❌❌❌ A Brief Argument About Gun Rights & Laws in the US ❌❌❌
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Even while the crime rate has dropped from 1990 of around 9 people per 100,000 people, to about 4 per 100k (Source: https://ibb.co/mvjsHMZ - https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/crime-rate-statistics 2020) the NRA is just in the business of selling more guns and be the "thoughts and prayers" apologists anytime a mass shooting takes places in this country. They actively work as lobbyists to try and keep the gun industry out of trouble, impeding the CDC from doing an actual scientific study on gun deaths in the US.
⭐ "But in 1996, Congress passed an amendment to the Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations Bill. The bill modification, commonly known as the Dickey Amendment, prohibited the use of federal funds to "advocate or promote gun control," leading to the elimination of all CDC funding to conduct firearm-related research -- having a lasting impact still limiting what we know today about gun violence." Source: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/decades-long-gap-gun-violence-research-funding-lasting/story?id=80646946
👎The NRA also attempts to prevent laws that would allow people to sue gun companies and constantly tout that anyone who is against guns is anti-2nd amendment, in favor of more crime, and other ad hominem (Ad hominem explained: https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ad-hominem) attacks to try and disqualify the individual making the argument. 52% of Americans believe that "In general, do you feel that the sale of firearms should be made more strict. In another question, "If you don't have enough information about a particular subject to rate it, just say so. How about the nation's laws or policies on guns?" 37% said dissatisfied to 7% dissatisfied to satisfied, keep the same (2022 Data). (Source: https://news.gallup.com/poll/1645/guns.aspx & https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/crime-rate-statistics)
❌ The NRA constantly insists that a Democratic Presidents will not take away your guns, ban certain types of guns, ban or tax certain types of ammunition or critical parts to make guns. This has NEVER happened under ANY president, with the exception of the Assault Weapons Ban in 1994 (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Assault_Weapons_Ban). This banned military grade guns (AR15s/AK47s and other assault weapons), guns being made by manufacturers with the explicit purpose of causing maximum harm to it's victims in urban drive by shooting situations (such as the Tec-9, Uzi, Mac-10 & "street sweeper" shotguns, as well as reduce some large capacity magazines, and any and all automatic weapons). Unfortunately, the legislation allowed "grandfathered assault and automatic weapons" still legal if they were purchased before a certain date. Because of this, these weapons were still allowed to be possessed and sold (under strict ATF regulation) and the extended magazine ban didn't extend far enough. However, although during campaigning, President George W. Bush said he would extend the ban, but instead he once against lied to the American public and let it expire. (Source: https://www.thoughtco.com/gun-rights-under-president-george-w-bush-721332) It was only enacted for 10 years, really not enough real world data to draw complete conclusions. Whether or not the Assault Weapons Ban worked or not is still a hotly debated topic.
❓ Did the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban Work? (FactCheck): https://www.factcheck.org/2013/02/did-the-1994-assault-weapons-ban-work/
💀 In one of the first mass shootings that was well publicized in the country was the 1999 Columbine High School massacre. Prior to the shootings, one of the above aged friends of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold bought a carbine rifle, a Tec-9 submachine gun, and two shotguns. This is called a "straw purchase" where an older friend purchased weapons for underage friends. Imagine if the school shooters were able to purchase an AR15 or AK47 and carried several drum magazines (which is currently totally legal) and how high the death toll would have been. In one of the first mass shootings that was well publicized in the country was the 1999 and happened while I was still in high school, the Columbine High School massacre happened. Prior to the shootings, one of the above aged friends of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold bought a carbine rifle, a Tec-9 submachine gun, and two shotguns. This is called a "straw purchase" where an older friend purchased weapons for underage friends. Imagine if the school shooters were able to purchase an AR15 or AK47 and carried several drum magazines (which is currently totally legal) and how high the death toll would have been. What if bump stocks - like Stephen Paddock, a mass shooter used them to out of his hotel room, turned his semi-automatic guns into full fledged machine guns on the night of October 1st, 2017 in the Las Vegas Country Music Festival massacre that killed 60 & injured over 800 people -- a Hell-Fire Trigger, like David Koresh and the Branch Davidians used during the Waco Siege in 1993 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell-Fire_trigger) --, or auto sears (scroll to the bottom of the article for an explanation on what these are) had been available and gotten into their hands? They would have been a two man army.
Furthermore, the President CANNOT take away your guns and yet, the NRA continuously makes this absolutely ludicrous argument during every Democratic presidential term to drive up gun and ammo sales. The NRA was originally a shooting club and an attempt to allow sportsmen the freedom to hunt, shoot on their own personal property and normal goals. There is no president that can take away your guns without amending the Constitution, which would almost be an impossibility at this point)
Studies
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"In a landmark study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1993, researchers found that having a gun in the home was linked with nearly three times higher odds that someone would be killed at home by a family member or intimate acquaintance. Studies using more recent data have come to the same conclusion. In a 2019 study, researchers found that states with high levels of household gun ownership have more domestic gun homicides than other states do. In fact, the quartile of states with the highest rates of gun ownership have 65 percent more domestic gun homicides than the quartile with the least, which is worrisome considering that domestic violence has worsened during the coronavirus outbreak."
