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With gun violence down, is America arming against an imagined threat? (+video)
Christian Science Monitor ^ | May 8, 2013 | Patrik Jonsson

Posted on 05/09/2013 12:15:07 PM PDT by neverdem

A Pew study released Tuesday finds that Americans think gun violence has escalated when in reality it's way down from two decades ago. The violence has dropped, meanwhile, even as gun ownership has increased.

Mass shootings, frantic gun-buying, and more Americans legally carrying guns on the street all point to a country fighting a gun violence epidemic, right?

Not necessarily.

As part of a broader trend of declining crime, gun violence in America – while still high relative to other...

--snip--

“The gun prohibition lobby has long promoted this idea that reducing the number of guns is a good idea, that fewer guns are better categorically,” says Dave Kopel, a research analyst at the Independence Institute in Denver. “But here we have a real world experiment which shows the opposite, where we have a huge decline in gun crime at the same time as there’s been an enormous increase in the firearms supply in the United States. It doesn’t prove that the increase in gun numbers or licensed carry caused the decline, but it sure does contest the simplistic theory … that more guns equal more crime.”...

--snip--

And New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns is spending money on ads to put pressure on key Republican and Democratic senators in Arkansas, Alaska, North Dakota, and New Hampshire to change their votes.

But while the Pew findings are dramatic, other polls suggest that Americans’ perceptions about the level of gun violence aren’t necessarily turning into political concern about the trend.

According to a new Gallup poll asking Americans about top legislative priorities, gun control and immigration reform ranked at the bottom of 12 key ideas, with “creating more jobs,” “helping the economy grow,” and “making government work more efficiently” pegged as the top three priorities for the country.

(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Front Page News; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: banglist; bloomberg; guncontrol; maig; secondamendment
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IMHO, I think this rat gun grabbing is a Godsend. The stupid party actually needs this overeach by the rats.
1 posted on 05/09/2013 12:15:07 PM PDT by neverdem
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To: neverdem

is the imagined threat common crime or our government?

There is a double meaning in the article’s title that I am sure is intentional.


2 posted on 05/09/2013 12:17:22 PM PDT by llevrok (2013: - Obama vs America. The new cold war)
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To: neverdem

As far as I know, Communism has been a common enemy all my life.


3 posted on 05/09/2013 12:18:30 PM PDT by mosaicwolf (Strength and Honor)
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To: neverdem
The run on guns and ammunition has nothing to do with a perceived threat from criminals, at least not the garden variety type.

The people that are stocking up are thinking of bigger threats.

4 posted on 05/09/2013 12:18:30 PM PDT by SampleMan (Feral Humans are the refuse of socialism.)
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To: llevrok

Imagined threat? Gun violence is down BECAUSE we’re armed.

Holy hopping hares! Are they REALLY this clueless?


5 posted on 05/09/2013 12:18:56 PM PDT by rarestia (It's time to water the Tree of Liberty.)
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To: neverdem

This is like saying “Why are we vaccinating our kids against polio? Nobody has polio!”


6 posted on 05/09/2013 12:19:38 PM PDT by mwilli20 (BO. Making communists proud all over the world.)
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To: neverdem

Butterfield paradox.


7 posted on 05/09/2013 12:19:48 PM PDT by Perdogg (Sen Ted Cruz, Sen Mike Lee, and Sen Rand Paul are my adoptive Senators)
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To: neverdem
Treat black crime statistics separately, and the US comes in the middle of all those other countries.

Why are blacks so violent?

8 posted on 05/09/2013 12:20:45 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (Islam is a religion of peace, and Moslems reserve the right to detonate anyone who says otherwise.)
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To: neverdem
“The violence has dropped, meanwhile, even as gun ownership has increased.”

And crime and gun violence has dropped MORE in States that passed conceal carry permit legislation than it has in States that did not.

Sort of like if a corrupt town hires a go-getter Police Chief and he makes a lot of arrests - guess what? According to the way they count it - CRIME GOES UP. If a crime goes unreported and a criminal unarrested - it doesn't count towards crime statistics.

Currently violent crime has not been this low since 1963. It peaked in the early 1990’s (IIRC) and has been going down for the last 20 years or so.

9 posted on 05/09/2013 12:21:56 PM PDT by allmendream (Tea Party did not send GOP to D.C. to negotiate the terms of our surrender to socialism)
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To: neverdem

That’s right, Monitor, ignore the media conspiracy to make people think gun crimes are at epidemic levels.


10 posted on 05/09/2013 12:21:56 PM PDT by andyk (I have sworn...eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.)
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To: neverdem

The DNC has won the culture war.

The threat to the working class is real.

US prisons over flow with convicted violent democrats.


11 posted on 05/09/2013 12:22:35 PM PDT by NoLibZone (None here can be puzzled by why Jews walked into the cars so quietly- we are walking up the planks.)
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To: mosaicwolf

I think “totalitarianism” is the threat we’re all concerned about, whether it’s communist, fascist or “other.” We’re all fearful of what will happen when the economy hits bottom and our “friendly” government reaches out to “help” us.


12 posted on 05/09/2013 12:27:48 PM PDT by Bernard Marx
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

That is the million dollar question but one that will never be addressed. If the USA did not have black crime, it would be a paradise.


13 posted on 05/09/2013 12:39:20 PM PDT by Red in Blue PA (When Injustice becomes Law, Resistance Becomes Duty.-Thomas Jefferson)
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To: neverdem
There is always a threat and it isn't imaginary.
14 posted on 05/09/2013 12:40:35 PM PDT by SWAMPSNIPER (The Second Amendment, a Matter of Fact, Not a Matter of Opinion)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum; All

European Murder Rates Compared to the United States: Demographics vs Guns

http://gunwatch.blogspot.com/2013/01/european-murder-rates-compared-to.html


15 posted on 05/09/2013 12:41:08 PM PDT by marktwain (The MSM must die for the Republic to live. Long live the new media!)
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To: neverdem

They got this exactly ass backwards.

Instead it should read that “The states are “disarming” Americans in light of an imagined threat.”

The real threat comes from the state.


16 posted on 05/09/2013 12:43:07 PM PDT by P-Marlowe (There can be no Victory without a fight and no battle without wounds.)
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To: Red in Blue PA

Perhaps CRIMINAL CONTROL is the reason? New York's murder rate dropped like a rock when Giuliani took over. That is because he locked up murderers and criminals who likely would at some point murder. Criminal control, not gun control, saves lives.
17 posted on 05/09/2013 12:45:30 PM PDT by Phillyred
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
” Treat black crime statistics separately, and the US comes in the middle of all those other countries.

Why are blacks so violent?”

You can extrapolate several reasons from the statistics.
A broken family structure (no father/single mother)
The father is missing/effectively displaced by the state as a stabilizing influence.
The state rewards multiple unwed births or offers a convenient way out. See Gosnell case for more info.
Also read “The Making of a Slave”
http://www.amazon.com/The-Making-Slave-Willie-Lynch/dp/1607961431

18 posted on 05/09/2013 12:46:40 PM PDT by Polynikes (What would Walt Kowalski do. In the meantime "GET OFF MY LAWN")
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To: neverdem
With gun violence down, is America arming against an imagined threat? (+video)

Is an armed America driving down gun violence?

19 posted on 05/09/2013 12:47:13 PM PDT by Yo-Yo
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To: neverdem
With gun violence down, is America arming against an imagined threat?
No.


20 posted on 05/09/2013 12:53:23 PM PDT by Bratch
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