Posted on 07/17/2009 7:32:16 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
SANTA MONICA, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- The biggest importer of small arms in the world isn't a rogue or war-torn nation. It's us, the United States.
According to a report out this month, we are the largest exporter of small arms too, making America the largest small-arms dealer in the world.
The annual Small Arms Survey says the U.S. "continues to drive the global small-arms trade, remaining the largest importer of pistols and revolvers, sporting shotguns and small-caliber ammunition." Indeed, greater demand for small arms in the United States was responsible for 48% of the worldwide increase in imports from 2000 to 2006.
We aren't talking about tanks or missiles here. This isn't about national defense or our military, which by far is the largest in the world, let's not forget. This is about the right to bear arms -- you, me, our neighbors.
The Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, which produces the annual survey says, "Firearms are also important contributors to crime and societal violence. They are used in 40% of homicides worldwide. The prevalence of small-arms misuse, both in conflict and crime, is leading analysts to examine the economic costs of gun violence, in an effort to assess the cost-effectiveness of interventions designed to reduce it."
In other words, small-arms take a tremendous toll on society. Intervention and all-out prevention can mitigate that loss.
To be sure, there are many defenders of people's right to bear arms, most notably the National Rifle Association. The NRA holds itself out as "America's foremost defender of Second Amendment rights."
But what happens when bearing arms actually begins to cost society more than the "right" to bear arms?
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...
Disarming the populace is a recognized difficulty. The leftie globalists, allied with environmental whackos, instead seek to remove the rural landholders from their military advantageous position, the countryside. They call it “food safety” and “carbon tax” etc etc.—most any bill supported by Waxman or Schumer.
The countryside controls transportation (bridges, rail, etc.), water, food,—the essentials. The blue cities are dependent on the red surrounding them. They can’t take our arms, but they will try to take our land and livelihood.
How about this: If governments are supposed to derive their just powers from the consent of the governed (I think I read that somewhere, I think it was in some important document or other...)
And if Guns are SO evil, then maybe the most logical thing would be for the Government to give up it’s guns TO THE GOVERNED First.
HHHHmmmmmm?
Um, Mr. Freedom Hating Leftard,...Sir? I'm afraid I have to take away your First Amendment Exercise License, till you've used that computer of yours to research the ideas of "cause" and "result". Get back to me when you get those and we'll move on to distinguishing between "correlation" and "causality". We call that the "Advanced Course for Liberal Urinalists".
[enemedia]
Gosh, we just don’t have a clue as to why gun and ammo sales are at an unprecedented all time high. Must simply be racism and paranoia about our first black president.
[/enemedia]
And you simply cannot do a “cost/benefit analysis” when you refuse to even acknowledge the benefit side of the analysis.
Yep.
And what would the figures be if they took out the number killed in self-defense?
They make it sound like that 40% is all deliberate killings by small arms
Why the quotes around "right"?
FOAD.
our military, which by far is the largest in the world
Uh, no. So we're supposed to listen to his opinion, too? No sale.
Any honest cost/benefits analysis is thorough about listing all the costs and all the benefits, else it becomes not worth the paper it's written upon. This one isn't.
It's actually not a new approach - the category "gun violence" is such a flim-flam, conflating as it does the cost of crime with the benefit of stopping it and claiming it as all cost. A mugger shoots you, that's gun violence. You shoot the mugger, still gun violence. All bad, all cost. And this is the sort of idiocy that is brought before Congress to write policy.
And well, what do you know...
"...The prevalence of small-arms misuse, both in conflict and crime, is leading analysts to examine the economic costs of gun violence, in an effort to assess the cost-effectiveness of interventions designed to reduce it."
...says the Graduate Institute of Geneva. Continues the author,
In other words, small-arms take a tremendous toll on society. Intervention and all-out prevention can mitigate that loss.
"Intervention and all-out prevention"? What exactly does he mean by this? It doesn't say, but it isn't hard to imagine, especially in view of what he says next:
An overarching societal decision needs to be made...
That doesn't sound much like local policies, even, does it? It gets even more sophistic:
If drugs, crime and healthcare are promulgated by gun use, shouldn't the hard costs of gun ownership be considered?
Certainly, if they're considered honestly. But are, in fact, drug abuse and crime promulgated by gun use? Are they conspicuous by their presence in countries allowing the possession of firearms and by their absence in those not so allowing? Shall we compare the records of the U.S. and Mexico in those regards?
As for the healthcare issue, yes, a criminal shooting a citizen and a citizen shooting a criminal are both a net cost in terms of healthcare resources. If the author intends to imply that making it only possible for criminals to shoot victims will constitute an "overall societal benefit" in terms of healthcare costs he'd better be ready to be laughed off the podium.
Makes me proud. Only thing better would be the largest intermediate caliber arms dealer too.
Domestically conflict free? Try explaining that to the tens of thousands of crime victims. More Americans have died on the streets of the United States since 2001 than on the streets of Iraq, the majority being innocent victims of armed criminals. This reasoning belies a belief that guns are only instruments of war. The author's anti-gun bias is seen by everyone but him.
So?
Never happen.
Most of the world's violence occurs in areas where self defense is illegal and only criminals have guns, Chicago for example.
Go right ahead, needle duck. You'll have to massage the data to get the answer that you want, though. And remember to analyze the cost of not being able to defend oneself with a gun as well.
Environmental rules to make running a gun range impossible.
Hold ammo manufacturers liable for lead in the environment.
These are the same people that will state that the Crime rates are down and yet the prisons are full and not be able to comprehend a connection.
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