[ExI] Upon pondering your freedoms

Gary Miller aiguy at comcast.net
Sat Jul 5 21:17:20 UTC 2008


Stuart LaForge said:

>> I would go so far as to issue every man and woman over 18 in the U.S. an
assault rifle to be kept in their home and be trained in in how to use and
maintain it similar to the Swiss model. Vegetius said "Si vis pacem, para
bellum" or "if you want peace, prepare for war", and the Swiss have not had
to wage war since Napoleon. In my America, the 9/11 hijackers would have
tried to seize the plane and a dozen passengers would have drawn handguns on
them and told them to sit down and shut up. The worst that would have
happened is that we would have lost those planes. The price of freedom is
that *YOU* have to watch the watchers. >>

My Response:

I disagree if your suggestion was taken up the worst that could happen is
that the number of accidental firearm deaths in the United States would rise
sufficiently to outnumber the deaths ever incurred by terrorist.

http://www.gunpolicy.org/Topics/Accidental_Shooting.html


In addition many cases of existing road rage, simple assault and domestic
violence would escalate to second degree murder.

It is much easier to psychologically to kill a human being by pulling a
trigger than by other means.  Other forms of attack give the attacker more
time to regain control, consider the consequnces, and be horrified by what
they have started to do.  It is also much easier for innocent bystanders to
be killed in a gun attack, people in a homocidal rage are not known to take
time to aim well.


"During the period 1972 to 2006, the percentage of American households that
reported having any guns in the home has dropped nearly 20 percentage
points: from a high of 54 percent in 1977 to 34.5 percent in 2006"

http://www.vpc.org/studies/gunownership.pdf

During this same period America has experienced a dramatic drop in violent
crime.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F00E5DE1F3EF937A25755C0A9679
C8B63

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States

"In 2000, 174 children (0-18) in the United States died from unintentional
firearm-related injuries. Unintentional injuries are usually caused when
children play with guns or are hunting.

Unintentional injuries from firearms represent less than two percent of all
firearm deaths in the U.S. But of this two percent, children and adolescents
are involved in 55% of these deaths. The majority of the injuries occur to
children playing with or showing the weapons to friends. The easy
availability of firearms is believed to be the number one risk factor for
unintentional firearm deaths."

http://www.childdeathreview.org/causesAF.htm

How many children in the United States were killed by terroists last year?

Based upon these statistics I fail to see how having a gun in everyones
house makes us any safer.




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