*dead unlike like the formidable and incredibly fortunate Gabby Giffords.

You seem to think that eliminating guns will somehow eliminate mass shootings. However, there is zero correlation to the number of legal gun ownerships with the number of homicides. In fact, here are some statistics for you:

At present, a little more than half of all Americans own the sum total of about 320 million guns, 36% of which are handguns, but fewer than 100,000 of these guns are used in violent crimes. And, as it happens, where gun ownership per capita increases, violent crime is known to decrease. In other words, Caucasians tend to own more guns than African Americans, middle aged folks own more guns than young people, wealthy people own more guns than poor people, rural families own more guns than urbanites --> But the exact opposite is true for violent behavior (i.e., African Americans tend to be more violent than Caucasians, young people more violent than middle aged people, poor people more violent than wealthy people, and urbanites more violent than rural people). So gun ownership tends increase where violence is the least. This is, in large part, due to the cultural divide in the U.S. around gun ownership whereby most gun owners own guns for recreational sports (including the Southern Caucasian rural hunting culture, the likes of which aren't found in Australia or the UK or Europe, etc.); and about half of gun owners own guns for self-defense (usually as the result of living in a dangerous environment). Most of the widespread gun ownership in the U.S. predates any gun control legislation and gun ownership tends to generally rise as a response to an increase in violent crime (not the other way around).

There were about 350,000 crimes in 2009 in which a gun was present (but may not have been used), 24% of robberies, 5% of assaults, and about 66% of homicides. By contrast, guns are used as self-defense as many as 2 and a half million times every year (according to criminologist Gary Kleck at Florida State University), thereby decreasing the potential loss of life or property (i.e., those with guns are less likely to be injured in a violent crime than those who use another defensive strategy or simply comply).

Interestingly, violent crimes tend to decrease in those areas where there have been highly publicized instances of victims arming themselves or defending themselves against violent criminals. (In the UK, where guns are virtually banned, 43% of home burglaries occur when people are in the home, whereas only 9% of home burglaries in the U.S. occur when people are in the home, presumably as a result of criminals' fear of being shot by the homeowner.) In short, gun ownership reduces the likelihood of harm.

So, for example, Boston has the strictest gun control and the most school shootings. The federal ban on assault weapons from '94-'04 did not impact amount and severity of school shootings. The worst mass homicide in a school in the U.S. took place in Michigan in 1927, killing 38 children. The perpetrator used (illegal) bombs, not guns in this case.

1/3 of legal gun owners obtain their guns (a total of about 200,000 guns) privately, outside the reach of government regulation. So, it's likely that gun-related crimes will increase if the general population is unarmed.

Out of a sample of 943 felon handgun owners, 44% had obtained the gun privately, 32% stole it, 9% rented/borrowed it, and 16% bought it from a retailer. (Note retail gun sales is the only area that gun control legislation can affect, since existing laws have failed to control for illegal activity. Stricter legislation would likely therefore change the statistics of how felon handgun owners obtain the gun towards less legal, more violent ways.) Less than 3% obtain guns on the 'black market' (probably due, in part, to how many legal guns are already easily obtained).

600,000 guns are stolen every year and millions of guns circulate among criminals (outside the reach of the regulators), so the elimination of all new handgun purchases/sales, the guns would still be in the hands of the criminals (and few others).

The common gun controls have been shown to have no effect on the reduction of violent crime, however, according to the Dept. of Justice, states with right-to-carry laws have a 30% lower homicide rate and a 46% lower robbery rate. A 2003 CDC report found no conclusive evidence that gun control laws reduced gun violence. This conclusion was echoed in an exhaustive National Academy of Sciences study a year later.

General gun ownership has no net positive effect on total violence rates.

Of almost 200,000 CCP holders in Florida, only 8 were revoked as a result of a crime.

The high-water mark of mass killings in the U.S. was back in 1929, and has not increased since then. In fact, it's declined from 42 incidents in 1990 to 26 from 2000-2012. Until recently, the worst school shootings took place in the UK or Germany. The murder rate and violent crime in the U.S. is less than half of what it was in the late 1980s (the reason for which is most certainly multimodal and multifaceted).

Regarding Gun-Free Zones, many mass shooters select their venues because there are signs there explicitly banning concealed handguns (i.e., where the likelihood is higher that interference will be minimal). "With just one single exception, the attack on congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tuscon in 2011, every public shooting since at least 1950 in the U.S. in which more than three people have been killed has taken place where citizens are not allowed to carry guns," says John Lott.

