"Before I started researching gun deaths, gun-control policy used to frustrate me. I wished the National Rifle Association would stop blocking common-sense gun-control reforms such as banning assault weapons, restricting silencers, shrinking magazine sizes and all the other measures that could make guns less deadly.Then, my colleagues and I at FiveThirtyEight spent three months analyzing all 33,000 lives ended by guns each year in the United States, and I wound up frustrated in a whole new way. We looked at what interventions might have saved those people, and the case for the policies I’d lobbied for crumbled when I examined the evidence. The best ideas left standing were narrowly tailored interventions to protect subtypes of potential victims, not broad attempts to limit the lethality of guns."
https://www.gunowners.org/sk0802htm.htm
Fact Sheet: Guns Save LivesA. Guns save more lives than they take; prevent more injuries than they inflict
* Guns used 2.5 million times a year in self-defense. Law-abiding citizens use guns to defend themselves against criminals as many as 2.5 million times every year -- or about 6,850 times a day. [1] This means that each year, firearms are used more than 80 times more often to protect the lives of honest citizens than to take lives. [2]
* Of the 2.5 million times citizens use their guns to defend themselves every year, the overwhelming majority merely brandish their gun or fire a warning shot to scare off their attackers. Less than 8% of the time, a citizen will kill or wound his/her attacker.[3]
* As many as 200,000 women use a gun every year to defend themselves against sexual abuse.[4]
* Even anti-gun Clinton researchers concede that guns are used 1.5 million times annually for self-defense. According to the Clinton Justice Department, there are as many as 1.5 million cases of self-defense every year. The National Institute of Justice published this figure in 1997 as part of "Guns in America" -- a study which was authored by noted anti-gun criminologists Philip Cook and Jens Ludwig.[5]
* Armed citizens kill more crooks than do the police. Citizens shoot and kill at least twice as many criminals as police do every year (1,527 to 606).[6] And readers of Newsweek learned that "only 2 percent of civilian shootings involved an innocent person mistakenly identified as a criminal. The 'error rate' for the police, however, was 11 percent, more than five times as high."[7]
* Handguns are the weapon of choice for self-defense. Citizens use handguns to protect themselves over 1.9 million times a year. [8] Many of these self-defense handguns could be labeled as "Saturday Night Specials."
B. Concealed carry laws help reduce crime
...
C. Criminals avoid armed citizens
Gun ownership for conservatives is less than 50%. Blacks own guns at almost the same rate as whites. Many moderates own guns. Even among liberals gun ownership is 22%.
That means people who blame whites or conservatives for owning guns should also blame blacks and liberals.
http://www.statisticbrain.com/gun-ownership-statistics-demographics/
Demographics of Gun OwnersSex
Male 37 %
Female 31 %Race
White 37 %
Non White 32 %
Black 33 %Conservative 49 %
Moderate 37 %
Liberal 22 %
One woman, three armed men. That is why she needs a high capacity magazine.
http://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/security-video-shows-woman-defend-herself-against-armed-intruders"Woman hiding with kids shoots intruder ... The woman then shot him five times, but he survived, Chapman said. He said the woman ran out of bullets but threatened to shoot the intruder if he moved."
http://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/woman-hiding-kids-shoots-intruder_ntm7s/242785523"Firearms Rights are a Gender Equality Issue too. ... Firearms, especially lower recoiling ones such as handguns, allow any person to wield enough power to stop another person from attacking them."
https://www.learnaboutguns.com/2008/03/19/firearms-rights-are-a-gender-equality-issue-too/
"A Memphis woman protected herself against two men who forced their way into her home last month."
http://www.guns.com/2016/01/13/with-gun-to-her-neck-woman-defends-herself-kills-intruder-video/"A man who attempted to break into a California home twice went down with a bullet in the chest after the female occupant refused to be a victim, KHTS reports."
http://concealednation.org/2017/07/woman-defends-herself-with-handgun-after-home-intruder-comes-back-for-more/"Landrum police said they were called to a local business after a woman said two men tried to rob and sexually assault her, but she scared them off when she fired shots at them."
http://www.foxcarolina.com/story/17327090/landrum-woman-fights-back-after-attack"Pregnant Woman Defends Herself Against Home Invaders By Using A Shotgun"
https://learnaboutguns.com/2008/06/07/pregnant-woman-defends-herself-against-home-invaders-by-using-a-shotgun/"According to a preliminary investigation, a woman was approached by a man who put a knife to her throat demanding her belongings. Police then say the woman reached inside her purse as if she were going to give her wallet but instead grabbed her gun, pulled it out and shot him."
http://www.whas11.com/news/crime/man-injured-after-attempted-robbery-at-downtown-parking-garage/43696086
While the facts support gun ownership, many people are making hateful remarks about gun owners.
