billeisele

Agree, these are tragic. A lack of training, knowledge and safety. Requiring proof of firearms training is a reasonable requirement but even that won't prevent accidents. The point is that a tiny fraction of gun owners cause these problems. That's not justification to ban firearms.

Yep, should have said guns owned not gun owners. Joe pointed that out and it appears that gun owners may be around 100 million. Thanks for the correction.

Bill - suicide is a major part of that number. According to the National Institute of Mental Health in 2018 guns were used 24,400 times for suicide. Not to minimize that problem but that is a self-inflicted injury. Some may not have happened if a gun wasn't available but poisoning and suffocation are the other top two methods totaling to 20,000. FBI data shows that gun murders are in the 14,000 - 15,000 range, still a big number. That jives with total gun deaths of suicide plus murders, 24,000 + 15,000 = ~40,000 It doesn't seem accurate to put murder and terrorism in the same bucket for comparison. Both are unacceptable problems. The primary points are that guns aren't the problem, and taking guns or restricting access to guns from law-abiding citizens won't solve the gun crime problem.

Please provide the sources for that.

Joe - The stats on gun ownership vary from 270 - 400 million. No doubt it's hard to know the real number. A Pew Research Center study shows 40% of individuals either own a gun or live in a home with a gun. Again, probably another stat that's difficult to track. You are right, it's probably in the range of 25-40% of owners. If the average household is 2 people and 25% own guns then 50% of households have at least one gun. If the average is 1.5 then it's 37.5% of households have one. The women self-defense data came from this paper. Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense with a Gun (americangunfacts.com) Someone else pointed out that this data is flawed. The logic describing the flaw appears valid. It is an unusually high number. The primary point to this data is if guns were the problem there would be a lot more shootings.

You are hilarious. Drawing credible conclusions and analogies is not your forte. Chicago has a problem of their own making. Just look at their restrictive gun laws. A great example of why restricting law abiding citizens from having guns does not work. 300 - 400 million gun owners. If there was a gun problem you would know it. Gun owners and concealed weapons carriers are safer than those that aren't. Let's not forget the 200,000 women that annually defend themselves with a gun. Let's also not forget the number of times someone with a gun kills a criminal. That stopped how many more sheep from being victimized? Guns are not the root problem and taking them away from law abiding citizens won't solve anything.

In the south we say, "well, bless your heart", which means just about anything other than those words.

Perfect response. Exactly perfect. You seem to be trying to draw some kind of conclusion but never get there. Focus on one miniscule thing, while ignoring the other items. No need to check any further since Snopes is the gold label for all facts. Or is it no ability to think about what occurred in the minds of the criminals when they heard that this law was passed. They didn't check Snopes to find out the details. The criminals simply didn't commit crimes in that area because they deemed it to risky. Criminals do not like confrontation where they risk getting hurt. My unresearched explanations, which makes them my opinion, not facts, are: - misuse - too many idiots. And we know that laws do not stop idiots. Idiots leave loaded guns in places that kids and other untrained individuals can get them. Idiots text and drive. Idiots smoke and get lung cancer. Idiots drink and drive. And the list goes on. Last week in Ohio, during a deer hunt, a 63 year old father shot at a moving bush and killed his 28 year old son. He's an idiot. He had years of experience and should have known to identify the target before pulling the trigger. His son was an experienced hunter and didn't have on the required orange clothing. Not good. - gun crimes - because they are criminals and didn't have to use a knife or some other weapon like they do in the UK. Lack of access to guns does not deter crime, it just changes the weapon. But it does leave the victim somewhat defenseless or less able to defend themselves. - suicides - because it's quick, easy and it works. Firearms, poison and suffocation are the top three methods accounting for 93% of suicides. For men over 65 a gun is used 77% of the time. Source CDC. Not having a gun probably would stop some suicides but there are far better ways to reduce suicides than by depriving the other 99.98% of the population the right of self-protection, recreation and hunting. You know, like the 200,000+/- women that annually use a gun to protect themselves.

There are plenty or reliable statistics that show that the root cause is not guns. 61% of gun deaths are suicide. A huge percent of homicides are kids in poverty areas in only 127 cities that hold 25% of the population. Handguns are used in 64% of gun deaths. Rifles are used in 2%. Shotguns in 2%. Sources are FBI & CDC. In the UK guns were banned in 1997. By 2007 the violence rate increased 77% to 2,034 per 100,000 people, that's 2 per minute. The primary weapon is a kitchen knife. In the US it's 466 per 100,000. Sources BBC and UK News Sixty percent of convicted felons state that they would not mess with an armed person. Handguns are the primary self-defense weapon for females. Females use a weapon approximately 200,000 times annually to defend themselves. Let's not reduce guns and increase sexual assault. Sources DOJ, FBI and CDC In states where concealed carry is legal the violent crime rates are reduced 3-9%. With one exception, all US school mass shootings have occurred in states that don't allow concealed carry. Three of the six worst school shootings occurred in Europe where guns are severely restricted. Sources Kleck & Gertz, Wall Street Journal and USA Today Armed Citizens compared to police: there are 800X more gun-owning citizens than police, error rate - citizens 2% police 11%, criminals killed - citizens 1,527 police 606. Sources Bureau of Labor, Newsweek, The Examiner, studies by Marc Gertz and Gary Kleck In 1982 Kennesaw GA passed a law requiring all households to be armed. Crime was reduced 89% as compared to 10.4% in GA. It remains 85% below the national average. Sources Gary Kleck and GA crime stats As long as ignorant people keep using the term "assault rifle" and AR-14, nothing changes. Education is needed. Until we understand and address the root cause nothing will change. It's proven that banning guns doesn't work. Let's start with something no one can argue about. The lack of mental health resources and addressing poverty are not new issues.

