The gun nut idiocy is merely making it easier to pass some pretty drastic gun legislation.

I've always noticed that. So a killer meets you on the street. Are you really going to able to say, "Hold on a minute while I get my gun outta my purse?"

When I saw the mother defending her babies quotes yesterday, I was just musing to myself about how often you hear about bands of armed home invaders terrorizing women and children in America....never. Perhaps she has been living in Syria lately.

It baffles why people are so afraid and what they are so afraid of. She would be a good candidate for expanded mental health services, except the people that need them won't be lining up to get them.

Some evidence to refute the most common arguments ~ there are "live links" to more/corroborating info in the original, including the "source" links ~ Sooz

10 Pro-Gun Myths, Shot Down
Fact-checking some of the gun lobby's favorite arguments shows they're full of holes.
—By Dave Gilson | Thu Jan. 31, 2013 3:01 AM PST

By cutting off federal funding for research and stymieing data collection and sharing, the National Rifle Association has tried to do to the study of gun violence what climate deniers have done to the science of global warming. No wonder: When it comes to hard numbers, some of the gun lobby's favorite arguments are full of holes.

Myth #1: They're coming for your guns.
Fact-check: No one knows the exact number of guns in America, but it's clear there's no practical way to round them all up (never mind that no one in Washington is proposing this). Yet if you fantasize about rifle-toting citizens facing down the government, you'll rest easy knowing that America's roughly 80 million gun owners already have the feds and cops outgunned by a factor of around 79 to 1.


Sources: Congressional Research Service (PDF), Small Arms Survey

Myth #2: Guns don't kill people—people kill people.
Fact-check: People with more guns tend to kill more people—with guns. The states with the highest gun ownership rates have a gun murder rate 114% higher than those with the lowest gun ownership rates. Also, gun death rates tend to be higher in states with higher rates of gun ownership.


Sources: Pediatrics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Myth #3: An armed society is a polite society.
Fact-check: Drivers who carry guns are 44% more likely than unarmed drivers to make obscene gestures at other motorists, and 77% more likely to follow them aggressively.
• Among Texans convicted of serious crimes, those with concealed-handgun licenses were sentenced for threatening someone with a firearm 4.8 times more than those without.
• In states with Stand Your Ground and other laws making it easier to shoot in self-defense, those policies have been linked to a 7 to 10% increase in homicides.

Myth #4: More good guys with guns can stop rampaging bad guys.
Fact-check: Mass shootings stopped by armed civilians in the past 30 years: 0
• Chances that a shooting at an ER involves guns taken from guards: 1 in 5

Myth #5: Keeping a gun at home makes you safer.
Fact-check: Owning a gun has been linked to higher risks of homicide, suicide, and accidental death by gun.
• For every time a gun is used in self-defense in the home, there are 7 assaults or murders, 11 suicide attempts, and 4 accidents involving guns in or around a home.
• 43% of homes with guns and kids have at least one unlocked firearm.
• In one experiment, one third of 8-to-12-year-old boys who found a handgun pulled the trigger.

Myth #6: Carrying a gun for self-defense makes you safer.
Fact-check: In 2011, nearly 10 times more people were shot and killed in arguments than by civilians trying to stop a crime.
• In one survey, nearly 1% of Americans reported using guns to defend themselves or their property. However, a closer look at their claims found that more than 50% involved using guns in an aggressive manner, such as escalating an argument.
• A Philadelphia study found that the odds of an assault victim being shot were 4.5 times greater if he carried a gun. His odds of being killed were 4.2 times greater.

Myth #7: Guns make women safer.
Fact-check: In 2010, nearly 6 times more women were shot by husbands, boyfriends, and ex-partners than murdered by male strangers.
• A woman's chances of being killed by her abuser increase more than 7 times if he has access to a gun.
• One study found that women in states with higher gun ownership rates were 4.9 times more likely to be murdered by a gun that women in states with lower gun ownership rates.

Myth #8: "Vicious, violent video games" deserve more blame than guns.
Fact-check: So said NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre after Newtown. So what's up with Japan?

[Sooz comment: there's a chart here in the original accessible via the end link, but no image address to enable posting]
Sources: PricewaterhouseCoopers, Small Arms Survey (PDF), UN Office on Drugs and Crime

Myth #9: More and more Americans are becoming gun owners.
Fact-check: More guns are being sold, but they're owned by a shrinking portion of the population.
• About 50% of Americans said they had a gun in their homes in 1973. Today, about 45% say they do. Overall, 35% of Americans personally own a gun.
• Around 80% of gun owners are men. On average they own 7.9 guns each.

