Gun Crazy America

Another 'mass shooting'.  Choose one from the last few months. Most seem to be in America (as long as you don't look elsewhere). Some heads shook slowly in the bars, but not in disappointment and censure. Any of that is reserved for the strange and predictable hypocrites who staged a 'sit in' in the hall of Congress in America's drug capital, Washington DC. Against guns: for gun control. Guns, you see, kill people.

They were all Democrats, in a building guarded by people with... yes, Guns.  And would you believe it, 26 of them owned guns !  Hillary Clinton, a renowned anti-gunner - she famously had to run from a non-existent hail of sniper fire in Bosnia - barely steps into the street without ten armed men surrounding her for her 'protection'.  But she wants to disarm you.

President Obama demands gun free zones everywhere but his kids go to school with armed guards. Do yours? 

Read the newspapers and watch the 'entertainment' dished out by the TV and you would be convinced that the average American is a murderous, gun-freak. But what is the actuality?

Close to home, here in the Tavern, our own Southern Gal 'packs heat'. Well, sometimes. She even bought her husband a fine little 9mm for his birthday - or was it Christmas. I don't think she had murder in mind.

Murder, like everything else has to be put into context. Not excused and not blamed on an inanimate object.

But people are killed, some will say. There are 'mass shootings'. Hmmmm. Yes. 

CDC, FBI: Bicycle and Falling Deaths Far Exceed Deaths from 'Mass Shootings'

Death statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) coupled with crime statistics from the FBI show that bicycle and falling deaths far exceed deaths from “mass shootings.”

 http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2014/10/02/cdc-fbi-bicycle-and-falling-deaths-far-exceed-deaths-from-mass-shootings/

For example, on September 24 the FBI released a study showing there were 64 incidents of “mass killings” (mass shootings) for the years 2000 through 2013. The gunmen in these incidents took the lives of 418 people.

Breitbart News reported that The New York Times and AP jumped all over the study, producing headlines about how “mass shootings” are on the rise and crafting stories that revolved around the attacks at Sandy Hook Elementary and the Aurora movie theater. 

The 418 people who were killed over a 14-year period works out to an average of 29.8 persons a year. 

Remember too that there are well over 300 Million people in the USA. 30 in 300 mil. Do the maths. 

To be clear, no one wants to see even one life lost to tragedy, but the mainstream media’s focus on “mass shootings” to the detriment of other news where hundreds or even thousands more lives were lost is telling. 

For example, the CDC bicycle-related injury report for 2010 shows that almost twice as many people died on bicycles in that one year than were killed in “mass shootings” during the 14 years studied by the FBI.  

Thus, while there were 418 deaths in “mass shootings” from 2000 to 2013, there were 800 deaths by bicycle in 2010 alone.

Moreover, there “were an estimated 515,000 emergency department visits” due to bicycle accidents.

And CDC death statistics for 2010 show there were 26,009 deaths from “falling” for that year alone. That’s right– 26,009 deaths in one year from falls from ladders, counters, roofs, mountains, etc. 

There were an average of 29.8 deaths a year for 14 years from “mass shootings.”.

Still if you can stop just one person from being killed..... you should ban bicycles and forbid falling over. 

Yes, but.... no but.... Oz did it. Innit? 

Indeed Oz did, or John Howard did. In a knee-jerk reaction to a loony setting a world record in shooting 35 people, ordinary Ozfolk were deprived of their guns.  There has not been a mass shooting since. Hmmmm. There hadn't been one before either but heck let's overlook that.

17 Years After Gun Bans in Australia …Police Say Gun Crime is Out of Control

In 1996 Australia unloaded some of the most severe gun bans and gun confiscation programs on record.  And for the guns that were not confiscated gun owners were forced to enter into license agreements and have their guns registered so the government knew what guns everyone had.

Well, they really only knew what guns the law abiding had, since none of the criminals actually followed the program. 

 http://gunsnfreedom.com/17-years-after-gun-bans-in-australia-police-say-gun-crime-is-out-of-control/1010

Fancy that.

Breitbart just reported some interesting developments in Australia that prove all the anti-gun lawmakers wrong.  Gun control does NOT take guns out of the hands of criminals, it only disarms the law abiding, while making everyone less safe.

Because of the out of control crime, Australia law enforcement officials have been forced to carry out recent operations

The New South Wales police commissioner Andrew Scipione had this to say about the spike in gun crime,

“There is no single source of gun violence… guns have fallen into the hands of organized crime, outlaw motorcycle gangs, mid-level crime groups and petty thieves and the lines are often blurred.”

Law abiding, ordinary people don't seem to make the list. 

So it looks like the only ones left with all the guns are the criminals.   

And the gun policies that Australia has enforced are the exact ones that gun control pushers like Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Senator Dianne Feinstein want to see here in the U.S.

Of course they will ignore the real facts behind the issue and overlook the fact that when guns are banned only the police and the criminals will have guns, leaving citizens to fend for themselves when lawlessness like we have seen in Australia starts to rise up.

In the last 12 months alone, over 3,300 people were charged with gun crimes, and over 9,000 guns have been confiscated.

The lesson?  Gun control only [dis]affects the law abiding gun owners.  Criminals are empowered by it.

And where does America and Oz for that matter rank on the world's list of murders? The best measure (as murder is quite a rare occurence) is the number per 100,000 of population per year. 

Bill Whittle gathered those numbers for us. Oh and as we have some Swedish folk who regularly drop by here, Bill has put some sub-titles for you.  

So, let us be mindful.

Fore-warned is (almost) fore-armed.

I have it on authority that Nigel - the big Brexit Fromage - Farage  has suggested that the Great British people should be allowed to own handguns again. 

Blessed are the Peacemakers.

Pax.