More Guns, Less People

A recent study from Harvard and Northeastern University shows that gun ownership has declined in this country and the people that still do have them are buying more firearms. Half of guns owned in the US are owned by just 3 percent of the population. America’s gun stock has increased by 70m guns since 1994. At the same time, the percentage of Americans who own guns decreased slightly from 25% to 22%.

I've suspected for quite some time that gun ownership was declining. Up until this point, all I had were the many stories I have heard from colleagues, friends and family around Minnesota, Iowa and Missouri since Sandy Hook that they got rid of the their guns. The few that still have them have since bought more. My personal experience doesn't mean shit, though, so this was mere anecdata. Now we have an actual, peer reviewed study that shows this trend to be valid.

The one thing the Gun Cult needs is numbers. Remember, these are very insecure folks who feel inadequate in some way and were likely bullied at some point in their lives. The world is against them and the more guns they own, the better they feel. Having more people owning more guns fees their faux arrogance. Now that we see that the number of gun owners are dwindling, I wonder what they will say.

It's important to note that we now have a definition for someone who owns a lot of guns-the hardcore super owner. The super owner appears quite arrogant on the surface. They scoff at non gun owners and believe they are impervious to any sort of danger that a firearm brings. They also feel that everyone else out there is equally capable of owning a gun so this arrogance extends to other people...people they don't even know! It's an arrogance that is deeply rooted in emotion driven ideology (government tyranny, statism etc). Peak below the surface, however, and you see a massive inferiority complex in the hardcore super owner. They feel unempowered in the face of the fictitious enemies they have created. So, they buy more guns.

In the words of their hero and current GOP nominee...."Sad..."

A Sharp Rise

Take a look at the mass shootings in this country over the last 50 years.

When the Gun Cult flaps their yaps about decrease gun violence, the above numbers show just how fucking tone deaf they are. No other country in the civilized world has problems like this.

We have these problems because domestic terrorists are holding our country hostage. If you support looser gun laws, you are offering aid and comfort to the enemies of national security. Gitmo is getting mighty empty these days and, considering we can't seem to close it, perhaps we should start putting some people in it who represent more of a threat than ISIL or Al Qaeda.

How about the gun bloggers first? :)

Memo To Next President: Tougher Gun Laws

With the United States now accounting for 82 percent of all gun deaths among 23 high income countries, I was please to note that a new Reuters poll regarding gun safety had this to say.

Sixty-three percent of Americans overall said they would like to see the next president push for stricter gun laws.

Even better...

Respondents from both parties support more research into the causes of gun violence, the poll showed. Nearly 80 percent of Democrats and 66 percent of Republicans said they would support the next president, who takes office next January after the Nov. 8 election, pushing for more research.

Even Republicans are shifting...

Republicans are split on efforts to tighten gun control more broadly. Forty-four percent of those polled said the next president should work to tighten federal gun control laws, while 49 percent were opposed.

44 percent? Wow! I had no idea the number was that high. This is fantastic news and gives me a great deal of hope!!

The Gun Laws I Want Here In The United States

Here are the kind of gun laws I'd like to see here in the United States. This was from a comment on Quora.

I find it interesting some Americans think it's hard to get a gun in the US. Sounds much too easy to me.

Australian method [it helps we're an island continent with fairly tight border control]

1. Go do a gun handling safety course at a firearms shop. Takes 2 hours. Send forms off. Certificate comes back 1 week later.

2. Fill out license application for your state registry. You must include a genuine reason (for ownership). This includes recreational hunting/vermin control (on a property big enough) or as part of a sporting shooter's association (state based). Or animal welfare/primary production (i.e. cattle grazing). 

3. Pistols heavily restricted to certain employment types (security) or gun club. Very very hard for average citizen to own hand gun.

4. Long arms are broken into 3 main categories: A, B, C (there are others). A are air guns, rim fire etc. As a primary producer, say, you can pretty easily get one (pest control, animal welfare), even on small lots (say 4 Ha/10 acres). Category B include centrefires. Must have at least 25 acres to own one, or, be in a shooting assoc, or, have permission to shoot on a larger landowner's land.

