This may be referencing a chart from CNN’s report on Small Arms Survey data, which includes many other statistics making the same point. Here’s another:
This would be much more impactful if it actually balanced it compared to total suicide rates to demonstrate guns create a meaningful increase in suicide. Otherwise viewers will simply thing people are doing the same amount by other methods in other countries
the data is taken directly from the small arms survey site.
Looking at the info graphic about gun related deaths and seeing the staggering amount of suicide by gun is depressing.
Amazing how this topic/narrative surges whenever the chances of leftists and minorities arming themselves and/or actually doing something peak.
So what happened this time? Recent Performative Resistance/“No-Kings Protest” turn-out lower than expected? Higher? Someone show up armed and people talked to them instead of assuming they were a counter-protestor? Police and other local morons particularly brutal in a way the press couldn’t gloss?
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Hmm, why did you exclude Switzerland, Mike?
it’s in there, it’s one of the unnamed blobs. 25 guns per 100 people, .5 deaths per 100 000 people. on par with portugal.
Because Americans don’t know where the continent of Switzerland is?
The vertical axis is labelled “gun homicides”. That’s not a very useful statistic.
Hey, look, it’s divisive rhetoric!
Crimes and violence are caused by unjustified heirarchies, in particular, the ruling class ruling over the working class.
You know what would reduce school shootings? Publicly funded mental health services for young people.
This kind of post is aimed at dividing the working class into two groups, pro-gun, and anti-gun. Refuse to give in to their messaging. Solidarity across the WHOLE working class!
Bingo
Nah dude, I’m sure we will all be drowning in peace once only ICE, police and the US military have all the guns :D
nothing on this comic advocates against publicly funded mental health services
My point is that we can fight together to advance our mutual goals instead of arguing amongst ourselves while the tides of a far greater battle are turning against us.
Fight the ruling class, the rest of our problems will be much easier to solve once they are removed from power.
Sure, but know what else would reduce school shootings?
Less guns.
Would it? Is that the only solution?
Why do Yemen and Switzerland have such high ownership and no school shootings?
Don’t get me wrong, less guns would be good for many reasons. And I think we can get there, eventually. But right now, I have zero confidence that our government is fit to enforce any law fairly. Neonazis are openly running the DoD and ICE, this is not the time to dial back the Bill of Rights.
As well some of those numbers tend to skew. There’s those who have a shotgun as opposed to the images of Republicans during the holidays where everyone in the family has their own AR and we don’t know what else they own.
Which is more likely, funding for better mental health services as a whole or removing guns from the unwilling?
So, Australia doesn’t publicly fund mental health treatment and still hav3 way, way less gun deaths.
We also have way less guns.
You guys have stock standard excuses. None of them are true.
Boy, I bet it’s that simple of a solution and not multifaceted of a problem. Not to mention I don’t think Australia is in the middle of a literal fascist take over, so you know, might as well disarm to be helpless, right? Seriously, the child like mentality of guns being bad when there’s social ills that plague society that results in more violence overall, not just gun violence, is annoying.
That response lacks internal logic.
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The countries I mentioned, including Australia, have a multifaceted solution. Heavy restrictions on weapon ownership. A very strict permit system. A refusal to grant a permit until authorised training has been completed. A valid reason for gun ownership (such as membership in a gun club). Mandatory gunsafe compliance - the police can do spot checks on gun storage without a warrant. These are a suite of Solutions, not a single magic bean that you suggest are impossible, except they are possibly.
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You refer to the likelihood of getting rid of guns because of Trump’s fascist state? Is that the latest excuse? What was the problem before 2016 then?
Look, American gun culture is what it is. It probably is impossible now to reverse things. But own it and don’t keep coming up with all these nonsensical excuses because they work fine in peer countries.
- The multifaceted issues isn’t just low levels of gun control, but rising poverty, severity of poverty, and strong instances of institutional racism. That’s the tip of it. This country is inherently hostile to POC which leads onto…
- If you think this fascist state issue is only Trump then you’re not paying attention and don’t talk to older POC in the USA. Legislation like the Mulford Act is only there to prevent POC from being able arm, protect, and police themselves from the violence of the police.
