Why does America have so many guns?

The Washington Post ^ | 19 December 2012 | Harold Meyerson

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

Back before the 1960s there were no gun laws. Everyone’s pay barely covered the necessities for life.

Now there is extra paper money and people can afford more.

[JRandomFreeper]

Evidently the WP thinks being murdered with a gun makes the victim deader than murder with some other implement of violence.

Jerry Clower, from Liberty, Mississippi could explain how you can't get no deader than stone-cold-dead, right there.

Sorry, that's a southern thing.

/johnny

[CaptainK]

the 2010 General Social Survey showed that 50 percent of adult Republicans owned guns, while only 22 percent of adult Democrats did.

So what. Most of the gun murders are perpetrated by Democrats.

[Route395]

America has so many guns because it’s a guaranteed right in the Constitution...Why do you ask such simple questions???

[Jonty30]

That’s a good question. I don’t know the answer to that, but as many will testify here who dont live in the big cities, they often go months or years between murders.

[Sarah Barracuda]

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh Communists, they are coming out of the woodwork more and more these days. Remember a time where a Commie would hide the fact that they were a Commie..now they are free and clear about their intentions..I guess when you have a Commie in the White House it makes a Commie feel pretty good about themselves. Apparently the 2nd Amendment means nothing to these buffoons

[DustyMoment]

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.

Well, it's a point, but I'm not sure it's a valid one. However, Harold, by the same token, ever hear of Lenin, Mao Ze Tung, Pol Pot? How about Hitler, Mugabe, Idi Amin, Assad, etc., etc., etc.???

The Founding Fathers knew the dangers of a strong central government and intentionally created a system built on the concept of the balance of power.

The balance of power is the reason for the Second Amendment and the balance of power is why so many Americans have so many weapons. To guard against the actions of gun-grabbing nanny-state bedwetters like you and the leftists you love.

It's all about the balance of power, Harold. Get used to it . . . . . . . . . or MOVE to one of those tyrant-controlled nations you seem to admire where the people don't have guns, but the tyrants at the top do!

[MV=PY]

Unarmed citizens are subjects not free men.

Exactly!

[Washi]

Unfortunately for the U.S., we are simply a violent country.

If you disregard gun murders in the U.S., and just take the numbers for all other methods of murder (strangulation, knife, blunt object, etc.) we still have a rate of 1.8 per 100,000.

Compare that to the U.K., where the murder rate of all methods combined, INCLUDING gun murders, is 1.1 per 100,000.

stats referenced and discussed here

So, yeah, these stats show that we have a violent culture, but it also shows that guns aren't the cause. Law abiding gun owners use guns to protect themselves and others from the violent culture.

Oh, yeah, and our founding documents acknowledge that we have the God given right to own guns. Any other argument is moot.

[stuartcr]

We like to shoot guns because it’s fun.

[ctdonath2]

“In the United States, there are 3.2 gun homicides per 100,000 “

Well yeah, limit the stats to a particular tool and the numbers get skewed to where the tool is common. Duh.

[stuartcr]

We like to shoot guns because it’s fun.

[factoryrat]

I'd take wild west American style justice over european-asian style communism any day. It's a difficult trade off between a few suicidal whackjobs vs. Lenin/Hitler/Mao style extermination. All of the massacres commited in America don't hold a candle to all of the slaughter commited by regimes in europe and asia. they have no room to talk, and can STFU as far as I'm concerned. The main difference being we try to prevent those types of wholesale killing sprees from happening here.

[Jack Hydrazine]

[goodnesswins]

So we can make sure other HELL HOLES stay safe....

[doorgunner69]

Hey liberals, subtract out your precious inner city animals from your crime statistics and write about this again.

A bit different light on things now?

[Fzob]

It makes no difference if the murder rate is by guns or other means. If guns were banned there is absolutely no evidence our murder rate would decrease. Our gun murder rate may decrease, but other tools of murders would likely rise.

[ScottfromNJ]

“Compare the rate of murder by gun in the United States to the rate in any other advanced industrial nation”

Notice the use of the word “advanced industrial” to intentionally exclude countries like Mexico that have high gun murder rates even though guns are banned.

[paul51]

Why does America have so many guns?

Because we are the land of the free and the home of the brave

[Alaska Wolf]

people who snap

Lanza did not snap. He meticulously planned and executed mass murder. His is the face of pure, unadulterated evil!