An excellent article in Forbes, which is bad news for our opponents, because it’s not only fear driving the trend:
Other Gallup polls are even more interesting. The number of women gun owners in America has gone up from 13 percent in 2005 to 23 percent today. Also, the number of Democratic households with firearms in their homes skyrocketed from 30 percent in 2009 to 40 percent today.
If they want to know why Obama doesn’t talk about gun control, this is why. They also note other increases, particularly in women, and even some preliminary data that seems to show the long term decline in hunting has, at least for now, reversed itself.
So the truth is basically that sales are up across the board, crime is down, and the Anti’s are just losers with an invalid argument.
So gun control is a losing issue for any candidate, except some big city politicians who are Democrats.
When is support of the DCM going to become a campaign issue? I want a Korean M1 carbine!
Thanks for sharing, Sebastian!
but … but … but … the anti-gunners swear, they swear I tell you! that gun ownership is in a long term decline. Why, they wouldn’t LIE to us, would they?
heh heh heh
And maybe, just maybe, this could be a reason why there is no week in the US without some mass shooting? Guns in the hands of the wrong people have some disastrous effects.
I guess terrorist all over the world, are sitting just back and watching how American simply kill themselves. We don’t need terrorism, we have become our own terrorist.
Overall crime rates have dropped precipitously during this time. Given the overall rarity of mass shootings, and I would point out that even Canada, which has a fraction of our population, has had several in the past decade, I’m not sure the right public policy solution is greater restrictions across the board. Contrary to intuition, gun control doesn’t seem to be any impediment to mass killers.
I can’t speak to National numbers, but I can sure show you what they look like in North Carolina.
http://www.ncgunblog.com/2012/07/17/anyone-care-to-hazard-a-guess/
It must suck to have to base your entire argument on something easily disproven. It must have been a lot easier before AlGore’s Interwebs made the data easily available to anyone with time enough to look. At least 20 years ago you guys could depend upon the media to “Hide the Decline” for you.
I can provide the international numbers with real science behind it: Gun Ownership, Suicide and Homicide: An International Perspective
“”The present study, based on a sample of eighteen countries, confirms the results of previous work is on the 14 countries surveyed during the first International Crime Survey. Strong correlations were found between gun ownership and gun-related as well as total suicide, but that the overall rate of suicide using firearms is low, and homicide rates. Widespread gun ownership has not been found to reduce the likelihood of fatal events committed with other means. Thus, people do not turn to knives and other potentially lethal instruments less often when more guns are available”
Don’t make me break out the Harvard study
“International evidence and comparisons have long been offered
as proof of the mantra that more guns mean more deaths and that
fewer guns, therefore, mean fewer deaths.1 Unfortunately, such
discussions are all too often been afflicted by misconceptions and
factual error and focus on comparisons that are unrepresentative.
It may be useful to begin with a few examples. There is a compound
assertion that (a) guns are uniquely available in the United
States compared with other modern developed nations, which is
why (b) the United States has by far the highest murder rate.
Though these assertions have been endlessly repeated, statement
(b) is, in fact, false and statement (a) is substantially so.”
http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf
Ouch.
Okay, point taken. So then whats the problem in the US if its not availability?
It’s pretty clear to me a or the major factor is “culture”. We have some “inherently” violent subcultures, such as the Scotch-Irish. Blacks in the US also have some things we now thing of as sometimes unique characteristics like language, card games (whist, if I remember correctly), and violence, that they clearly picked up from white Southern cultures.
Compare to the notoriously peaceful Swiss (today, cf. their reputation as mercenaries in the Renaissance era), where every fit male of military age keeps his issue true (capable of full auto) assault rifle at home (unless he’s an office, in which case it’s a handgun).