly one.

Next, let’s ban bump stocks which, until Las Vegas, were a fringe novelty item that even most firearm rights supporters really didn’t care about.  As far as I know, the number of murders committed with a bump stock, also totals exactly one.

Please explain to me how schools are now safer?  The only way to make schools safer is to make schools safer!  We need no new laws, we simply need to put locks on the doors, to start with. Even allowing Teachers to carry firearms, is a band aid.  It will not prevent anything, it will simply give them a means of fighting back and minimizing the damage.

The fact is that schools are soft targets.  I go to my own kids’ schools, for after school activities, and watch people freely come and go from any one of a half dozen entry points.  The very same people that shout, out of one side of their mouths, that we must ban firearms to make our kids safer, refuse, out of the other side, to actually make our kids safer.  “We can’t make our schools look like prisons”, they lament.  Well why not??  If that is what it takes, why can we not do it?  This is not 1950s Leave it To Beaver territory.  

We do not leave our homes unlocked anymore.  We understand that times, and people, change, and we now cannot do that.  Yet the schools should not change too?  If making them look like a prison is what it takes, then why not??

Of course, this is just lip service anyway.  Why would a school that is more secure have to look like a prison anyway?  As a licensed and practicing Architect, I can tell you unequivocally, that  this does not have to.  It is just smoke, mirrors, and subterfuge by the anti-gunners.

We can actually do something that will work, and achieve the end goal, but that does not serve their anti-gun narrative, so they ignore it and continue to waste time and money going after our rights, while completely failing to actually accomplish anything at all.

[thesearemyguns]

Yes, We Finally “Did Something” About AR-15s!!

So, many companies are now making new rules and not selling semi-automatic rifles to anyone under the age of 21.  This is a great relief.  We have now “done something” to make our kids safer!

So, now that we have “done something”, let’s take stock of the amazing improvement that we have made in general safety.  In order to do this, let’s tally how many gun crimes we have eliminated.

I seem to have misplaced my data.  Can someone please tell me how many firearm crimes were committed by 18-20 year olds, with AR-15s that they themselves legally purchased, that now will not be committed?  How many murders will now not happen?  How many schools not, now, attacked?

Can't find it?  Well, me neither.  Given that the FBI (Uniform Crime Reports, Crime in The United States, Annual Reports) tells us that a grand total of 374 murders happens with any type of rifle at all, all age groups, I think that we can safely theorize that the number we are talking about is in the “10s” at best.  

Great job everybody.  Give yourselves a big pat on the back.  You “did something”!

Now, if only you would have spent that time and money securing the entrances to schools, you would have actually done “something” as opposed to only achieving the illusion of having done “something”.

By the way, I did actually find some study on the above question:

https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/Archive/203924NCJRS.pdf

https://ucr.fbi.gov/additional-ucr-publications/age_race_arrest93-01.pdf

Quite old, but they do directly address the question.  Please note that the only references to “assault weapons” is in reference to preventing the purchase.  They are not even listed as a line item in the weapon type breakdown.  Also, the discussion focuses solely on illegally obtained firearms of all kinds, not legally obtained ones.  Go figure.  Criminals obtaining the firearms illegally, in order to commit their crimes.  Who knew????

[thesearemyguns]

Why Are We Having This Discussion?

2015

Total Population:  321,418,820

Total fatal and non-fatal Injuries  (i.e. non-disease related):  approx. 32,000,000 (all intents, all causes, all age groups)

Total fatal and non-fatal firearm related injuries:  approx. 121,000.               (all intents, all age groups) (note:  of that number, approx. 26,000 were self inflicted)

So, 0.378% of all fatal and non-fatal injuries had anything to do with a firearm.

Can someone please explain to me, in a logical and rational manner, why in the world we are even having this discussion?  

How do these numbers represent a “public health crisis”?                      

How do these number make the U.S. a “danger zone”?  

How do these numbers represent a rational basis for eliminating, or severely curtailing, a basic constitutional right?                                           

How do all of the media and politician lies and mis-information persist, when this information is so easily and readily available to anyone who will take 60 second to look it up?         

