I actually do. I enjoy shooting on occasion, though I don't own a gun. One of the most interesting rifles I've shot is an old M1 Garand. So I don't fit the typical "liberal" mold of those who want to eliminate guns. I do enjoy shooting but I think the 'pendulum' has swung too far to the right and is broken. There should be a reasonable position somewhere between where we are today and a repeal of the second amendment. Take a look at some gun statistics. It's shocking how prevalent they are in the US and how many deaths occur.
There were 3,438 civilian deaths in Afghanistan due to the war in 2017.
https://www.voanews.com/a/un-afghanista ... 55856.htmlPopulation of Afghanistan: 34,660,000
https://www.google.com/search?ei=MLyFWt ... Smw44pNM-0That’s 1 out of 10,081 people killed in Afghanistan last year due to the war.
There were 33,636 civilian deaths during 2013 in the US due to guns.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_viole ... ted_StatesPopulation of US: 323,100,000
https://www.google.com/search?source=hp ... -6lrcTYkMUThat’s 1 out of 9,606 people killed in USA due to guns.
So as a citizen living in the US, you are more likely to be killed by gunfire than a citizen living in Afghanistan.
We should stop worrying about ISIS and the Taliban, and start worrying about our own US citizens. They are much better armed and dangerous.
Gun ownership per capita:
The US has the most with 101 guns per 100 people in the USA.
Serbia is a distant second with 58 guns per 100.
Yemen is third with 55 guns per 100.
There’s another significant drop to the fourth country in the world where Cyprus has 36 per 100.
There are only 4.6 guns per 100 people in Afghanistan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated ... by_countryWhy don’t people in the US have balls enough to live without guns? Why all the fear? One thing the NRA suggests is that people should have guns to protect themselves from other 'bad' people with guns. People don’t trust 'the bad guys' that have guns, but the vast majority of people killed by guns in the US are not killed by ‘bad guys’ with guns. These deaths are committed by people like you and me. Accidents, anger and impulsive decisions take the lives of far too many.
One of the largest categories is suicide. Sadly, we treat the depressed and suicidal like pets we no longer want. We have no compassion for those who ‘put themselves to sleep’ and we make false claims about them such as ‘they will find a way to kill themselves’ so their lives are no longer of any value. And yet, we have solid evidence that shows that if we can intervene and prevent those suicides just as they are about to occur, the chances that these people will try again are essentially zero. Suicide is an ‘impulse buy’, purchased on a whim when depression has claimed just a tiny bit too much influence. There's a nice summary of this in SciAm.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... -suicides/Someone named Erica Buist wrote:
"Why not just ban guns and when people are upset about it, just send them thoughts and prayers? If "thoughts and prayers" are good enough for people who've lost their families then it's good enough for people who've lost their guns."
Feel free to share your own gun statistics, but back up what you provide.