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In reply to the discussion: Hillary Clinton Speaks at Trayvon Martin Foundation, Calls Trump's Gun Policies 'Dangerous' [View all]Uponthegears
(1,499 posts)Let's look at them
"the rest are to be rendered defenseless"
Well that certainly is dramatic, but what I said is that the risk of becoming victims of third-party violent crime faced by the white suburbanites who are LEGALLY introducing hundreds of millions of guns (mostly handguns) into the stream of commerce does not justify purchasing a weapon. Let me extend that remark just a bit. The risk that a white suburbanite will become the victim of violent crime at the hands of a third person is less than the risk that they will die as a result of gun suicide, gun accident, gun-facilitated domestic violence, combined with the additional risk that another person will die because a person has more-easily obtained a weapon for criminal purposes due to the fact of the increased availability of guns created by the increased supply of guns in the stream of commerce. That's a fact. Get over it. (Oh, in response to your absolutist straw man of the "crime free bubble, let me add that I am not saying suburbs are "crime free." I am saying that their crime rate is so low that their risk of non-natural death increases when they bring a gun home from the local gun shop.)
"crime has been dropping steadily with increased gun sales"
Another popular pro-self-protection meme. Unfortunately, the connection has proven not just false, but outright fraudulent. The book "More Guns Less Crime" has turned out to be the greatest example of political fiction in history. Crime rates have dropped for many reasons . . . the prevalence of carry laws is not one of them.
"utter nonsense"
Here's a little test, statistically, European countries with lax criminal laws, strict limitations on gun ownership AND an absence of an equivalent of the American slave trade and the still-persistent pernicious effects which continue to this day, have much lower murder rates (and, even though I will not get into the semantic of game gun aficionados like to pull when the subject comes up, lower violent crime rates) . . . with out using any racially-tinged terms like "homogenous societies" tell me why.
Finally, I have no problem with people who actually live where there is a REAL risk of violent crime buying guns for self-protection, BUT that isn't who is scarfing up weapons like they were Skittles. It's the same people who fled our cities, built white suburbs and schools, and sit in NEAR total safety lamenting how "those people" are out to rob and kill them.