Myth #10: We don't need more gun laws—we just need to enforce the ones we have.
Fact-check: Weak laws and loopholes backed by the gun lobby make it easier to get guns illegally.
• Around 40% of all legal gun sales involve private sellers and don't require background checks. 40% of prison inmates who used guns in their crimes got them this way.
• An investigation found 62% of online gun sellers were willing to sell to buyers who said they couldn't pass a background check.
• 20% of licensed California gun dealers agreed to sell handguns to researchers posing as illegal "straw" buyers.
• The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives has not had a permanent director for 6 years, due to an NRA-backed requirement that the Senate approve nominees.

Icons in gun ownership chart: Handgun designed by Simon Child, rifle designed by Nadav Barkan, shotgun designed by Ammar Ceker, all from the Noun Project

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/01/pro-gun-myths-fact-check

Mother Jones compiled an extraordinarily comprehensive special report from its year-long investigation of gun laws and the rise of mass shootings ~ you can access it at America Under the Gun.

Sooz

Its one of the things that always gets me in trying to talk to people about this issue. So many of them take absolutely no account of the "heat of the moment" type killings. Any one of us can lose it under certain circumstances, but we are lot more likely to kill someone if we can just whip out a gun and shoot them.

The thing about guns isn't that they are the only way to kill someone, but that they are a much easier and quicker way to do it than most other ways.

I am furious.

14-year-old student was shot in the head at an Atlanta middle school Thursday afternoon, WXIA-TV reports.

Texas DA shot dead.

Do we really want this world? Where everyone just shoots everyone they don't like.

You beat me to it, kathy. Just today....that we know of. I'm thinking that the DA probably had a gun. In Texas, I wouldn't be surprised.

When will enough be enough?

Add another today:

http://www.kmbc.com/news/kansas-city/Li ... index.html

Give up.
It`s a couple of hundred per day.

I dunno oskar. Maybe if we post enough on a daily basis, the gun nut deniers will finally see the light! One can hope.

And there is one constant: a gun owner was somehow involved in every single one of those deaths.

The problem being the 3 year old didn't pass his safety course, because we KNOW the gun owner is responsible. Has to be.

Everyone knows the responsible gun owner needs the gun to protect his family.

How Many People Have Been Killed by Guns Since Newtown?

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_ ... oting.html

gub

what

I have a friend who has become a prepper...he made the comment he wanted to buy an assault weapon...I just chuckled at him and went and answered a light. Later he was telling me of all the supplies he's laid back, such as 50 lb bags of rice, etc. I chuckled and made some comment about hoping he didn't get rodents, to which he haughtily replied he didn't have ratsand i chuckled not yet anyway... I then asked him if he was going to have enough food put away for close friends, in-laws, etc. and he grinned and said, "That's what the assault weapon is for!" I got serious fast: "You're telling me you're going to shoot your wife's family or turn them away if they ask for food? Or your close friends? Get real!" He looked troubled--"I don't know..." Crazy world!!!

Did you ask your friend what he was afraid of? I remember the bomb shelters of the Kennedy era. We had stuff in Aunt Sara's basement.

What is this guy prepping for?

Fighting off in-laws from the sound of it.

Yet another tragedy. This MUST be prevented. Charge parents with homicide. Make them do jail time. Send a message that guns must be locked away from little hand.


GREENVILLE, S.C. -- The Greenville Police responded to a shooting at Haywood Plantation Apartments around 7:30 p.m. on Friday night.

A 3-year-old boy named Tmorej Smith was found dead with a single gunshot wound to the head.

Investigators say the child and a 7-year-old sibling were playing with a pink handgun that they thought was a toy when the gun went off.

The shooting has been ruled as accidental. No charges have been filed at this time and the investigation continues.

The funeral for the boy will be on Wednesday at 3:00 at Golden View Baptist Church in Fountain Inn, SC.

Officials are reminding gun owners to keep them locked at all times and out of reach of children.

http://www2.wbtw.com/news/2013/feb/04/3 ... r-5520710/

I wonder if there's a correlation between political affiliation and gun deaths.

Since the Sandy Hook shootings, there have been over 1,500 gun-related deaths in America (according to statistics cited on MSNBC, which I heard a few nights ago).

My guess is that there are more than that.