JPF Home Page Forums General Messages Songwriter Message Forum Where is the morality of the young people going?

There are folks who don't like guns. They would not trust responsible, law abiding citizens with guns. There are folks who would not trust me with a gun, as if the gun were magic. As if the gun itself would suddenly transform me into a wild-eyed, reckless individual, intoxicated by the "magic" gun, who would shoot indiscriminately endangering all in my vicinity. Those same folks will walk out in front of my moving automobile at a crosswalk, simply because they assume that I will responsibly stop at red light or stop sign. They trust me (the same old me who they won't trust with a gun) with an automobile. I guess the automobile is not magic.

Folks also point to gun laws as the cure that will stop burglary and violent crime, yet statistics show that responsible gun owners do a lot to prevent violent crime. The Kleck/Gertz survey found that guns are used for protection 2.5 million times a year. ("Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense With a Gun," Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Fall 1995.) A study for the Justice Department found that 34% of felons have been scared off, shot at, wounded, or captured by an armed citizen, and 40% have not committed crimes because they feared that their potential victims were armed. (James D. Wright, Peter H. Rossi, Armed and Considered Dangerous, 1986.) In 2005, according to the FBI, there were approx. 16,000 murders, total, with guns or not...there would be fewer murders by gun.
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/05cius/data/table_01.html
When you compare that with 2.5 million folks a year who are protected by guns...well...it becomes obvious.

Folks are concerned about accidental gun deaths. I've been around guns all my life and have never had an accident. I shoot weekly with some fellows, none of them have ever had an accident. I have never met anyone personally who has had an accident with a gun. I'm also a safe driver, have driven professionally as a cab driver and a bus driver, but I have been in auto accidents. Almost every driver I know has been in an accident. Accidental gun deaths are already quite low - about 1500 per year. In 2005, there were 43,000 deaths by automobile accident. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-04-20-vehicleaccidents_x.htm
Now, that would mean that if autos saved...uh...carry over the two...adjust for windage....move the decimal place...if autos saved about 4 million people per year, they'd be equal with guns....but wait a minute, guns didn't cause ALL 16,000 murders in 2005, maybe some of those murders were caused...BY automobiles! Whatcha wanna bet? SAVE LIVES, OUTLAW AUTOMOBILES. Or maybe, we should just insist that drivers exhibit (oh, oh, am I going to type this? Yes, yes, I must. It's the only logical conclusion! ) personal responsibility.

All the Best,
Mike

P.S. By the way, Richard, we don't register guns in the U.S., it's unconstitutional. Some areas are trying to outlaw gun ownership itself, that's what the Supreme Court will be decidng on soon, it's the Washington D.C. case. You got the run around from people who didn't know that. States will regulate gun sales, but not among private individuals. In Tennessee, to buy a gun from a gun store, you must be fingerprinted and pass a state background check. The state does not register the gun's serial number, just the sale of a gun. I don't know the law in Indiana.