- This is what gets me, people like you looking in with only a select view not seeing everything in this country. You see what you want to see and make a half-thought up conclusion. Not being white in this country is to have one inherently hostile for you and that marginalizes you. Realistically as well, most gun control is unevenly used against them as well, again refer to the Mulford Act.
Racism and inequality exist everywhere, man. It just does. I’ve seen it in France, Germany, England, Singapore and India. It definitely exists in Australia. If you think guns will fix the problem, or even alleviate it, you will have to show me the evidence, because the US is awash in firearms and things aren’t improving. Especially for POC.
What it boils down to, every damn time, is the idea of American exceptionalism. It won’t work in America because reasons. Even if systems are placed in other countries, and work fine, it won’t work in the states. It is one of the reasons why the US won’t adopt the metric system. Only the US and two third world countries haven’t made the switch. That’s fine, but American exceptionalism has now led you guys into a war that nobody wanted except Israel. Even two thirds of your own country don’t want it. This is not a question of gun control, it’s an issue of talking yourself into a position, and defending it to the literal death of your own people.
I’m not going to try and convince you anymore. It’s no skin off my nose how America runs it’s own country. But Americans aren’t all that special. People in other countries laugh, poop, sleep, cry, drive, walk and sing, etc. Any system can be adopted if the will of the people want it badly enough. And you guys apparently want to be the world leaders in gun deaths per capita, and that’s your decision. But don’t try to blame it on the belief that you are an extraordinary different people. You’ve not.
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How about both? Why do you pretend it’s one or the other?
Give free mental health support AND prohibit guns. Best of both worlds
Oh yes, gun nutters will murder people if you try and take their guns away. They will also just murder people period.
There is no mental help for these terrorists.
I’m a firm believer of firearm ownership, especially for the marginalized groups in the USA right now. That said we need better mental health services and people who have a distinct lack of empathy should not own one to begin with.
Yes, arm both sides like the fascist love to do. Clearly you have the wool pulled over your eyes.
Removal of firearms is also a fascist thing. I’d rather have an armed trans person next to me than a RWNJ. That trans person is higher likely to be mentally stable, trained, and practiced. As well given the targeting of trans people to marginalize them to the point that they can then be exterminated as is the Heritage Foundation’s plan, I’m going to say you have a lousy take.
Giving guns to trans isn’t going to solve the problem and you should be ashamed for suggesting it is anything other than setting people up to be killed. Your take is impossibly dumb.
Right now? Neither.
It would help if you name these countries and their stats. Not giving you homework to do, but it is an empty statement to make after the OP posted actual data.
Happy to accept that the US isn’t a standalone if we see your information.
If we include many other countries, USA will be among the developing nations for high homicide rate due to guns. And I hope you get I’m trying to say because USA is supposed to be a safe and prosperous country. If the gun crime and homicide rate is on par with poorer countries…well…it’s not something to proud of or known as, for the self-declared best country in the world.
Comics like this are just preaching to the choir, and only the ones so fervent they’re blinded by their own self righteousness. It’s so obviously cherry picked and slanted if you’ve looked into the issues at play. It shows no respect for the reader at all, and likely only hardens the opinions of those it disagrees with.
You can’t convince anyone of anything with this kind of trollish virtue signal. It only exists to get the author pats on the back from people in their own camp.
This kind of shitty rhetoric harms the cause. You can’t win hearts and minds with blatant disrespect.
Why all the side issues. Is it true, or not?
If it is true, and I believe that it is, it may explain why you are triggered?
I think it’s lying to try to get people to do a good thing.
Deception destroys credibility.
And it makes fun of people who disagree with it.
It alienates, not converts.
Ok, then what is the truth?
I see no disrespect. I see a good and valid point being made that a huge amount of Americans are oblivious to the obvious.
Do you really think that dismissively talking down to people telling them they’re delusional is the best way or even a way to win hearts and minds?
That is a cherry picked statistic. It is blatant propaganda.