In any case, do we have any evidence to believe that the regulators (presumably the police in this instance) will be competent, honest, righteous, just, and moral enough to take away the guns from private citizens, when a study has shown that private owners are convicted of firearms violations at the same rate as police officers? How will you enforce the regulation and/or remove the guns from those who resist turning over their guns? Do the police not need guns to get those with the guns to turn over their guns? Does this then not presume that "gun control" is essentially an aim for only the government (i.e., the centralized political elite and their minions) to have guns at the exclusion of everyone else? Is the government so reliable, honest, moral, virtuous, and forward thinking as to ensure that the intentions of gun control legislation go exactly as planned?

From a sociological perspective, it's interesting to note that those in favor of gun control tend to live in relatively safe and wealthy neighborhoods where the danger posed by violent crime is far less than in those neighborhoods where gun ownership is believed to be more acceptable if not necessary. Do they really want to deprive those who are culturally acclimatized to gun-ownership, who may be less fortunate than they are, to have the means to protect themselves (e.g., women who carry guns to protect themselves from assault or rape)? Sounds more like a lack of empathy and understanding of those realities to me.

There are many generational issues worth mentioning here. For example, the rise in gun ownership coincided with the war on drugs and the war on poverty. There are also nearly 24 million combat veterans living in the U.S. and they constitute a significant proportion of the U.S.' prison population as a result of sex offenses or violent crime. Male combat veterans are four times as likely to engage violent crime as non-veteran men; and are 4.4 times more likely to have abused a spouse/partner, and 6.4 times more likely to suffer from PTSD, and 2-3 times more likely to suffer from depression, substance abuse, unemployment, divorce/separation. Vietnam veterans with PTSD tend to have higher rates of childhood abuse (26%) than Vietnam veterans without PTSD (7%). Iraq/Afghanistan vets are 75% more likely to die in car crashes. Sex crimes by active duty soldiers have tripled since 2003. In 2007, 700,000 U.S. children had at least one parent in a warzone. In a July 2010 report, child abuse in Army families was 3 times higher if a parent was deployed in combat. From 2001 - 2011, alcohol use associated with domestic violence in Army families increased by 54%, and child abuse increased by 40%. What effect do you think that's going to have, regardless of "gun controls?"
("The War Comes Home" or as William Golding, the author of Lord of the Flies said, "A spear is a stick sharpened at both ends.")

In addition, families in the U.S. continue to break down. Single parent households have a high correlation to violence among children. In 1965, 93% of all American births were to married women. Today, 41% of all births are to unmarried women (a rate that rises to 53% for women under the age of 30). By age 30, 1/3 of American women have spent time as a single mother (a rate that is halved in European countries like France, Sweden, & Germany). Less than 9% of married couples are in poverty, but more than 40% of single-parent families are in poverty. Much of child poverty would be ameliorated if parents were marrying at 1970s rates. 85% of incarcerated youth grew up without fathers.

Since the implementation of the war on drugs, there's a drug arrest in the U.S. every 19 seconds, 82% of which were for possession alone (destroying homes and families in the process). The Dept. of Justice says that illegal drug market in the U.S. is dominated by 900,000 criminally active gang members affiliated with 20,000 street gangs in more than 2,500 cities, many of which have direct ties to Mexican drug cartels in at least 230 American cities. The drug control spending, however, has grown by 69.7% over the past 9 years. The criminal justice system is so overburdened as a result that nearly four out of every ten murders, and six out of every ten rapes, and nine out of ten burglaries go unsolved (and 90% of the "solved" cases are the result of plea-bargains, resulting in non-definitive guilt). Only 8.5% of federal prisoners have committed violent offenses. 75% of Detroit's state budget can be traced back to the war on drugs.

Point being, a government program is unlikely to solve any issues with regards to guns and the whole notion of gun control legislation is severely misguided in light of all that I've pointed out above. In fact, a lot of the violence is the direct or indirect result of government programs (war on drugs and the war on poverty).

(And, you'll note, I made no mention of the recent spike in the polypharmacy medicating of a significant proportion of American children -- including most of the "school shooters" -- the combinations of which have not been studied, but have -- at least in part -- been correlated to homicidal and/or suicidal behaviors.)

Worst he's failed to accomplished is the gun bullshit-We wouldn't have even known about the "create the problem provide a solution" fast-and-furious crap if an agent hadn't been killed-The combination of rhetoric arising from Gifford and Sandyhook fueled the furnace, these are cocky bastards running a game down on the country because they know they can at this stage in the game. Give guns to feral Mexicans. Brilliant you dumb motherfuckers, brilliant. Fuck You. Oh, and now you want my taxes...Fuck you AND a bank.

Kind of tired of this bullshit, people putting words in mouths, behind their own ass...
Didn't call Gifford's a retard, sir. I used the same method as the televised segment, the formula of the media's, bombardment-of-reason campaign for the mind, this same usage of words twisted that you are using now in order to misrepresent me.

Referred to this abject insult to my sensibilities and intelligence called, a fucking senate subcommittee retarded, because they parade children and survivors like Giffords here in front of cameras to push agendas by pushing your emotional triggers.

