In the wake of the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history, the gun control conversation has reemerged in full force, even grabbing headlines before the official casualty count was recorded.
The sad truth is that the vast and overwhelming majority of the “facts” used in the current gun control debate are untrue.
And if not completely untrue, then they’ve at least been twisted and manipulated to the point where they are no longer accurate.
The basis of this politically divided conversation is comprised of two seemingly simple thoughts: to restrict or not to restrict?
But there are important and crucial aspects of this conversation that are purposefully being left out, and I would like to reinstate them.
And as such, I would like to have a rational and unbiased discussion about firearms…
The Truth About Gun Violence: The Real Numbers
The fact of the matter is that nothing could possibly be done to stop all gun crimes.
Just like there’s nothing that can be done to end all motor vehicle accidents, cure all cases of cancer, and so on and so forth…
Gun violence is not the “epidemic” that the news media is claiming it as.
Each year, guns are used over 80 times more often to protect a life than to take one.
Similarly, 200,000 times a year, women use guns to defend against sexual abuse.
Firearms are really not as deadly as we’re made to believe. Each year in the U.S., there are:
- At least 50,000 new cases of HIV and AIDS.
- About 90,000 alcohol-related deaths.
- Over 37,000 car accident-related deaths, plus 2.35 million people who are injured or disabled — of which 10,000 are caused by alcohol.
- Around 64,000 drug-related deaths.
- 115,000 deaths caused by pharmaceuticals.
- Around 595,000 deaths caused by cancer.
- Nearly 34,000 deaths are caused by guns, of which 7,000 are drug-related homicides; 22,000 are suicides; a few hundred are accidents, often alcohol-related; and the remainder is in self-defense and from law enforcement.
The numbers speak on their own.
Practicality Vs. Profitable Opportunities
The practicality of firearms and their use in defending the American people’s right to protect their life, liberty, and pursuits of happiness is rarely ever brought up in the gun control conversation.
Especially after a mass shooting, people disproportionately focus on firearms when there are other legal and far deadlier killers that are allowed in our society.
The case in point being tobacco…
Can small paper cylinders filled with tobacco be responsible for more deaths than metal ones filled with bullets? The answer that most don’t wish to hear is yes.
Responders often admonish this as being a “loaded” question. But in reality, the practicality of both elements in question needs to be brought to light.
Despite the negative stigma now associated with firearms, I can think of a few useful and practical purposes for them: personal protection, recreational hunting, and hunting for food (and yes, there are areas in this world and in this country where hunting for food is quite necessary).
On the other hand, I can’t think of any useful and practical purposes for tobacco. Tobacco is still used to line the pockets of corporate heads while quite literally killing its users.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that tobacco has killed more people than both World War I and World War II combined.
So, tobacco is responsible for more deaths than the greatest wars of the 20th century combined, which is an incredible statistic that should do more than just raise a few eyebrows.
Let’s look at a few more statistics…
There are approximately 75 million gun owners in this country. At the same time, there are about 45 million smokers.
Self-inflicted gun deaths (i.e. suicides from guns) account for approximately 19,000 suicides per year. Meanwhile, self-inflicted smoking deaths total 443,000 deaths.
But who really cares that smoking is 38 times more likely to kill the smoker than a gun is to kill its owner? If smokers want to kill themselves, then so what?
The real issue is how many other people are killed by these items.
A madman with a gun killing 59 people and injuring hundreds more is clearly more dangerous than a cigarette. Or at least, that’s what we’ve been made to believe…
In the U.S., approximately 11,000 people are killed each year in firearm-related homicides. In contrast, over 49,000 people are killed each year by secondhand smoke:
As the above chart shows, a smoker is not only 38 times more likely to kill themselves than a gun owner is, but they are also seven times more likely to kill someone else.
So, why not ban tobacco? The reason is money — arguably, why an outright ban is seldom given serious consideration.
Economics rooted in tobacco certainly benefit those directly involved, including governments, who quite literally tax the tar of tobacco while simultaneously letting various elected officials collect lobbyists’ cash.
With all of that involved, the challenge remains: Name one redeeming quality of tobacco.
Firearms, on the other hand, have quite a few redeeming qualities despite their notoriety in the news.
So, is the gun control controversy really valid considering that many more people die annually from tobacco and from other causes?
Proof That Gun Restriction Laws Don’t Work
During the aftermath of the Las Vegas shooting, the White House was flooded with questions about whether or not President Donald Trump would support stricter gun legislation.
Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders didn’t give a definite response to these questions, but her statement showed a White House that was hesitant to create new regulations:
I think one of the things we don’t want to do is try to create laws that won’t stop these types of things from happening. I think if you look to Chicago where you had over 4,000 victims of gun-related crimes last year they have the strictest gun laws in the country. That certainly hasn’t helped there.
Gun homicides in the Chicago rose by 61% between 2015 and 2016.
Pointing to Chicago to suggest that gun control laws simply do not work is not a new talking point. But it is a talking point that many gun control lobbyists refuse to validate.
On the other hand, Kennesaw, Georgia, passed a law in 1982 requiring heads of households to keep at least one firearm in their homes.
The residential burglary rate subsequently dropped 89% in Kennesaw, compared to just a 10.9% drop in Georgia as a whole.
Today, the violent crime rate in Kennesaw is still 85% lower than Georgia’s or the national average.
On average, the response time for police is about six minutes. A lot of damage can be done in that amount of time.
The average draw time for a gun-toting citizen is approximately five seconds. In a recent study published in The Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, 60% of polled felons say that they refuse to mess with an armed victim.
The study also concludes that there is a negative correlation between gun ownership and violent crime (more guns = less crime) in countries internationally, not just in the U.S.
Generally, nations with stricter gun control laws have subsequently higher murder and crime rates than those that don’t.
The Bottom Line
The American government was specifically established for the people and by the people.
The Second Amendment of the American Constitution was created to allow the people the power to protect, change, and even overthrow that government if it impedes the people’s rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
During the 20th century alone, at least 228 million human beings were murdered by their own governments who disarmed them “for their own safety.”
These governments, like Stalin’s Russia for example, all resemble the modern progressive liberals in the U.S. today.
The Second Amendment exists because the founders of this country believed that giving the monopoly on firearms to the state was a prescription for tyranny, and history has proven this to be true.
Is that a risk we wish to take?
That’s all for now.
Until next time,
John Peterson
Pro Trader Today