Great info. I'm with Fidelity and will use this. Thanks.

No. Illegal aliens and military folks are apples and oranges. The military rarely causes serious issues and they are there with permission. The diplomatic immunity thing is a problem for all countries. However, in this case she didn't have immunity. She left the country before things caught up to her. She should be returned to face the music. But justice is not always perfect. Heck, in my home town a federal judge struck a pedestrian and got away with no penalty. There were a lot of issues in the case: dark, person was in the road, etc., and the judge was savvy enough to know that she only had to go a couple blocks home and have some wine, and nothing could be done. She said she didn't know there was a collision.

We lost a talented young jumper and instructor to an illegal driving the wrong direction on the interstate in the dark. Had "stolen" a car from a room mate and had no insurance. We believe he used the car all the time and the owner claimed it was stolen to avoid liability. An illegal is a criminal and should be treated as such. Yes, the DACA item needs to be examined and addressed. It's a difficult situation for sure.

Yeah, time to take the cars or phones away. Vehicle accidents are the leading cause of death, with cell phone use being the primary cause.

Rudy's press conference today was interesting. As a lawyer he is limited to what he can say and avoid prosecution.

This guys has a different perspective. It does make you wonder. He's either totally nuts or not.

This mess still isn't over. There are about 8900 military votes to count in GA, and 40,000 in PA.. Don't understand why it's so hard to count votes, and move on. Supposedly the votes are scheduled to arrive on the 10th. Crazy.

Yep, I'm waiting on the lecture on the accuracy of the polls and how anyone that didn't believe them is challenged.by math.

Whatever the outcome is I hope it's at least an 8% win. An arbitrary number but that should be enough to stop the arguing about cheating. It's time to move on.

Look forward to reading more. Great work.

Absolutely agree. It moved the needle and provided more insight into the challenges, costs and other issues. It's possible that the way it was done, the - "you can keep your doctor, and you'll have to pass it then read it later", and the mandate - kinda stuff that ticked off a lot of people. One thing it did was allow companies to stop providing healthcare coverage using the excuse that, "the government has a system that covers you now." I know a few folks that lost company coverage back when this started. I haven't followed this much but read a fairly long post on the topic here is SC. There were some people being well served but the majority were stating what their premiums are and their deductible. Both were quite high. The deductibles were $1 - $2.5K higher than mine and I'm on a high deductible plan. With those high premiums and deductible numbers it works if you have significant healthcare issues. I'm on a Board with a guy that is in that industry. He flat out said that the ACA has been a huge money maker for them. Something doesn't make sense. There certainly has to be a better solution.

Joe you may be correct, and I can see why you would say that, but it sure is difficult to really know what's happening. Based on what I've seen it doesn't seem to be that way, but again, it's difficult to discern the truth from the various news outlets.

Jerry - Washington overall has done little on healthcare or homelessness. Bipartisanship in the Senate or House would get the ball rolling. I just don't see Biden as some great force that gets it going.

Whatever happens it will be interesting. We'll hear plenty about illegal voting, lost ballots, and whatever else the losing side can come up with. If Trump wins that will tell us something about the validity of polls. If Biden wins that tells us other things. Both sides will list a whole bunch of excuses or reasons for what happens. It will be interesting to see the reaction in certain foreign countries, if any is allowed by the government. I may be dreaming but whatever happens I hope the political infighting will decrease and the government will get focused on writing a comprehensive healthcare bill that works, addressing homelessness, economic stability, jobs, and other things that are important.

The job of the SC is to rule on constitutionality and should not be political. Barrett has said she will rule based on the law. If they take it up we'll get to see. I sure hope the court gets back to ruling based on the Constitution and not making law.

Well, it's done. How sad it was to watch 48 Senators behave politically. They would have opposed the nominee regardless of the situation just like with the last two nominees. The end of term nomination discussion was just an excuse. Bottom line is the Constitution was followed. Yes it was unusually fast. Yes the Garland thing was bad and should not have happened. Let's hope that the SC returns to what it's supposed to do, and stop making law. That's the job for Congress and they should get to work. If the ACA is found to be unconstitutional then it should be halted. If that happens then complain to your Congressperson about writing defective legislation.