Then, shall we break down the rest of your squeaking expectorate? Trigger words when reason won't break through the haze in your paradigm fired like bullets.."stupid" "NWO", back to your assumption of me having bullied the woman with derogatory, inflammatory insults-Next, close with a fucking insult, based on what?? Your own bullshit.

Break down your own trip, turn off the fucking television and read some Science Fiction. Sharpen your tool while yer at it?

Why is anyone listening to Alex Jones talk about anything, let alone put him on CNN?

This guy seriously believes that all the recent rampages are somehow staged "False Flag" attacks perpetrated by the Anti-Gun Establishment. Aurora, Gabby Giffords, Newtown. He'd have you believe that the government is programming disaffected teens to trigger into psychotic murderers like the Manchurian Candidate.

Seriously, what the fuck? Put him back on the street-corner with his card-board box and "The End is Nigh" sandwich board.

It's actually not a hypothetical.

This exact same situation happend during the Gabby Giffords shooting. There were two people there with CCW, but they weren't sure was the shooter, so instead of just firing at anyone with a gun, none of the CCW holders fired at all.

That was an actual, real-life event. Sure, it's anecdotal, but who should we listen to; random VS users who don't have any life experience with this, or the people who do?

Ah, I see.

...no actually, I don't follow.>> ^quantumushroom:

The taxocrat-loyal media tried to blame the attack on Gabrielle Giffords by a lone douchebag gunman on Republicans.

The taxocrat-loyal media tried to blame the attack on Gabrielle Giffords by a lone douchebag gunman on Republicans.

>> ^PlayhousePals:

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO =o(


No, no, no....Honey, here's what we do when we disapprove of a viddy...Here, let me show you...

>> ^MycroftHomlz:

For the record... we cured AIDS this year... or at least we probably came as close as humanly possible.
>> ^ChaosEngine:
>> ^Yogi:
>> ^ChaosEngine:
I wish her all the best for a good recovery. She seems like a pretty awesome person, and a much needed voice of sanity in Arizona.
Also she's married to an astronaut. That is an epic family!

If I was their child I'd just give up and commit suicide, there's no living up to their standards. Even if they're somehow those people who go "Your best is all we ask for" GOD I hate that, tiresome overachieving perfect people...AND ANOTHER THING!!!

lol, I was actually thinking the same thing.
"Mom, Dad, I cured cancer!!"
"Really, son? You mean you still haven't cured AIDS? Well, at least you're trying...."




Are you serious? How was this not headline news? Can you provide a link to this?

For the record... we cured AIDS this year... or at least we probably came as close as humanly possible.

>> ^ChaosEngine:

>> ^Yogi:
>> ^ChaosEngine:
I wish her all the best for a good recovery. She seems like a pretty awesome person, and a much needed voice of sanity in Arizona.
Also she's married to an astronaut. That is an epic family!

If I was their child I'd just give up and commit suicide, there's no living up to their standards. Even if they're somehow those people who go "Your best is all we ask for" GOD I hate that, tiresome overachieving perfect people...AND ANOTHER THING!!!

lol, I was actually thinking the same thing.
"Mom, Dad, I cured cancer!!"
"Really, son? You mean you still haven't cured AIDS? Well, at least you're trying...."

>> ^artician:

That is amazing.
Can you imagine the landslide she would win by if she fully recovers and runs for office again?
Pretty cool either way. Very lucky family.


Not to be negative but I don't think she can ever fully recover. But I do think she'll be recovered enough to run for office and be a functioning person...I just think there will always be those scars and struggles that she'll have daily.

>> ^Yogi:

>> ^ChaosEngine:
I wish her all the best for a good recovery. She seems like a pretty awesome person, and a much needed voice of sanity in Arizona.
Also she's married to an astronaut. That is an epic family!

If I was their child I'd just give up and commit suicide, there's no living up to their standards. Even if they're somehow those people who go "Your best is all we ask for" GOD I hate that, tiresome overachieving perfect people...AND ANOTHER THING!!!


lol, I was actually thinking the same thing.

"Mom, Dad, I cured cancer!!"
"Really, son? You mean you still haven't cured AIDS? Well, at least you're trying...."

>> ^ChaosEngine:

I wish her all the best for a good recovery. She seems like a pretty awesome person, and a much needed voice of sanity in Arizona.
Also she's married to an astronaut. That is an epic family!


If I was their child I'd just give up and commit suicide, there's no living up to their standards. Even if they're somehow those people who go "Your best is all we ask for" GOD I hate that, tiresome overachieving perfect people...AND ANOTHER THING!!!

Thanks. That is why I posted it. She is an amazing human being. Her strength of character and how she still shines through what is clearly a diminishment is a powerful gun regulation argument.

Thanks again.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
It's so horrible what she's had to endure. More people should see this. *promote