Heard a priest this weekend claim 30,000 people died of gun violence since Sandy Hook. Anyone have the facts so I can call him on it?
Check the Gun Facts web site for details, but of the 30,000:
a) 61% were suicides
b) Includes justifiable homicides
c) Includes accidents, including hunting accidents
Ask the priest to provide the statistics and his sources.
How about knives, clubs, hands and other methods?
Ask the priest if he needs a license to practice his faith.
This crackpot group, Stop Handgun Violence, claims even more:
http://www.businessinsider.com/billboard-counts-post-sandy-hook-gun-deaths-2013-12
This source claims just over 11,000:
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/12/13/4543142/what-have-we-done-since-sandy.html#.Uq4OL0t29mU
That is about right for deaths by firearm in the US in a year. ... If you include suicides and people lawfully killed by firearms while committing felonies (eg police and civilians defending themselves.) Take those out and the number of wrongful deaths is less than half that. Of course, they won’t talk about the 1 to 5 million legal defensive uses of firearms each year. Take away our ability to defend ourselves and there will be literally hundreds of thousands more violent attacks, rapes, and murders. This is backed by fact. Every place that has enacted strict gun control has seen sharp long term rises in their rates of violent attacks and murders. That’s right lib lurkers, take away guns and there will be more murders. Not a guess, historical fact. What do you think would happen when violent criminals realize their potential victims are suddenly nearly defenseless? Yeah, doesn’t take a genius to figure that one out. So as bad as a few thousand dead are each year, it beats a few tens of thousands dead.
The priest is a liar or ignorant. Take your pick.