5. Send forms off. Registry does check. No one with any assault/AVO/serious criminal conviction can legally own a firearm.

6. For land owners, registry checks land size/aspect and proximity to neighbours on google maps/earth/etc.

7. Licence approved/or not.

8. Take forms to motor registry and get license.

9. Go to gun shop and get a permit to acquire. 1 PTA per firearm. You can only apply for and have approved, PTAs for your allowed firearm classification. Each PTA costs money.

10. PTA approved: first PTA takes 28 days (the cooling off period). After that subsequent PTAs apparently are quicker.

11. Take PTA to firearms dealer, acquire.

12. You can only buy ammunition for the type of firearm you have.

Other notes:
Transporting firearms requires the ammo is locked separately from firearm. Preferably bolt actions have the bolt removed and store separately. Firearm locked in car or in special lockbox attached to vehicle.

Very strict laws as to storage.

All firearms must be acquired through a dealer - no person to person sales.

You cannot carry a concealed weapon in public even if you legally own it.

Arguably, this is a pain in the bum, but you can be reasonably sure most legal firearms holders are responsible.

Some (Americans especially) might see this as a curtailment of rights. Maybe in 1800 when the Wild West was as it was, but in 2015 Australia (and any civil society, really), this is a very, very small price to pay to ensure a mostly safe, civil society.

Yep.

I'm done living under their rules for guns...rules that are currently the most acute threat to our national security....rules that a small percentage of our population gets to dictate.

I'm even more tired of the current strategy that gun safety proponents are advocating. They are making the same mistake that President Obama made when he tried to meet the Cult halfway. They don't want to meet halfway. They are on the one yard one on the right side of the field, especially when it comes to this issue. So, gun safety advocates have to start on the one yard line on the left side of the field and work to the middle.

Let's begin with this: FUCK THE SECOND AMENDMENT.

Study on Background Checks

Between January 1, 2009 and July 31, 2015, there were 37 mass shootings in states where background checks were required for all handgun sales and 96 mass shootings in states where they were not. Controlling for population, there were 52 percent fewer mass shootings in states that require background checks for all handgun sales than in states that do not.

The difference was more pronounced among shootings committed by prohibited people. During the period of observation, there were 44 mass shootings committed by assailants known to be prohibited from possessing firearms—10 in states that require background checks for all handgun sales and 34 in states that do not. Controlling for population, there were 63 percent fewer mass shootings committed by people prohibited from possessing firearms in states that require background checks for all handgun sales than in those that do not.

Why Christians Need to Talk About Guns

Here's a great piece on how inroads might be made into the evangelical community in terms of gun safety. I was very heartened to read about Rob Schenk's conversion and the action he has taken as a result. Here's a nice bit from filmmaker Abigail Disney.

What we’re increasingly seeing is terrible fear among evangelical conservatives. I think evangelicals have always kind of seen themselves as outside the mainstream and as having less political power. There’s always been a sense among them that [someone was] coming to get them. 

And then you pour ISIS into that, and then you pour this kind of Fox news always amping up the fear, and then you have the NRA, which is also playing on that fear pretty unscrupulously. So you have people who are convinced that on any given night, someone’s going to break in and shoot them in their home, which is just statistically just as close to impossible as it gets. You’re much more likely to be hit by lightning. 

All too true. Stop being afraid.

More importantly, stop listening to the Gun Cult.

Gallup: More Americans Favor Stricter Gun Laws

Tired of being held hostage by the American Taliban? Well, you're not the only one.  More Americans favor stricter gun laws and it's not just them. More gun owners want stricter laws as well. Perhaps some are beginning to see the writing on the wall...

The greatest threat to our national security right now is the fucking Gun Cult. As we have done with international extremists, our own local nutjobs need to be taken out. In many ways, this is a form of sedition and they need to be held accountable for their actions.

Responsible Gun Owners?

