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Why does America have so many guns?
The Washington Post ^ | 19 December 2012 | Harold Meyerson

Posted on 12/19/2012 7:34:08 PM PST by MinorityRepublican

Compare the rate of murder by gun in the United States to the rate in any other advanced industrial nation, and you’re forced to draw one of two conclusions: Either there are far more homicidal people in this country than just about anyplace else on Earth, or far more guns. We must either be home to more people who succumb to murderous rage or who kill out of the coldest of calculations, or it’s easier to pick up a gun and start shooting here than in any comparable country.

And yet, I’ve never heard even the staunchest gun advocate make the case that Americans are inherently more homicidal than everyone else. They repeat ad nauseum that people, not guns, kill people; but they don’t argue that there’s something about Americans that make them kill more than their counterparts in other nations.

Meanwhile, look at the numbers. In the United States, there are 3.2 gun homicides per 100,000 residents every year. Switzerland has the next highest rate of any advanced Western democracy, at 0.7 per 100,000. After Switzerland, the rate drops to 0.5 in Ireland and Canada; 0.4 in Sweden and Finland; 0.2 in New Zealand, Spain and Germany; 0.1 in France, Britain and Australia; and a flat 0 in Japan.

Want to argue that we have 32 times the rate of dangerous mental illness that they have in Australia? That Americans are characterologically 16 times more murderous than Spaniards or Germans? I thought not.

But in America, people who snap are a hell of a lot more likely to have a gun close by. The rate of gun ownership in the United States is 89 per every 100 people. No other advanced society has a rate even close to that.

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


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: banglist; commieagitprop; gunownership; guns; strawman
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1 posted on 12/19/2012 7:34:12 PM PST by MinorityRepublican
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To: MinorityRepublican

Because the gun is the tool and means of freedom.


2 posted on 12/19/2012 7:35:37 PM PST by chris37 (Heartless.)
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To: MinorityRepublican

Because we fear our government.


3 posted on 12/19/2012 7:36:04 PM PST by 23 Everest (When seconds count. The police are just 23 minutes away. 831 Bonnie)
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To: MinorityRepublican

Marxism kills.


4 posted on 12/19/2012 7:37:04 PM PST by Jim Robinson (Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God!!)
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To: chris37

And government should fear the people.


5 posted on 12/19/2012 7:37:24 PM PST by 23 Everest (When seconds count. The police are just 23 minutes away. 831 Bonnie)
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To: MinorityRepublican

People who snap and lose it probably read articles
like this!


6 posted on 12/19/2012 7:37:26 PM PST by tet68 ( " We would not die in that man's company, that fears his fellowship to die with us...." Henry V.)
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To: MinorityRepublican
Because the economy is bad, and we can't afford to buy more.

/johnny

7 posted on 12/19/2012 7:38:02 PM PST by JRandomFreeper (Gone Galt)
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To: MinorityRepublican

Cuz we can


8 posted on 12/19/2012 7:38:02 PM PST by knarf (I say things that are true ... I have no proof ... but they're true)
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To: MinorityRepublican
The rate of gun ownership in the United States is 89 per every 100 people. No other advanced society has a rate even close to that.

So its not really every blade of grass but it is most blades of grass.
9 posted on 12/19/2012 7:39:36 PM PST by cripplecreek (REMEMBER THE RIVER RAISIN!)
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To: MinorityRepublican

When you take out the major cities, America has a much lower crime rate than most other Western countries.


10 posted on 12/19/2012 7:39:46 PM PST by Jonty30 (What Islam and secularism have in common is that they are both death cults.)
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To: MinorityRepublican

The USA is the arsenal of democracy.


11 posted on 12/19/2012 7:39:46 PM PST by Paladin2
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To: MinorityRepublican

Because fighting aggressors hand to hand is exhausting.


12 posted on 12/19/2012 7:40:23 PM PST by PoloSec ( Believe the Gospel: how that Christ died for our sins, was buried and rose again)
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To: tet68

we are the melting pot of the world that has just about let the rest of the world take us over legally and illegally and we are about to melt down


13 posted on 12/19/2012 7:41:01 PM PST by ldish (Give me Freedom and Liberty or let's kick some a**!)
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To: tet68
To be brutally honest, the corrections are embedded below.

Compare the rate of murder by gun or any other method in the United States to the rate in any other advanced industrial nation, and you’re forced to draw one of two conclusions: Either there are far more black people in this country than just about any other advanced industrial nation, or far more guns.

14 posted on 12/19/2012 7:41:34 PM PST by RugerMini14
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To: MinorityRepublican
Uh, African-American 'rat controlled cities?

Control for that issue and get back to me on homicide rats.

15 posted on 12/19/2012 7:41:48 PM PST by Paladin2
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To: chris37

Unarmed citizens are subjects not free men.


16 posted on 12/19/2012 7:42:03 PM PST by Buddy Sorrell ( Boehner, our Vichy Speaker)
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To: Jonty30

Is that minus their major cities as well?


17 posted on 12/19/2012 7:42:15 PM PST by Theoria (Romney is a Pyrrhic victory.)
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To: MinorityRepublican
Uh, African-American 'rat controlled cities?

Control for that issue and get back to me on homicide rates.

18 posted on 12/19/2012 7:42:22 PM PST by Paladin2
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To: Jonty30

‘When you take out the major cities, America has a much lower crime rate than most other Western countries.’

Ditto!!!!!!!!!!


19 posted on 12/19/2012 7:42:35 PM PST by ldish (Give me Freedom and Liberty or let's kick some a**!)
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To: MinorityRepublican
Why does American have so many bad newspapers?
20 posted on 12/19/2012 7:42:35 PM PST by pabianice (washington, dc ..)
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