Guns and Suicide

The US ranks 38th in the world for suicides of all kinds at about 12 per 100,000 people. Japan, where there are an average of 8 gun deaths a year... it ranks 7th, with twice that many. So, yeah, guns may make suicide easier, but that didn't stop more than 40,000 Japanese from killing themselves last year without them. And even in Lithuania, Global leader in Suicide rates at a massive 31.6 suicides per 100,000 people? It's gun deaths were 1.6 per hundred thousand, of which the majority (2 out of every 3, were suicides.) So let's cool it with the use of Suicide numbers to boost the Gun Death Numbers, shall we? Let's only talk about the Homicides.

I know, I know, there are also accidental gun deaths. In the US they average less than half of 1% of all accidental deaths.

But Yes, homicides almost entirely use guns. If you want to argue Gun Deaths, use Homicides. In 2009 there were 16,799 Homicides in the US. Of them 11,493 were firearm related. That's the number. 5.5 human beings per 100,000 were murdered in 2009. 3.7 human beings per 100,000 were murdered with guns. That's the figure you want. Now here's the number you don't want. Rifles including Assault Rifles because the FBI statistics don't differentiate, were used to murder 348 people. There are between 10 and 30 million Assault Rifles in private hands in the US. That means that the remaining 11,145 were either shotguns or handguns. And estimates of the percentage of homicides that are performed with guns obtained illegally in the US ranges from between 50% and 95%.

So make no mistake, if you're serious about wiping out gun related homicide, you aren't talking about an Assault Rifle Ban. You're talking about a Universal Gun Ban. A ban which would require a constitutional amendment. A ban that would be opposed by, at the very least the 83 million Americans who legally own guns... almost all of whom vote. And no, not all of them are rednecks, tea party members, or even republicans. There are 315 million people in the US, of whom 219 are eligible to vote. 83 is about 38% percent of 219. Of those 219, only about 126 million voted in the last presidential election. To get an Amendment to pass you need a Super Majority of states or the Electorate to pass it. A Universal Gun Ban is simply not going to happen.

So continue trying to stop gun related violence by banning Assault Rifles, but realize you're trying to get rid of something that kills fewer people each year than choking on a bone. All those millions of dollars and thousand of man-hours and who knows how much political capital wasted that could have been spent working for better teacher salaries, better schools, better anti-drug education, better health care, better roads, better law enforcement and fire responder training, and even better health and safety regulations to help protect people against these senseless deaths.

Stop trying to take away the Assault Rifles. Stop trying to get guns banned and work to convince the gun owners that they and their loved ones will be safer if they work with you to make sure that every gun purchased has a 28 day waiting period, a background check, and a state and federal registration. Offer to eliminate licensing fees in exchange for compulsory licensing. Try and reach an accommodation with the gun owners, because the more you demonize them the more they are going to resist. But all gun owners hear from the anti-gun crowd is "Guns are evil, no one should have guns." Is it any wonder they think you want to take them away?