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Posted on 05/16/2006 1:08:09 PM PDT by holymoly
GUN violence is a global epidemic that kills an estimated 1000 people a day and stronger international controls on the sale and movement of arms are needed, a report released today said.
"If 1000 people a day were dying of avian flu, the world would sit up and take notice," said the report, published by IANSA, a group of agencies including Amnesty International and Oxfam.
The report was released ahead of the United Nations Small Arms Review Conference, a summit of world leaders to discuss arms legislation that is held every five years and meets in New York next month.
Gun violence, and the heavy toll it takes of human lives, is being ignored, IANSA director Rebecca Peters told reporters.
IANSA estimates that there are about 640 million small arms in the world, 59 per cent of them in the hands of civilians.
As many as 1.8 million people have been shot dead since the last UN review in 2001, it said.
The report said the problem was especially bad in developing countries, where easy access to guns, combined with widespread poverty, often created a lethal situation.
Ms Peters urged the United Nations to impose global regulations on arms distribution and set minimum guidelines for national rules on gun control.
"The conference must stop looking at this in such a fragmented way," she said.
The report recommended international cooperation to control the sale and transfer of firearms.
"The availability and misuse of guns, the high firearm death rates in many parts of the world and the means by which guns are spread around the world, are aspects of a common global problem - the uncontrolled proliferation of small arms," it said.
The perception that there is a difference between legal and illegal weapons is a dangerous fallacy, the report said.
Large numbers of firearms were manufactured legally, then stolen or bought illegally - yet little was done when an arms shipment went missing.
"It should be that when guns move into illegal hands, an alarm should go off," said Ms Peters.
Since governments and higher authorities have not been known to be implicated in deaths by violence, but instead have always promoted peace and goodwill, let's turn complete authority and responsibility over to them for our lives. /sarc.
I thought Darfur alone was losing that many!
You'll have to ask Martin. He's the one with all the gun porn. ;)
Do you guys have any idea how small a percent 1000 is compared to the world population. The control nuts run these up the flagpole just because it make them FEELGOOD!
HEY MARTY!!
This has been gathering steam for months now here at home, decrying everything from police shootings to whackos at rave parties, just turning up the heat on eeeevil gunowners who are the only thing stopping the entire world from linking hands and singing a rousing chorous of 'kumbaya'.
Meanwhile Chavez brays about buying 100,000 real AKs. And the UN said, what, exactly?
The pattern is the same ol' same ol', tinpot Socialist totalitarian dictator with armed hordes: good; free American with a decent squirrel rifle: bad.
All I can say to these squirrels is: Come and get 'em. You might get some, you might even get me, but you won't get 'em all.
Disarm them, Comrades! They are resisting Global Control. They even have the arrogance to claim international borders.
And how many more would die if civilians didn't have guns?
I bet U.N. "peacekeepers" would think twice about raping women and children if their victims were armed.
Since an estimated 3 times that many are killed every day in automobile accidents, shouldn't we do something about the cars first?
So like are those guys in the blue helmets going to go door to door in the USA looking for guns???
Actually, it's 0.0056% of the world's population.
But, your point remains.
In my neighborhood, they would only make to the first door....
My bad, I forgot to drop 2 zero's off of my calculator.
Rebecca Peters BARF ping. Notice the article starts with statistics from "A report". Love the uncited references. What a POS, I hope she rots in hell from the people that would certainly die from her ideas.
Is that all? How many die of malaria?
How about all the machetes and spears,etc.,etc.,that were used on BeelzeBubba's watch to MURDER over 800,000 Rwandans????As rhe GREAT Charlton Heston said:"When They Pry Them From My Cold,Dead,Fingers"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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