Arthur L. Kellermann, Frederick P. Rivara, Norman B. Rushforth, Joyce G. Banton, Donald T. Reay, Jerry T. Francisco, Ana B. Locci, Janice Prodzinski, Bela B. Hackman, and Grant Somes. "Gun Ownership as a Risk Factor for Homicide in the Home" N Engl J Med 1993; 329:1084-1091
Abstract: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199310073291506
Full Study (PDF): https://www.mediafire.com/file/yby7cozlcjel1qg/Gun+Ownership+as+a+Risk+Factor+for+Homicide+in+the+Home.pdf/file
“With everyone staying home, those new guns are more likely to fall into the hands of a child or other inexperienced user, with deadly consequences,” says Levine, an economist at Wellesley College in Massachusetts.
"This is a problem because “we know that guns in the home increase the risk for gun injury,” says Cassandra Crifasi, the deputy director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research."
"The other big concern about guns right now is suicide. In a study published this June in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers followed more than 26 million adults, studied in California for 12 years, keeping track of whether they purchased handguns and if they died by suicide. They found that men who had purchased handguns were then more than THREE times as likely to die by suicide — primarily gun suicide — compared with men who hadn’t bought handguns, and that women who’d purchased handguns were more than SEVEN times as likely to die by suicide as women who hadn’t bought handguns. As the researchers concluded, “ready access to firearms, particularly handguns, is a major risk factor for suicide.”
David M. Studdert, LL.B., Sc.D., Yifan Zhang, Ph.D., Sonja A. Swanson, Sc.D., Lea Prince, Ph.D., Jonathan A. Rodden, Ph.D., Erin E. Holsinger, M.D., Matthew J. Spittal, Ph.D., Garen J. Wintemute, M.D., M.P.H., and Matthew Miller, M.D., Sc. Handgun Ownership and Suicide in California. June 4, 2020
N Engl J Med 2020; 382:2220-2229
Abstract: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa1916744
Full Study (PDF): https://www.mediafire.com/file/zv2bi66szk60tcj/Handgun+Ownership+and+Suicide+In+California.pdf/file
Source: The Trace - Will a Gun Keep Your Family Safe? Here’s What the Evidence Says By Melinda Wenner Moyer - Apr 7, 2020: https://www.thetrace.org/2020/04/gun-safety-research-coronavirus-gun-sales/
Another talking point of the NRA is that a "the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun". However, in one real world scenario, this turned out to be a case. In a college shooting in Oregon:
"When a gunman killed nine people and injured seven more at Oregon’s Umpqua Community College in October, some activists and conservative critics said the college’s rule banning firearms from campus was partly to blame. Oregon is one of eight states with provisions in place to allow the carrying of concealed weapons at public college campuses, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, but the state’s Board of Higher Education in 2012 largely banned guns from the campuses in the Oregon University System.
The ban does not apply to community colleges like Umpqua, though, and while the college does not officially allow the possession of firearms on campus, the wording of its policy seems to imply that the state law authorizing concealed carry would trump campus rules. Indeed, a student at the college told several news outlets that he and other students were carrying guns at the time of the shooting.
For a moment, the student, a veteran named John Parker Jr., thought about intervening and using his weapon and military training to stop the gunman. The student, however, was not in the building where the shooting took place.
“Luckily we made the choice not to get involved,” Parker said at the time. “We were quite a distance away from the actual building where it was happening, which could have opened us up to being potential targets ourselves. Not knowing where SWAT was on their response time, they wouldn’t know who we were, and if we had our guns ready to shoot, they could think we were the bad guys.”
Had Parker chosen to intervene and been able to stop the gunman, he would have been in rare company. According to a study by the Federal Bureau of Investigation that examined 104 active-shooter events from 2000 to 2012, less than 3 percent of mass shootings were stopped by armed civilians."
Link to FBI Study: https://leb.fbi.gov/articles/featured-articles/active-shooter-events-from-2000-to-2012
Source: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/01/08/few-examples-exist-armed-civilians-preventing-mass-shootings-campuses
There has been a recent development in illegal gun technology with devices called "Auto sears" which convert semi-automatic guns into a full fledged automatic weapons.
The Return of the Machine Gun (The Trace) - "For decades, fully automatic weapons were expensive, collectable, and rarely used in crimes. Auto sears, which can cost less than $20 online, have changed that.": https://www.thetrace.org/2022/03/auto-sear-gun-chip-glock-switch-automatic-conversion/
This Is the World’s Smallest Machine Gun, and It’s Suddenly Everywhere (VICE): https://youtu.be/UHk2_SGRFQU
Charts & Graphics:
Total US Gun Deaths in 2020: https://ibb.co/zmm740M
Total US Gun Deaths Are Almost On Par with American People Dying Of Cancer Every Year: https://ibb.co/BHp8tYM
The average gun owner in the US owns 8 guns and 40% do not lock at least one up for quick access, but reduced overall house hold safety. https://ibb.co/pQVzn5g
Source: https://www.rd.com/article/gun-violence-statistics/
What it all comes down to is weapons used on the battlefield do not need to be under the hands of the American public under any circumstances - nor do the size of magazines need to be enlarged for general public usage.
An old documentary worth watching: The Killing of America (1981) [NSFL!] https://archive.org/details/the.-killing.of.-america.-1981.1080p.-blu-ray.-h-264.-aac-rarbg
"The Killing of America focuses on what the director feels is the decline of the United States. It features interviews from Ed Dorris, a retired sergeant of the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, as well as Los Angeles County Coroner Thomas Noguchi. The documentary also shows several interviews with convicted killers such as Sirhan Sirhan as well as footage of murders and news broadcasts. It connects the beginning of America's woes with the assassination of John F. Kennedy and posits that hope of recovery was snuffed out when Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1968 (the film features footage from the Zapruder film and news footage from the night that Robert Kennedy was killed)"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Killing_of_America
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