Nancy Sinatra wants NRA members to be shot. That would amount to millions of people.
Dear @NancySinatra there are 5 million NRA members Explain why
— Trad American Angel (@RightWingAngel) October 5, 2017
they should be killed. ALL Recent Mass Shooters Were #Dems NOT @NRA Members pic.twitter.com/sUNtctdsO4
http://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/cbs-legal-exec-fired-after-making-comments-critical-of-las-vegas-concert-attendees/343430
Hayley Geftman-Gold, vp and senior counsel in strategic transactions at CBS, wrote just hours after last night’s massacre at an outdoor country music festival, “If they wouldn’t do anything when children were murdered I have no hope that Repugs will ever do the right thing. I’m actually not even sympathetic bc country music fans are often republican gun toters.”Geftman-Gold’s Facebook comments went viral, and CBS terminated her not long after.
If you want to know what causes school shootings, follow the money. The pharmaceutical industry makes tons of money selling psychiatric drugs that cause school shootings.
http://www.cchrflorida.org/antidepressants-are-a-prescription-for-mass-shootings/
Before the late nineteen eighties, mass shootings and acts of senseless violence were relatively unheard of. Prozac, the most well known SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor) antidepressant, was not yet on the market. When Prozac did arrive, it was marketed as a panacea for depression which resulted in huge profits for its manufacturer Eli Lilly. Of course other drug companies had to create their own cash cow and followed suit by marketing their own SSRI antidepressants.Subsequently, mass shootings and other violent incidents started to be reported. More often than not, the common denominator was that the shooters were on an antidepressant, or withdrawing from one. This is not about an isolated incident or two but numerous shootings. The question is, during the past twenty years is the use of antidepressants here a coincidence or a causation?
There have been too many mass shootings for it just to be a coincidence. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed twelve students and a teacher at Columbine High School. Eric was on Luvox, an antidepressant. The Virginia Tech shooter killed thirty-two people and he was on an antidepressant. While withdrawing from Prozac, Kip Kinkel murdered his mother and stepmother. He then shot twenty-two classmates and killed two. Jason Hoffman wounded five at his high school while he was on Effexor, also an antidepressant. James Holmes opened fire in a Colorado movie theater this past summer and killed twelve people and wounded fifty-eight. He was under the care of a psychiatrist but no information has been released as to what drug he must have been on.
Psychiatrists generally will tell you that these people were mentally ill and they weren’t treated in time or didn’t get enough help to prevent the tragedy. However, Dr. Peter Breggin, who is a psychiatrist, stated that depression rarely leads to violence and that it’s only since the SSRI’s came on the market that such mass shootings have taken place.
https://www.lifezette.com/polizette/to-stop-mass-school-shootings-re-think-anti-depressants/
To Stop Mass School Shootings, Rethink Antidepressants
Multiple studies provide substantial evidence that paroxetine has a dangerous effect on young people, may provide clues about how to prevent future tragedies
If you want to know what causes school shootings, follow the money. Journalists know coverage of school shootings causes copycat shootings. But they cover those stories because it increases ratings.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34385059
Research shows that, in fact, mass shooters may be more likely to act when there has recently been a high-profile mass killing, a model more attune to viral infection than pure copycat.
School Shootings Spread Like a Virus. The Media Can Help Stop Them.As researchers at Arizona State University wrote in 2015, “mass killings involving firearms are incented by similar events in the immediate past.” They found that school shootings become more likely in the 13 days following a previous one. The fear is that media exposure helps fuel such “copycat” acts. While the ASU researchers’ conclusion didn’t go that far—it determined only that contagion exists—physicist Sherry Towers, who led the study, admitted, “it appears that yes, national media coverage does end up increasing the frequency of these tragedies.”
If you want to know what causes school shootings, follow the money. Cities refuse to arrest teens so the cities can qualify for federal grant money.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/966854507744374784.html
The Broward County School Board and District Superintendent, entered into a political agreement with Broward County Law enforcement officials to stop arresting students for crimes.5.The motive was simple. The school system administrators wanted to "improve their statistics" and gain state and federal grant money for improvements therein.
...
Initially the police were excusing misdemeanor behaviors. However, it didn't take long until felonies, even violent felonies (armed robberies, assaults and worse) were being excused. ...
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/02/1...fbi-cops-school-but-warning-signs-missed.html
Cruz reportedly had dozens of run-ins with law enforcement prior to Wednesday's shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High dating back to 2010. Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said Friday that there were "20 calls for services in the last few years."
There Is No ‘Epidemic of Mass School Shootings’ By Eric Levitz March 1, 2018
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/03/there-is-no-epidemic-of-mass-school-shootings.html
Criminal victimization in American schools has collapsed in tandem with the overall crime rate, leaving U.S. classrooms safer today than at any time in recent memory.
