There are around 400 million civilian-owned guns in the US. That’s almost half the entire world’s civilian-owned firearms. The US doesn’t have anywhere close to half the world’s homicides.
With the recent uptick in gun gomocide rates, we reached nearly 20,000 in 2022. That’s obviously very high. But if if we had 20 years straight of those horrifying death numbers, the odds of any specific gun being used in a homicide would still be less than 1/1000.
We have a violence issue in the US, no question, but if 0.01% of guns were used in homicide annually, the murder rate would be doubled. The fact is that the vast, vast majority of gun owners aren’t what you say they are.
I didn’t call them homicidal maniacs. Most gun owners in the US are under educated hateful bigots because most people in the US are. The only convincing stats on what I was talking about would be percentage of gun owners that experienced a home instrusion, had access to a firearm during the intrusion, and did or did not discharge the firearm. I wasn’t able to locate such data but this would be interesting.
American gun owner’s don’t need positive assumptions being made about them in the absence of data.
Just because it’s not a strictly linear increase with the number of guns does not mean they aren’t causative.
In fact, that statistic is deliberately misleading because you can only really murder people with one gun at once, so the more guns you own, the less likely any individual gun is to be a murder weapon.
3-10x the homicide rate, yes. The US has a printmaking with violence, and the presence of guns makes violent people more effective.
But saying that makes gun owners more violent than non-owners on average is a leap. In fact, if American gun owners were more prone to violence than the average person worldwide, the homicide rate in the US would be way, way worse. The fact that the homicide rate is as low as it is despite the incredible number of guns is incredible.
I’m all for increasing regulation in the right places.
Background checks need to be fixed. Fake IDs have a 100% success rate against NICS because it checks against blacklists but doesn’t verify the buyer is a real person. If I want to sell a gun privately, on the other hand, I’m not allowed to run a background check on the potential buyer. WTF?
Straw buyers need to be prosecuted. People who attempt to purchase a gun illegally need to be prosecuted. It’s illegal to attempt, but nobody ever gets arrested for it even though there’s an FBI record at NICS for the attempt.
The actual guns used in most crimes need to be better regulated. ARs are less than 1%. Cheap, disposable handguns designed to be bought in bulk by straw buyers like the HiPoint C9 ($100 9mm murder gun) need to be taken off the market.
We need to end permitless carry in the states that have it. Licensed handgun owners have been shown to me asking the least likely people to break the law. Preachers, police, and teachers all get convicted of murder at like 10x the rate of a Licensed gun owner. So bring back the licenses.
But more importantly, we need to address the social issues that breed violence. Poverty, social stratification, institutional racism that drives people into gangs and drugs because there’s no legitimate path out of poverty.
There are around 400 million civilian-owned guns in the US. That’s almost half the entire world’s civilian-owned firearms. The US doesn’t have anywhere close to half the world’s homicides.
With the recent uptick in gun gomocide rates, we reached nearly 20,000 in 2022. That’s obviously very high. But if if we had 20 years straight of those horrifying death numbers, the odds of any specific gun being used in a homicide would still be less than 1/1000.
We have a violence issue in the US, no question, but if 0.01% of guns were used in homicide annually, the murder rate would be doubled. The fact is that the vast, vast majority of gun owners aren’t what you say they are.
I didn’t call them homicidal maniacs. Most gun owners in the US are under educated hateful bigots because most people in the US are. The only convincing stats on what I was talking about would be percentage of gun owners that experienced a home instrusion, had access to a firearm during the intrusion, and did or did not discharge the firearm. I wasn’t able to locate such data but this would be interesting. American gun owner’s don’t need positive assumptions being made about them in the absence of data.
The US does have a homicide rate 3-10 times greater than other developed countries and a gun death rate 20-50 times greater than other developed countries, and in line with Guatemala, El Salvador etc.
Just because it’s not a strictly linear increase with the number of guns does not mean they aren’t causative.
In fact, that statistic is deliberately misleading because you can only really murder people with one gun at once, so the more guns you own, the less likely any individual gun is to be a murder weapon.
3-10x the homicide rate, yes. The US has a printmaking with violence, and the presence of guns makes violent people more effective.
But saying that makes gun owners more violent than non-owners on average is a leap. In fact, if American gun owners were more prone to violence than the average person worldwide, the homicide rate in the US would be way, way worse. The fact that the homicide rate is as low as it is despite the incredible number of guns is incredible.
I’m all for increasing regulation in the right places.
Background checks need to be fixed. Fake IDs have a 100% success rate against NICS because it checks against blacklists but doesn’t verify the buyer is a real person. If I want to sell a gun privately, on the other hand, I’m not allowed to run a background check on the potential buyer. WTF?
Straw buyers need to be prosecuted. People who attempt to purchase a gun illegally need to be prosecuted. It’s illegal to attempt, but nobody ever gets arrested for it even though there’s an FBI record at NICS for the attempt.
The actual guns used in most crimes need to be better regulated. ARs are less than 1%. Cheap, disposable handguns designed to be bought in bulk by straw buyers like the HiPoint C9 ($100 9mm murder gun) need to be taken off the market.
We need to end permitless carry in the states that have it. Licensed handgun owners have been shown to me asking the least likely people to break the law. Preachers, police, and teachers all get convicted of murder at like 10x the rate of a Licensed gun owner. So bring back the licenses.
But more importantly, we need to address the social issues that breed violence. Poverty, social stratification, institutional racism that drives people into gangs and drugs because there’s no legitimate path out of poverty.