*10/11, SC: grandmother shot by 2-year-old grandson
*10/10, NV: 8-year-old boy fatally shot self
*10/10, MD: 75-year-old man fatally shot by 14-year-old boy 
*10/07, CA: 13-year-old girl shot self in hand
*10/02, OH: 12-year-old boy fatally shot 11-year-old brother
*9/26, IN: 18-year-old boy fatally shot by 15-year-old boy
*9/24, OR: 2-year-old boy shot self in leg
*9/24, MI: 6-year-old boy shot self in hand
*9/22, NY 24-year-old mother shot by 3-year-old son
*9/20, UT: 13-year-old girl shot by 11-year-old sister
*9/18, IN: 3-year-old girl shot by 13-year-old boy
*9/14, OK: 16-year-old boy shot self in leg
*9/11, NY: 15-year-old girl fatally shot by 15-year-old boy
*9/08, IL: 15-year-old boy shot self in head


And that's just in the last month...

Sting Them!

Regardless of where you fall on the political spectrum, the sting videos on Planned Parenthood have had an impact. The federal government might shut down because of them. Even though the videos are essentially false, abortion is back to being an issue again for the time being. So, here's a thought....

Let's do the same fucking thing for the Gun Cult.

Whether it's the NRA or some sort of gun blogger convention, it's way past time that some activists got up in their shit and fucked it all up. I think the American people would love to see what these people think about guns, violence, and little children being slaughtered every day because they need to feel empowered by a dick substitute.

Why hasn't it happened yet?

Scientific Consensus On Guns

In addition to their being a scientific consensus on climate change, there is also one on guns.

So, for example, one survey asked whether having a gun in the home increased the risk of suicide. An overwhelming share of the 150 people who responded, 84%, said yes.

I also found widespread confidence that a gun in the home increases the risk that a woman living in the home will be a victim of homicide (72% agree, 11% disagree) and that a gun in the home makes it a more dangerous place to be (64%) rather than a safer place (5%). There is consensus that guns are not used in self-defense far more often than they are used in crime (73% vs. 8%) and that the change to more permissive gun carrying laws has not reduced crime rates (62% vs. 9%). Finally, there is consensus that strong gun laws reduce homicide (71% vs. 12%).

Yep.

Moms On A Roll

More Guns In Chicago

One of my favorite bits of fiction peddled by the Gun Cult is that Chicago, a city that heavily restricts guns, is a great example of what gun control really does...create more violence and leave ordinary citizens defenseless.  So, by this logic, if Chicago were to loosen its gun laws and allow more people to have guns, violence would decrease, correct?

I'm curious...what is the basis for this line of thought? And how would a fully armed Chicago look if the laws were indeed changed?

His Year In The NRA

There are a great many wonderful things about Rob Cox's latest piece on the Gun Cult that are all sure to blow bowels across the nation. It's a long read but most worth it. Here are my highlights.

And that’s when it really hit me. What the people of Newtown wanted — and indeed all Americans at that moment wanted and still want — was an honest discussion about how something as awful as Sandy Hook could happen, and how to prevent it from happening again. LaPierre made it clear the NRA was going to do everything in its power to thwart genuine debate. 

It goes way past LaPierre. The entirety of the Gun Cult wants to thwart genuine debate. One need only look at my comments section for evidence of that.

The most distinctive element was a general sense of impending doom, a pervading belief that America is swiftly going down the tubes. This sentiment was particularly evident at the 5th Annual Freedom First Financial Seminar, one of the many sessions taking place off the main exhibition carnival.

This was Cox's impression of NRA attendees...what an awful way to live your life...

The NRA’s political agenda is pretty simple: It works to perpetuate gun culture in America, and ensure that access to guns is unfettered. And unlike, say, tobacco or automobiles, the constitution gives the NRA an authoritative, to some religious, scripture to which it can continually refer when opposing regulation of the products its corporate supporters sell to its $25-a-head members.

Yep.

Since joining, I have received countless calls to political action. On the day before a background-check bill failed to pass the Senate in April 2013, LaPierre emailed me that “anti-gun ringleaders in Congress and the national media are waging all-out war on our gun rights” and are “fighting to BAN tens of millions of commonly owned firearms… fighting to register and license gun owners…fighting to create a federal registry of ammo buyers…and fighting to destroy your right to defend yourself, your home and your loved ones.”

