Nearly 1.3 million people die in road crashes each year, on average 3,287 deaths a day. An additional 20-50 million are injured or disabled. More than half of all road traffic deaths occur among young adults ages 15-44. - Wikipedia That's orders of magnitude beyond what your chart shows, even assuming "Mother Jones", a site known for its political stance on favoring statistics, is accurate. I could do the same for poisoning. Or falling. Or whatever. Gee, 80% of suicides by gun are successful. Shocking that this is even a relevant statistic. So now we're blaming guns because someone wants to take their life, and the gun is there for them to do it? Of Course gun suicides are going to be more successful. I want to know what idiots make up the 20% who couldn't even kill themselves with a gun! Listen, if someone is hurting so bad that they want to kill themselves, your silly ideas on banning guns doesn't stop that. Instead of using common sense and attacking the problem (why someone wants to take their own life) you go after the tool they choose that makes it easy. Why not ban cars? People park in the garage and run the car with the doors closed. People slit their wrists. They hang themselves. They step in front of a train. Ban knives, rope and trains? You people are really stupid. Someone wanting to kill themselves will simply find some other way to do it unless you address the root cause - their pain. Removing guns to protect someone from killing themselves is akin to government removing sugar soft drinks to prevent people from getting fat. They're going to do it if they want. As for the other stats on that Mother Jones graphic, I call bullshit. Every gun death results in $6 million of cost? Total horseshit.
Tsing Tao going full blown ridiculous. Transportation is a NECESSITY, guns are not - it's really that simple. You have to use either a car, bus, bicycle or train to get to work (at least the majority does). You will not starve to death or die if you don't have a gun in your house. In fact you're borderline insane if you live in an area with police 20 minutes or less away and keep guns in the home. Almost all of Europe, Japan, Korea etc. have barely any guns in households in populated areas and the rates of crime or equal or lower compared to the US. So make a decision already - are Americans just completely insane, violent psychopaths compared to other nationalities? Because if not, you don't need guns as other countries have demonstrated. As the stats have shown, you're way more likely to be killed by someone in your household. But since you guys are essentially extremists, I doubt you'll ever understand the irony of this. This argument will go nowhere because I'm looking at facts but you're just finding absurdities to support your OPINION.
Ah, but see I consider guns a necessity to my safety. I know you Europeans don't care much about safety and will invite in all sorts of bad guys from the South as part of your new migration plans, but that doesn't fly over here with most Americans. I would gladly give up every firearm I own if you could somehow get rid of all the firearms owned illegally by criminals. But you can't. And until you can, you can't take mine. Pure and simple. No, but you can have someone break into your house. Home invasions are quite bad for those unable to defend themselves. You expect me to sit back and watch as my family gets assaulted, raped etc because I allowed you to convince me a gun wasn't necessary? Piss off. Agreed. And if we didn't already have hundreds of millions of guns in the country already, then you might be on to something. But that ship has sailed. It's too late. You clearly understand nothing about the situation over here apart from what you get in media sound bytes. What country do you hail from again? Oh, that's right, you don't want to tell us. Please show the stat that says you are "way more likely to be killed by someone in your household". And the source, please. I've posted facts. You don't like them, but that doesn't mean they aren't facts.
Most crime situations with someone breaking into your home are over within 60 seconds. Either you are armed & put down the criminal, or you are the victim (and likely injured or dead). You are insane believe that the police will save your life 19 minutes later, it is far better to be armed & prepared in your household.
That's my problem with all the scenarios guys like yourself present. The criminal is dumb and clueless and OBVIOUSLY wouldn't think you have a gun, right? You don't have to be very smart to think like a criminal - if the homeowner has a gun, I better make sure I bring a gun myself and if needed, put a bullet in him. Because if I'm face to face with a gun owning homeowner, I don't have the luxury to doubt myself. Now, if he doesn't have a gun, I might just scare him a bit because I don't want to be a death penalty case. You've watched too many westerns thinking the good guys sleep with one eye open and are never surprised, also underestimating the other side thinking they are stupid and cannot plan. Besides what we think, the facts already have proven that your gun might end up killing you (family member using it against you), not some random criminal.
