So, I've generally believed that the USA's problem with gun murder was that our society encouraged violence too much, not that we just needed less guns. However, I may have to reconsider.
We have far more (privately owned) guns per person than any other country IN THE WORLD...almost twice as many! See these stats from the Washington Post:
And see what Vox.com thinks: "...once you control for general crime rates and other confounding factors like poverty, "each 1 percentage point increase in proportion of household gun ownership translated to a 0.9 percent increase in homicides."
I know how to fire a handgun and I've practiced at a shooting range. I like having this ability. But, I don't carry a gun around in my daily life. Given all the shootings that have happened recently in our country, I think we need to change something. In the past week, I've heard of THREE shootings:
1) The Planned Parenthood terrorist attack (details)
2) A married couple shot social workers in San Bernadino, CA. (details)
3) Local hate crime in my city of Pittsburgh, PA. (details)
These people shouldn't have easy access to guns...there's got to be some kind of better screening process. And I guess 3 shootings in a week isn't even rare, since the USA currently has 1/day on average.
No comments:
Post a Comment