Understanding the problem of gun violence in the U.S. and the fallacies of gun rights advocates’ proposals to cure the problem is not rocket science.
This graphic depicts the current status of gun violence in the U.S. compared to peer countries:
The Current U.S Guns and Gun Violence vs Peers
The horizontal axis represents the number of guns in circulation, increasing from left to right. The vertical axis represents gun violence increasing from bottom to top.
This simple illustration shows a direct trend of increased gun violence with increased gun ownership by the general populace.
The folks that are in the gun industry (guns, ammo, accessories, training, etc.) are smart people. They know how to make boatloads of money: sell more products.
This simple chart of Sales vs Revenue is well known to all for profit businesses, no matter the product or service offered.
The gun industry knows that anything that might adversely affect their bottom line is not good for their business. Hence, they oppose any measures that might limit their sales and they advocate for less stringent controls on what they can sell and to whom they can sell.
That is why the gun industry donates buckets of money to politicians. They are buying influence.
So, what do the gun advocates propose, when people complain about gun violence? Well, we simply need more guns available to the populace. This chart illustrates their claim for reducing gun violence via more gun sales:
Somehow, contrary to the experience of our peers, who have seen gun violence decrease with fewer guns and more stringent gun control, the gun advocates claim more guns will result in less gun violence. But the U.S. has been increasing gun ownership for years and gun violence has increased, not decreased. I guess we are supposed to take for granted that at some point this trend will reverse, if we can just put enough guns into the hands of our citizens. Thus far there no reason to believe that claim.
Here is what will really happen with an increase of guns in circulation:
More product sales, more revenue for the gun industry, along with more gun violence.
Now that is easy to understand for anyone with basic reasoning skills.
Let’s consider the case of school shootings. Every one of these tragic events, brings out ludicrous solutions and causes proposed by the gun advocates.
- Arm the teachers. Teachers are teachers, not police. Most are not mentally equipped to be hard killers. They do not want to assume security guard duty on top of their already heavy load, while being greatly underpaid. Will the state and local school districts double their pay? Highly, doubtful.
What will it cost to arm, equip and train just 50% of the current number of teachers in grades 1-12 in the U.S.? Considering the cost of a Glock 22, training cost, ammunition, accessories, etc. I estimate about $12 billion for the initial year, assuming all are prepared in the same year. In addition, there will need to be training of replacement teachers, due to turnover and continuation of training for all. Training is not just once and done. I estimate the yearly cost to continue the program will be about $10 billion per year. And this will increase with an increase of teachers, schools and inflation. Where does the money go? To the gun industry, which will increase their financial ability to continue to control the politicians and further limit gun control.
Arming teachers will not be effective, as the police have continued to prove, one armed with a handgun is no match for a shooter with an AR15.
A handgun can be taken from a teacher by a student, who then shoots the teacher and students. Again, more guns, more gun violence.
- Make the school into a fortress. A shooter can shoot through a fence or shoot up a school bus. Will the next step be using armored buses? How much will that cost? What about school field trips? How can those all be protected? Do we really want to put our kids in armed, prison like camps? What phycological effect will this have upon our kids?
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Other Reactions:
It is not the guns; it is mentally ill people with guns. Maybe so. Then why are mentally ill people allowed to purchase and keep weapons like an AR15? Superficial background checks are not working to prevent those with bad intentions from getting lethal weapons. There must be much more intensive background checks, mental evaluations, social media reviews, conversations with the would-be purchaser’s friend, colleagues, relatives, teachers, a waiting period, a justification for a weapon purchase, required training, a license, registration and more. Those already in possession of guns should also be required to undergo such screenings on a periodic basis to justify retaining their weapons. We all know law abiding gun owners are only law abiding up until they commit a crime.
Social issues, video game violence, movie violence, godlessness, etc. Blame anything other than guns and lax gun laws, so that the gun industry and unlimited gun advocates will continue to fund my re-election campaign.
There are sensible ways to address the gun problem in the U.S.; but first those that deny the problem must accept there is a problem and face it, just like an alcoholic must admit alcoholism, to get past it. And our lawmakers have to find the courage to stand up to the gun lobby.
There is so much more that can be said about this issue; but I promised to keep it simple.
Please exercise your influence on those in our government to fix this problem and stop the senseless killings.
Ken
Ken, After all these years there’s still no instance of a gun walking out & shooting someone without a human involved? Is the next step to ban Ford F-150’s and claw hammers? Virtually every mass shooting takes place in a Gun-Free Zone! If laws were a detterent that wouldn’t be the case. The real question should be why do people want to hurt each other?
Hey, Dennis. It is good to hear from you and know you are still kicking around. I hope you are still enjoying retirement and are healthy. It appears we share a common middle name. I never knew that, until now.
I think you missed my point and misinterpret the gist of my post. As I’ve explained to others, I grew up around guns, still own a couple and do not mind legal, regulated ownership. I drove an F-150 for about 15 years and I always had to know demonstrate I could safely drive it, register it, have a license to drive it and have insurance in case I injured someone with it. How does it make any sense that here in Texas and some other states we can open carry a lethal weapon without a license, without training, without insurance by comparison? I’m complaining about allowing just anyone walking into a gun shop being able to purchase a weapon and one that may be more powerful and more lethal than police officers carry, with only a minimal background check. How often do we hear about a shooter who just purchased a weapon, went out and shot up kids and someone says, “oh, we knew he had mental or social issue”? Surely, we can find a way to sort out these people before they mangle the bodies of 10 year olds. Surely, flags should go up when a teenager purchases two AR-15s, hundred of rounds of ammo, body armor and multiple high capacity mags within a very short period of time just after become of legal age to do so.
By the way, claw hammers have a very limited range and those welding one can easily be taken out from a safe distance, while a shooter with an AR-15 can take out victims and law enforcement from a great distance, well beyond the range of a typical handgun. I’ve not yet heard of a police officer armed only with his service weapon eager to go up against someone armed with an AR-15. The AR-15 projectile will penetrate completely through a police officer’s body armor (both sides) and body. Usually, anyone armed with a handgun (unless a legendary marksperson or exceedingly lucky) that tries to take out a shooter armed with an AR-15 ends up dead.
Your last question is one that we have the most trouble with. We usually find an answer in specific instances too late to prevent the carnage.
But the data is still extremely clear, to ones like us that are used to seeing trends in data, more guns does not translate into fewer gun deaths, rather always to more gun deaths. That point cannot be argued by anyone looking at the simple guns vs gun violence chart. (There are plenty of data sources to back this up). Even if US citizens are somehow inferior to and more insane than those in our peer countries, the conclusion is unavoidable, more guns = more gun deaths. The US has been increasing the number of guns in circulation for decades and the gun violence is not coming down as the more guns is necessary advocates claim.
There are plenty, even more, gun free zones in our peer countries, yet their gun death rates are much lower than that in the US. So claiming that somehow the data is affected by that factor does not hold water.
I promise my next post will not be controversial and I hope you will continue to follow. Your comments (positive or negative) are always welcome.
Best wishes and take care,
Ken