Explain which bit is cherry picked and why? Is it disputed that the US has very high gun ownership and very high gun deaths when compared to other first world countries?
It doesn’t include countries with high gun ownership and low deaths. Gun ownership doesn’t actually necessarily correlate with gun violence. USA is a violent country for various other reasons.
I did a bit of research myself. A few Nordic countries, and New Zealand, have high gun ownership and low gun death rates.
It seems that the difference is that these countries have very high gun regulations, strict purchase and permit laws and restrictions on storage. I’m not an American, but in truth, is this the case in the US? For instance, none of these countries permit handgun open carry. In Australia owning a handgun at all is next to impossible (almost) and the requirements hardly make it worthwhile for target shooters.
You’re totally right
What’s missing here are all the counties where guns are prohibited, period, and where basically there are no gun deaths because doh.
It’s easy to just throw this as “cherry picked” but it’s a basic fact that the US has ab insane amount of gun violence whereas counties with strict gun laws have little gun violence and countries with extremely strict gun laws have practically no gun violence because there aren’t any guns to use to begin with
You bad guns, you ban gun violence, period
The mental health issue that is constantly brought up is a separate issue that should of course also be fixed, it’s just that the US thinks it’s a good idea to have extremely bad mental health support mixed with free guns when you open up a bank account.
Do you care that people are dead, or that guns were used to kill them? Is it okay to do mass murder by bomb or truck?
If you care about deaths, then you make a chart about deaths. If you care about guns, you make a chart about guns.
This is a chart about guns.
The only is a stop a good gun with a guy, is a bad gun with a guy! Two guns! Both guys.
It should be noted that this chart compares gun homicides to gun ownership, which… of course those will correlate
If we plotted kangaroo injuries vs kangaroos per capita, we’d see a similar outlier in Australia
It would be more useful to see gun ownership compared to total homicides, to see if an overabundance of guns correlates with more murders. Even then, though, a correlation between the two might not be casual in that direction. It may instead be that in areas with a high homicide rate, people are more likely to own a firearm for defense.
What you would need to prove is that places with high gun ownership have significantly higher homicide rates, but places with high homicide rates don’t have significantly higher rates of gun ownership
Well for most of the named countries using all homicides versus gun homicides makes little difference.
australia 0.8 belgium 1.08 canada 1.8 france 1.3 portugal 0.72 spain 0.69 usa 5.76
What you should look up is homicides/non-homicide crimes against gun ownership. You will find that the US does not in general have more crime except for homicides.
You also are not going to find a country with anywhere near the gun ownership that the US has, so I suppose your are safe there.
That’s exactly the point! The whole, “it’s the owner, not the gun” argument is dumb. If you have more guns, you have more gun-related homicides – as simple as that.
When the populace don’t have easy access to guns, then that’s one weapon less they can use to hurt others.
My problem with this dataset is, it combines US in one dot, while all other countries crowd at the corner. I failed to see a trend saying “more guns = more gun homicide”.
If there is a chart showing that state by state, presumably regresses to a line, that I can get behind.
Another interesting tidbit is that homicides (among all violent crime) have fallen steadily since 1993 in the US, while firearms ownership has increased.
Don’t think everyone needs or should own a gun. But of course if you compare gun ownership to gun related deaths it’s generally going to be higher when more guns per capita are present. You can do the same thing with cars, lawn mowers, dogs and even vending machines. The more of a thing there is, of course there is going to be more deaths and injuries related to it.
It’d be a good start to just conduct proper tests before handing people firearm permits. People who can barely read or who rage when you honk at them should never be allowed to own, let alone carry firearms.
Finally, proof that homicides cause gun ownership
I know you mean this as a joke but does that not make sense with US history?
A lot of killing causes people to own guns, a lot of guns causes a lot of killings, and repeat.
The chicken or the egg
Yes, just a joke.
I’d have a hard time preparing for a school shooting or similar, simply based on the mere lack of guns in my environment. I think I held an actual gun in my hand once in my life and that was in Murica. And it was a civil war times rifle. Not sure I’d even be able to do a shoot without hurting myself.
