Gun Control & RKBA
In reply to the discussion: Survivors of Jan. 8 aid gun controls [View all]DanTex
(20,709 posts)The bogus "centrist" claim that progressives and Democrats are just as dishonest as Republicans and conservatives. That the influence of unions is just as bad as the influence of corporations. That evolution and creationism are both "just theories". Etc.
It's simply not true that the gun control advocacy groups are even close to as dishonest as the NRA. In fact, the whole demonization of the Brady Campaign, VPC is all pretty silly. I'm sure that you can point to some examples of exaggeration, as you can with any group, but nothing even close as the steady stream of absurd lies from Wayne LaPierre about how the Obama administration is running a massive conspiracy to destroy the second amendment, etc.
From what I can tell, the facts and statistics cited here, for example, are correct:
http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence?s=1
DID YOU KNOW? In one year on average, almost 100,000 people in America are shot or killed with a gun.
In one year, 31,593 people died from gun violence and 66,769 people survived gun injuries (National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC)). That includes:
12,179 people murdered and 44,466 people shot in an attack (NCIPC).
18,223 people who killed themselves and 3,031 people who survived a suicide attempt with a gun (NCIPC).
592 people who were killed unintentionally and 18,610 who were shot unintentionally but survived (NCIPC).
Over a million people have been killed with guns in the United States since 1968, when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated (Childrens Defense Fund, p. 20).
U.S. homicide rates are 6.9 times higher than rates in 22 other populous high-income countries combined, despite similar non-lethal crime and violence rates. The firearm homicide rate in the U.S. is 19.5 times higher (Richardson, p.1).
Among 23 populous, high-income countries, 80% of all firearm deaths occurred in the United States (Richardson, p. 1).
Gun violence impacts society in countless ways: medical costs, costs of the criminal justice system, security precautions such as metal detectors, and reductions in quality of life because of fear of gun violence. These impacts are estimated to cost U.S. citizens $100 billion annually (Cook, 2000).