They's a comin!!!!

The best part?

A salesman with a country twang wanted me to renew my NRA membership on special terms. But before making the offer, he wanted me to answer a simple multiple-choice question: “What do you think is the single greatest threat to your Second Amendment freedoms?” Was it, he asked, Barack Obama? Was it the United Nations and its Arms Trade Treaty? Or was it the “gun grabbers” Michael Bloomberg, Chuck Schumer, and Dianne Feinstein? 

I told him I didn’t think the black guy in the White House, foreigners, or the Jews in Congress were the problem. Rather, I told him, I worry about my fellow Americans who routinely abrogate their rights by not recognizing the responsibilities that come with owning firearms. Every time I see the headlines about a toddler who kills his little sister with Dad’s loaded, unsecured pistol, I worry for my rights. I told him that when I see the horrors inflicted by yet another psychopathic young man who should never have legal access to the kinds of guns our veterans have become accustomed to on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, I worry about my freedoms. 

I think this will be my response the next time I get into it with a gun cult member.

Good Words

From a recent question on Quora (why are there so many shootings in the United States?)

Across the democratic developed world the vast majority of guns are hunting or sport firearms. Switzerland, often cited by gun advocates, is an anomaly since it's had a long history of required military service and the requirement a trained adult properly maintain and store their issued firearm - improper handling being an offense. Switzerland is an anomaly. 

American ownership is radically skewed towards the ownership of guns with an intent to use them against other people. The whole (inane in the light of facts) 2nd Amendment argument - blurred by the NRA to the point it's authors wouldn't be able to recognize (nor stomach) it. A lack of confidence in its democratic institutions, and in its people's respect for them, led American (white property-owning) men to entrench their right to bear arms against their democratically constituted elected authorities - which since has been stretched into blanket coverage of the right to arm themselves against their next-door neighbor.

Institutionalized paranoia.

Exactly right.

His conclusion is even better.

Simply having loaded guns lying about leads to 2 of every 3 gun-related deaths in the United States. Those are the unintentional homicides. Over 20,000 such deaths in 2013 alone. With a majority of gun homicides ruled not premeditated the rate attributable to ease of access alone is realistically higher. 

But it isn't a gun but the thought behind ownership that makes U.S. ownership so disproportionately destructive. The hunting rifle my grand-dad shouldered as he trudged through the backwoods of the Canadian hinterland nearly a century ago was carried with a vastly different intent than an assault rifle with 40 round magazine in the same rear window as a '2nd Amendment' decal which seldom leaves the suburbs. 

There is, in other words, a face-palm obvious statistical correlation between a gun being at hand and gun tragedy - but the violent intent behind possessing weapons of war primes the violence pump predisposing the entire culture to a greater likelihood of violence. A fact born out by 'cold. hard ...' fact.

So, can we change?

John Walsh Weighs in on Guns

Gun Safety

The Bodyguard Blanket

Well, I guess it's come to this...





I can hear the Gun Cult shrieking like old ladies now..."If we could only have anyone carry a gun in a school, then kids wouldn't need the Bodyguard Blanket."

Or maybe if our society could be arsed to leave behind a troglodytic perception of mental health, guns, and violence, then we wouldn't need the fucking Bodyguard Blanket

The Best Quote On Guns In Human History

From an answer on Quora...

There is little doubt that armed teachers could have possibly saved lives in the Newtown shooting. 

There is also little doubt in my mind that widespread arming of teachers would at some point result in an accidental shooting of a child, access to a firearm by a child, and a tragic deliberate shooting of an innocent adult due to a misunderstanding or overreaction.

The fundamental problem with most positions on firearm legislation is that they are myopic. The average gun advocate is a responsible, law abiding person with legitimate and justifiable arguments for people like them to possess firearms, and they are no danger to themselves or others. Yet they fail to understand that not everyone is like them. Not everyone can handle the responsibility of a firearm. When the law supports their right to bear arms, it also supports the rights of almost every other citizen to bear arms; many of whom are not responsible enough to do so safely.