The US seems to be a huge outlier on both axes. You would have to exclude it to make any sense of the data.
Don’t worry, they instead excluded countries like Switzerland that have high gun ownership with nonexistent homicide rates. So is all good. Also, including only gun homicides instead of all homicides, as if it is suprising that people use the weapon available to them. I guess as long as people are stabbed to death instead of shot, is all good.
Fucking liberals. It’s a graph showing “gun deaths” which you’re conflating with “murders.” Which is intentional; you’re being deceived, and propagating the deception.
Here’s a simple breakdown from an anarchist responding to this standard milquetoast liberal argument a few years ago:
Guns are not correlated to violence, inequality is.
And according to the defensive gun use (DGU) data The Violence Policy center (which is extremely anti-gun fyi) gives the low range estimates at ~67,000 DGUs per year. Consider this the extreme low:
http://www.vpc.org/studies/justifiable.pdf
FYI most estimates put it far higher, including the CDC:
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwR/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5214a2.htm
http://www.nap.edu/read/18319/chapter/1
Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year…in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008.
http://www.nap.edu/read/18319/chapter/1
http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcdguse.html
So how about guns killing? Statistics show only .0005% of gun owners commit a gun related crime. Best estimates put gun ownership at 37% in America, and that was in 2013, the number today is estimated to be closer to 45% but lets go with the smaller number to do the math conservatively. So America has population of 318 million people. So the number of gun owners is 318,000,000 x .37 = 117,660,000 Source: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/06/04/a-minority-of-americans-own-guns-but-just-how-many-is-unclear/ So we have ~117,660,000 gun owners. What is the latest FBI statistic on violent crime? FBI database shows ~11,000 fatal gun crimes a year. The study linked in the OP including suicides is beyond BS. So 117,660,000 / 11,000= .0000934897 = 99.99065% But there is a problem with this number, it doesn’t take into account illegal gun ownership and assumes the legal gun owners are the ones causing all the crime. This source shows 90% of homicides involved illegally bought or sold guns, or owners who where previously felons: Source: http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcgvmurd.html So for fun lets re-run the numbers to differentiate between criminals and non criminals. Since a felony record disbars you from legally owning a firearm, yet 90% of murders are committed by those with felony records, we know only 10% of murders are committed by legal gun owners. So we have ~11,000 murders, ten percent of which are committed by previously law abiding gun owners. So that is 1,100 murders. So we have 117,660,000 law abiding gun owners commenting 1,100 murders, which comes out to 99.999065% So yes 99.999065% of Legal gun never murder someone. Only .000045% of them become murders. So as you can see, the stats clearly show that guns do not increase the likelihood of violent crime, or cause anyone to be less safe, quite the opposite as the DGU data shows.
So using the high estimates for gun violence, and the low estimates for DGUs, DGUs outnumber use of a legally held weapon in a deadly violence by ~60 times.
Also: https://dx.doi.org/10.1080%2F13504851.2013.854294 & http://cnsnews.com/commentary/cnsnewscom-staff/more-guns-less-gun-violence-between-1993-and-2013
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http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf
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http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13504851.2013.854294
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http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2004/01/using_placebo_l.html
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https://www.nap.edu/read/10881/chapter/2#2
You are just wrong in every way it is possible to be wrong. If you want an even more simple summary, the “moar guns moar death” BS is just hilariously wrong on the face of it. According to the Washington Post, civilian firearms ownership has increased from ~240 million (1996) to ~357 million (2013) (For reference to the figures below, it shows about 325 million guns in 2010). According to Pew Research, the firearms homicide death rate fell from ~6 per 100,000 persons (1996) to 3.6 per 100,000 (2010). So according to these figures, between 1996 and 2010, the number of civilian firearms increased by ~35%. Over the same time period, firearms homicide deaths decreased by ~40%. If you want to focus on ccw specifically, fine that shows the same thing. Rather do murder per 100,000 globally? Sure thing. And that is where you get your GINI connect fyi. The correlation is a lot stronger than gun ownership. This has been looked at and somehow keeps getting forgotten. You don’t pick up a gun to hurt someone because it is your first choice, you generally do it because it is your last. Inequality, desperation, the effects of capitalism in the third world and increasingly the first, drastically increase this.
