Thursday, March 07, 2013

10 Pro-Gun Myths, Shot Down

From Mother Jones, here are 10 myths that gun proponents use and how they are wrong, dead wrong.  Key points:

1. The government can't take away your guns.  Civilians have the Feds and cops outgunned by 79 to 1.  They simply don't have enough firepower to do that.
2. People with guns tend to kill more people with those guns.  States with the highest gun ownership also have the highest gun murder rates.
3. People with guns are more likely to be belligerent than those without them.  In Texas, those with conceald-carry permits were 4.8 times more likely to be sentenced for threatening with a firearm.
4. The number of mass shootings that have been stopped by an armed civilian in the last 30 years....zero.
5. For every time a gun is used for self-defense in a home, there are 7 assaults or murders, 11 suicide attempts, and 4 accidents using guns.
6. Guns don't make you safer. Nearly 10 times more people were shot and killed in arguments than in trying to stop a crime. 
7. Guns don't make women safer. A woman in a high gun ownership state is 4.9 times more likely to murdered by a gun than a woman in a low gun ownership state.  An abused woman is 7 times more likely to be killed if the abuser has access to a gun.
8. Video games don't cause gun violence.  Japan has a higher video game spending per capita than the US.  Gun homicides in 2008 was 11, in the US 11,030.
9. Fewer people are buying guns but those that do buy more. 
10. Current gun laws are not enough.  Forty percent of prison inmates who used guns got them from private sellers who were not required to do a background check.


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