As a former soldier I have been trained in the use of a number of firearms from pistols to machine guns. I teach my son and daughter to use an archery bow, and I impress upon them the gravity and responsibility of wielding a deadly weapon. I owned a hunting rifle and later a hunting shotgun, which were surrendered in the Australian buyback following the Port Arthur massacre. There are times, especially in the dead of night, when I wonder how I would defend my family against an armed intruder and I miss having that shotgun - after all, criminals still have access to guns in this country. But I understand that for me to have the right to own firearms for home defence, my neighbour and millions of my fellow citizens must also have that right. I know that most of those people have not had my training and do not have my respect for weapons, and on balance I feel safer with them not having them. And that's just the stable, law abiding ones. 

On balance, I feel that arming teachers would cause more harm, when viewed on a national scale, than good. Rather than a knee jerk reaction to militarise schools, I believe that the US would be better served by reviewing firearm laws to make the ownership of guns a revokable privilege rather than a universal right; by putting in place restrictions on automatic firearms and large capacity magazines; by verifying the character, mental state and training of gun purchasers; by licensing guns to owners and making unlicensed transfers a felony; by improving their mental health services and by ending the glorification of gun violence and perpetrators in the news media.

Well balanced...thoughtful...intelligent...and, most importantly, highly illustrative of the complexities of the gun issue.

The Columbine Effect

My home state is reeling this week over the revelations that John David LaDue was planning a Columbine-like school attack. LaDue is yet another teenage male with mental health issues that turned to plans of violence. Today's Strib had this as the front page story. 

'Columbine effect': Alarm is rising over copycats

It's a very disturbing yet accurate piece over a phenomenon that has evolved in culture since the Columbine shooting. The piece echoes many of the things I have written about on here about young men in culture. As more is revealed about LaDue, I'm sure we will see that he had most if not all of what I have been calling the magic cocktail (mental health issues, feelings of persecution and lack of attention, taking SSRIs, easy access to weapons, played violent video games, poor parental involvement, lack of community support and/or involvement).

What is very clear from this piece is that the Columbine Effect is part of our culture now and it won't be going away anytime soon. So, what should do about it? The piece has some very general suggestions but this has become a very complex problem. It's no longer as simple as "gun problem" or a "mental health problem." It's an American Culture problem that has to be addressed in a very complex way because it evolved in a complex way.

In many ways, it's become like a puzzle with some easy answers and some difficult ones which contain solutions that will be a big lift. Getting people to stop being lazy and engage young men takes a lot of energy. I know I sound cynical but I don't think most Americans have it in them. I base this on my own experience with parents so I do admit to bias. Changing our antiquated gun laws would help but, honestly, that's a small piece of the puzzle.

This has to be a cultural shift and it will obviously take a lot of time. So, where do we start?

Leadership On Gun Safety

Gander Mountain is a great example of the kind of leadership we need on gun safety from the private sector of our country. Given how many deaths occur reach year due to irresponsible adults, the idea of a gun lock giveaway is a welcome solution.

“When you start reading about them and you see that so many of them involve someone just leaving the firearm out and the wrong person gets it in their hand and it usually involves a child,” he said. “And if it was just either locked up in a safe or it was in a biometric safe in the case of a handgun or a trigger lock these accidents are all preventable,” said Steve Uline, Gander Mountain’s vice president for marketing.

This year they are adding hardware to the cause. Gander Mountain, which has 133 locations in 25 states, is giving away 50,000 gun locks until Sunday, April 6. The gun locks the company is giving away bar access to the gun’s trigger. Uline said the cost of gun locks, which start at $10, isn’t prohibitive considering most gun owners spend thousands on their guns. But gun owners fall into the mentality that accidents or tragedies won’t happen to them. “We felt that we were in a position to raise awareness to cut down on these accidents,” Uline said.

Way to go, Gander Mountain!

That's not all they are doing. They have also done admirable work raising firearm security awareness over the past year through social media and advertising; its leadership’s willingness to engage in a touchy debate is commendable. The retailer’s position — with rights come responsibilities — is something everyone should be able to agree on and, more important, act on.