Well, Europe overall is much safer than the US by almost any metric you choose. You watch too many movies, see my answer to gwbtrading. Very confident to think you have the upper hand in situations where the criminals intention is to surprise you. I guess you never sleep and you walk around with a gun in your pocket. Must be a sad life. Many countries have had large numbers of guns, Australia is a good example. They can easily be confiscated and destroyed. Obviously the status quo is how everything should be for you, nothing can ever change, it's impossible! Read this article if your attention span can hold long enough. Don't expect me to always find the facts for you just because you're too lazy to search for anything. Your comment is all opinion, is the only fact you had that there are "hundreds of millions of firearms" around? Okay, congrats man, good job.
I lived for over 27 years in the one of the ten safest towns in the U.S. - Cary, NC. There are two reasons the town is always in the safest list. The first is that a large percentage of the households in the town have firearms. The second being the demographic of the town is primarily upper middle class RTP professionals. The combination of these two factors make the town one of the ten safest in America.
It is, unless you remove the urban city violence from the US, from places like Chicago, Washington DC, Detroit, etc. Then it is virtually the same. But this is a racial discussion that makes liberals feel uncomfortable, so lets state the appropriate "trigger warnings" before we go there. You barely understand the gun situation in the United States, and now you think you know my personal life? Has nothing to do with movies. A security system, a good dog and a gun will deter a criminal in almost all cases. If the criminal still chooses to try to break in, the best you can do is create as many variables to your advantage as possible. Not having a gun is a huge disadvantage. Ah yes. Easily. Please see this post where I discuss, in full and supported by statistics, how "easy" that is with another self-described "expert" in the subject of gun control. I read the article in full. Some questions. The article states: "Statistics bear out that there is a 50% chance that the gun is taken over," Fleegler said. "And what do you think will happen after the bad guy gets the gun away from you?" My incredulity aside, where is the supposed statistic that this comes from? There's no study, no backup, nothing but someone (like you) saying "statistics say". There is no way someone is getting my gun out of the biometric safe I have it in. It requires my finger prints. The only person who is getting it out is me, and there is no way once I have it, it will be taken away. What a laugh. More silliness: "If your goal is to make sure that the intruder is dead and you're not dead, then you would have to fire at the moment that person is in your vision," he said. Sounds reasonable, but shooting someone creates another set of variables. "Here's the issue. You never killed anyone before, and you don't know if that burglar is the kid down the street or a street person who is just hungry. You made a decision to kill, and we have seen how this has played out in different cases across the country," he said. Again, this is spoken like someone who has absolutely no idea about gun safety, home protection and who is obviously more concerned about the intruder than the homeowner. I've got news for you, once I identify a target, that target is going to the floor. If he is unarmed, he gets one chance to comply. If he is armed, he gets no chance. Florida Castle Doctrine states, quite clearly that a person entering a residence uninvited has already established his/her intent to cause harm and may be treated with deadly force. End of story. The fact that I give the guy a chance to kneel and put his hands to his head is because I'm a nice guy. I could kill him and go have cheerios and be within my rights inside the law. More from your article: In a 1993 New England Journal of Medicine study, he pointed out that there is a better chance that the gun meant for protection will be used in domestic violence, suicide or to injure a child. First, this is the one and only time the entire article quotes a source for any information other than hearsay. Second, let's discuss this carefully. A family member wanting to harm a child with domestic violence will use whatever weapon they have - the issue isn't the weapon, it's the person wanting to cause harm to the child. They don't need a gun to hurt their child. Suicide, same thing. If someone wants to kill themselves, removing the gun does absolutely nothing but make them get more creative to kill themselves. The only possible argument here is whether a child can get a gun that the parent owns, and this is a very real threat. I do not take this likely. It is why I have biometric safes with firearms. No child can get anywhere near my firearms. Further, now that my boy is older, he has been properly trained in cleaning storing and handling of firearms. That article you posted was a joke. Like most of your argument. I train regularly with firearms. I train with police and ex military folks. I have lived in some of the most dangerous cities in the US. I am well versed on the subject and both federal and state firearm existing and proposed legislation, and I am an American. Please state what credentials you have on the topic.