Real anarchists know this, and know that anything attempt to restrict the rights of the proles is class war.
“i mean, you don’t really think a popular army could challenge the authority of any sovereign great power state like US or China do you???”
I’m sorry but if you think this, you simply do not understand military conflict in the 21st century or historically. Allow me to give you a few examples that will quickly show you the reality of the situation ( which is that the U.S. military stands no chance what-so-ever against even a moderate proportion of the population rising en-mass).
Iraq and Afghanistan: In over 10 years resistance has never been stamped out, in countries with much smaller populations than ours (both <1/10th), despite our massive technological advantages. This is with significant infighting in both countries.
Vietnam: A country of less than 1/10th our population was subjected too more bombing than was used in all of WWII and began the conflict less well armed than the US public is now. We lost handily.
There are countless more examples from all across the globe (From Russia to Nicaragua, From Columbia to Kurdistan, etc.) that unequivocally show armed populations can crush organized militaries, or at the very least resist them effectively for extended periods of time.
This is not even count the even more obvious problem with your statements: Almost 100 million Americans are armed (the number of which would likely grow in this event) armed with over 300,000,000 guns including almost 500,000 machine guns (although to be fair most are sub-machine guns). You’d have to do this with a combined army and police force (including reserves) of a little over 2million (with no desertion or refusal of orders). Mass defection and resistance from within the military and police would be very common. These US soldiers have families and friends in the civilian world, and many (like the oathkeepers) are dedicated to NOT engaging those targets with violence. There would be massive resistance in the ranks, it would be at best chaos. However even if this were NOT the case (which it is) and it was an army of automatons, the sheer number of armed citizens would be so overwhelming as for it not to matter much. That’s not to say any conflict wouldn’t be a BRUTAL and costly affair, but with enough participants from the public the conclusion would be forgone.
An armed proletariat obviously helps to balance the power equation between the public and those in power, to the point that exploitation beyond a certain point and conflict becomes EXTREMELY unattractive to those in power. In a similar manner to nuclear weapons an armed populace acts as a DETERRENT to elite exploitation and violence. In other words this conflict (that the people would likely win all things considered) isn’t likely to occur and for good reason. Those in power squeeze any opportunity to do so as much as they possibly can, and if you give an inch, they take a mile. I wish it wasn’t so but that is just the way they operate. In addition, taking away weapons from the population while leaving them in the hands of the government of almost ANY kind of weapon (AR to SAW to whatever) is a horrible idea, given that the government has proven they are far less responsible than it’s citizens. My entire post gives all the reasons why removing power from citizens and giving it to those in power is a horrific idea with terrible historic consequences.
All revolutions historically had bloodshed, and those in power do not give it up without a fight.
Your guncite links does not work.
[edit] it looks like the guncite links do work, there’s just some broken links to pictures within them; scroll down for text
4,000+ child deaths this year compared to zero everywhere else. Keep telling yourself guns aren’t the problem when it is now the number one killer of children. Impossibly dumb.
“Defensive gun use” is horseshit. Statistics clearly show that owning a gun increases the risk that anyone in the household (including children) will die by homicide, suicide or unintentional injuries. The amount of successful defensive uses of a gun pales in comparison to the number of preventable injuries and deaths that gun ownership brings.
The only defensive weapon is a ballistic shield.
If you actually looked at the statistics, you’d know that’s not the case. Defensive gun use is not horseshit, but being a privileged liberal is.
Guns are a tool of equality for all manner of marginalized and dispossessed people.
How frightening it is that the statistical likelihood of accidental injury goes up for a family when a parent goes from carless to owning a car. It’s bullshit that we don’t have ubiquitous, safe public transit, but it’s also bullshit to demonize the most effective tool for the family’s to thrive in capitalism.
Oh look the liar lies.
Yikes capitalist apologist liberals get real mask off around guns
Oh look another bootlicker for the gun industry.