I simply cannot digest it.

As always, information comes from the Centers For Disease Control (CDC),  Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS) Fatal and Non-Fatal Injury databases, as well as the CDC annual mortality tables.  For this post, the year is 2015, as this is the latest year for which they offer both fatal and non-fatal information (the fatal database goes to 2016).

[thesearemyguns]

“40% of Guns Sales Take Place Without Background Check at Gun Shows and Over the Internet”

As I have said repeatedly, every time there is a shooting, the anti-gunners trot out the old talking points, which they have been sticking to for years and years.  I recently address the “gun show loophole”, and this post is an extension of that, in response to an article that I read just this morning from our friends at the staid bastion of fine journalism, the Huffington Post.  Here is what they have to say:

“…at the very least, extending background checks to cover those private transactions, many of which take place at gun shows. (That’s why it’s come to be known as the “gun show loophole.”)”

“Exactly how many sales take place through private channels is the subject of some debate. Research suggests it’s anywhere from 20 to 40 percent of the total, which, very roughly, means that at least 6 million sales a year ― and probably quite a few more ― involve buyers who haven’t passed a background check.”

This tired, old, and factually inaccurate statement has been trotted out time and again, most recently by both Hillary and Bernie Sanders, and every time, it is completely debunked.  Yet, that does not stop them from continuing to bring out this “zombie” claim.  The claim is based on a 1994 study: “Guns in America, Results of a Comprehensive National Survey on Firearm Ownership and Use.”  In this study, that number is claimed.  However, the “study” was a phone survey of 2,500 people in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania.  In that study, many people stated that they did not know if they had a background check, or the authors assumed that they did not, based on other answers, such as purchasing a gun with cash.

In a 2017 editorial article, one of the study’s authors, Phillip Cook, stated this:  

“Even though I bear some credit (or blame) for the earlier estimate, I could not be more pleased to be done with it, given that it is based on data from a survey done more than 20 years ago and that, in any event, never directly asked participants about background checks.”

The study’s own Author admits they never actually asked the people a specific question about a background check. Also, please note, that they say nothing at all about gun shows.

Mr. Cook’s statement is in response to a recent study that reduces that number from 40% to 20%.  Even that study is flawed as it includes inheritances and gifts, such as from father to son, in their number.  Anything that will inflate it as much as possible.  More deception and subterfuge.

And, at the end of the day, no one is claiming that they have any hard data that these legal private transfers are responsible for any significant portion of firearm crime or that firearm crime would actually be reduced, or actual criminals would be affected by this change, at all.  After all, they obtain their weapons illegally, by and large, in the first place!  Or, as we have seen lately, they make a completely legal and above board purchase, and then go crazy.  You simply cannot legislate against that.  It is just another “do something” to make it look like you are “doing something”.

Footnote:

In 2013, Hillary Clinton stated that “…40 percent of guns are sold at gun shows and over the Internet.”. Clearly, she was trotting out the old 1994 numbers. What is quite funny, actually it is quite sad and pathetic, is that the “internet” barely existed in 1994.  There were only a few thousand “websites” at that time, and online shopping, as we now know it, did not even exist.  No matter, just “mix-and-match” any data you want to “prove” your point.

We already know that any legal internet sale must be completed at an FFL dealer, including the legally required background check.  We also know that anyone that does not follow this procedure is committing a felony and that someone willing to do that, would not follow any new law anyway.  Only law-abiding citizens would be affected in any way.  Just another example of how they will say absolutely anything to achieve their political goals.

And, at the end of the day, firearms will still only account for fractions of percentages of both fatal and non-fatal injuries in this country, and all of this bluster, and time, and money will be completely wasted, when it could be spent on other causes where some good might actually be done, such as securing our schools better, feeding hungry children in this country, reducing child abuse and maltreatment, feeding and housing our veterans that have been discarded, and addressing the root causes of crime and suicide, for instance.