m1garandusa wrote:
About 50% of gun deaths are suicides, and about 25% are gang related. That leaves 25% for self defense, non-gang crimes and police activity. The best estimates are that there are about 2.5 million defensive uses of a firearm every year, though the actual number is probably higher because many people don't report these types of uses, being that in the vast majority of these, the gun is never fired, merely displayed. As a whole, legal gun owners are very law abiding. In Texas, concealed carry permit holders are more law abiding than police, statistics show.
Generally speaking, in the vast majority of hands, guns are safe because most Americans are very reluctant to kill somebody. I tell you this as a 20 year veteran: The US Military spends an incredible sum of time and money teaching soldiers and marines to kill. I don't mean the mechanics of using a gun.... I mean overcoming the American reluctance to kill (yes, I assume several other countries are equally reluctant, but I have no data on them). Some estimates (though debated) say as many as 50% of American GI's would not aim their rifle at another human during combat. They would just fire randomly. Right or wrong, we have to teach GI's to not see the enemy as human if we expect them to reliably pull the trigger. A good reference is the book "On Killing". Some of his methodology has been questioned, and he has a distinct anti-gun bent, but it is an eye-opening read, none the less.
I question the suicide number percentages being gun related, but the inner city street thug killings (including gangs and related ideologies) are higher. Anyplace that is ran by Democrats (big cities) and especially where they banned guns have higher gun violence. There are lots of defensive uses that don't get talked about) but every street thug/police interaction gets plastered on the news to drive people crazy. It's intentional. Meanwhile, every inner city gun crime gets ignored. And, some of those places have strict gun laws in place. Now they demanded the reduction of the police. How is that going to work out?
Speaking of the military, why are the people designated to defend our country not allowed to carry guns? A military base should never be a target of a lone gunman.