Sure, just like Guevara, and the anarcho-syndicalists of the CNT, we care for nothing more than the corporations? The fuck. Get class conscious, you’re clearly a boot-licking liberal
Listen, gun manufacturers pushing death on our society is not about class solidarity. Keep telling yourself that as you lick their boots.
no
While the data might be cherry picked, one thing that can’t be displayed here is motivation. In Canada, a decent number of people have guns, but you can’t carry firearms with you, you have to take highly specific routes while transporting any restricted hand guns. The role of guns is sport shooting and hunting and it’s highly regulated for those.
In the USA, guns are intended to be used to kill other civilians. Owning a gun for self-defense purposes is buying with the intention that you may one day use it to kill another human. Not an enemy combatant in war, but a fellow citizen with a gun.
It’s only a feeling, but I feel like that might be the biggest distinction between the USA and other (omitted) high-gun-per-capita countries. Guns in the USA aren’t for mitary drafting or protection against a national invasion.
There’s also the matter of training and licensing. A buddy in the USA was staunchly opposed to gun licensing. When I said that in Canada, it just helps ensure that people know how to maintain their gun and use it safely, he said, “Well the people who don’t take the time to learn how to maintain it and use it safely just shouldn’t get it in the first place”, which I’m sure is a popular enough sentiment, but it’s also the argument for licensing. The zero barrier for entry approach is also a problem.
I’d love to see more nuanced stats than this 4-panel comic is presenting.
Guns in America, to me, are a perfect representation of the fallacy of personal responsibility.
Let’s take a scenario that, while tragic, has happened in the USA; a small boy of less than 6 finds a gun, plays with it, and shoots their baby sibling. The common refrain from responsible gun owners is: “You should’ve kept it locked and trained your family to use it responsibly!”
But who’s “you”? The shooter? The victim? One was killed and one was traumatized. The parent? They didn’t suffer nearly as much as the others.
So it’s not even the only issue where I hear “We need parents to be more responsible!” but simply saying that won’t change the number of drunk deadbeat parents putting zero effort into their children; and potentially leading other real human beings to suffer for it.
You should’ve kept it locked and trained your family to use it responsibly
I don’t get it. Why not just have it locked away in some kind of safe? Why the need for training?
In terms of assigning responsibility, this is an easy one.
“You” refers to the firearm’s owner. Firearm ownership comes with a high degree of responsibility. It means knowing and following the four rules, at least two of which must be broken at the same time for someone to get hurt. It means maintaining a reasonable degree of control over that firearm at all times, whether it’s on your person or being stored.
If anyone is “finding” a firearm, reasonable precautions were not taken to secure that firearm.
These cases all boil down to gross negligence on the owner’s part. Legally and logically, the owner should be the one to suffer the consequences.
Unfortunately, in a lot of cases, the incident gets treated as a “tragedy” and legal consequences do not get applied.
So yeah, haul the parent to court, and then sit the traumatized child down and tell them “Good news! The law has correctly identified the negligent party in this incident. You may be eligible for up to $1mil in damages!”
while he’s sitting there crying over his dead sibling. Better, you want to extend this case to a school shooting? Go announce to 30 parents that “We worked out who is negligent!” You discover common, repeating human ignorance after the fact, and nobody is saved.
The fact that some people in our society are negligent is an expected outcome. That’s why your friend will yell at you one night when you take his car keys away, and then thank you the next day when he’s sober. The point is that society can plan better for that negligence, rather than just pat themselves on the back for spotting it.
I think there is a distinction between responsibility and blame. I don’t think blame is easy to assign here, but responsibility is, the parents are responsible. Doesn’t really change anything after the fact, but I also wouldn’t say that the idea of personal responsibility is a fallacy. But just saying that people should be more responsible doesn’t actually change the situation, you’re right.
I live in Jersey and based on what you’ve written we have similar laws regarding guns, and you’re not going to believe this, but we consistently end up as one of the states with the least gun-related crimes. It must just be some crazy coincidence.
Seeing that reminds me, as atrocious as that is… the numbers are miniscule compared to the biggest killer. Pharma.
