courtesy Getty Images
courtesy Getty Images

Half the World’s Gun-related Deaths Occur in Just 6 Countries, Including the U.S.

Oh look, another gun violence study . . .

A new study tracking gun-related deaths found that just six countries, all located in the Americas, accounted for more than half of all firearm deaths worldwide in 2016. The lamentable list was topped by Brazil with 43,200 gun deaths in 2016, followed by the United States (37,200 deaths), Mexico (15,400), Colombia (13,300), Venezuela (12,800) and Guatemala (5,090).

Taken together, those six nations were home to 50.5 percent of global firearm-related fatalities in 2016, a count that includes gun deaths from homicide, suicide and accidents, not war or terrorism. Interestingly, the death rate from gun-related murders, suicides and accidents significantly outpaced gun deaths from armed conflict in all but one year between 1990 and 2016, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, which published the new data in JAMA on Aug. 28, 2018. (That year was 1994, when the Rwandan genocide was going on.)

“This study confirms what many have been claiming for years – that gun violence is one of the greatest public health crises of our time,” said Dr. Mohsen Naghavi, a professor of global health at IHME, in a statement. “There are no simple antidotes to address this health problem. The tragedy of each firearm-related death will continue until reasonable and reasoned leaders come together to address the issue.”

courtesy Google

Bill Banning ‘Ghost Guns’, 3-D Plastic Firearms in NJ Advances in Assembly

More “common sense gun laws”. . .

No Ghost Guns. No 3-D Firearms. And no purchasing any component used in making either of these weapons. Legislation banning the manufacturing of any untraceable or covert firearm was approved by the Assembly Judiciary Committee Monday.

The bill (A-3129)- sponsored by Assembly Democrats Paul Moriarty, Gary Schaer and Annette Quijano – would make it illegal to purchase firearm parts for the purpose of unlawfully manufacturing firearms without a serial number and to manufacture or possess covert or undetectable firearms and 3-D printed firearms.

“Instead of making it harder for criminals to obtain weapons, new technology and mail-order kits are only making it easier for criminals to manufacture firearms at home,” said Moriarty (D- Camden and Gloucester). “Our only recourse is to arm our court system with additional penalties for those who choose to skirt the law, avoid licensure and manufacture these types of firearms to keep or even to sell. We’re saying no to ghost guns, and no to 3-D firearms. Not in New Jersey. ”

courtesy Big League Politics

David Hogg Won’t Denounce Supporter Who Tried to Stab GOP Congressional Candidate

Violence for me and mine?. . .

A prominent gun control activist has refused to denounce one of his supporters who was arrested after attempting to stab a GOP Congressional candidate at an event on Sunday.

“March For Our Lives” is the national demonstration tour organized by David Hogg and his brigade of gun-grabbing teenagers with support of ultra-leftist non-profit Everytown.

Apparently, the violent leftist who tried to kill GOP congressional candidate Rudy Peters was a supporter of Hogg’s movement. Fazeli marked himself as “attending” the March For Our Lives rally in Oakland on March 24. His Facebook message made an appeal to the youth to guide America, hoping they “know a better way.”

courtesy The Hill

Ads Promoting Tougher Gun Regulations Up Significantly from Four Years Ago

The Antis are circling their media wagons . . .

More than 100,000 ads promoting stricter gun laws have aired so far this year, a drastic increase compared to four years ago as Democratic candidates seize on the issue ahead of November’s midterms, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

The news outlet analyzed data from Kantar Media/CMAG data that found 102,636 pro-gun control ads aired from Jan. 1 to Sept. 9, which is 22 times more than the 4,491 pro-gun control ads that aired during the same period in 2014.

Anti-control ads are also up, but not by as large a margin.

House, Senate, gubernatorial candidates and affiliated groups have aired 63,070 ads classified in the data as anti-gun control. That’s a little more than double the 24,194 anti-gun control ads that aired in the same window in 2014, The Wall Street Journal found.

Stag Arms AR-15
courtesy stagarms.com

Salon: Data Confirms Semiautomatic Rifles Linked to More Deaths, Injuries

So let’s bring back the Clinton ban on 1994, because that worked so well . . .

If a shooter uses a semiautomatic rifle instead of another type of gun, it appears to roughly double the chances of victims being wounded and killed.

Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) came to this conclusion about “active shooters”—people who attempt to kill or hurt others with a gun in a populated area—in a paper published Tuesday. The work analyzed more than 200 such incidents in the U.S.

A 1994 federal assault weapons ban prohibited manufacturing, transferring or possessing certain semiautomatic firearms for civilian use. But that legislation expired in 2004, and gun control advocates have since been lobbying hard to reintroduce such limitations alongside other more expansive gun reform.

Semiautomatic rifles, which include assault weapons like the AR-15 and its variants, are relatively easy to operate and capable of firing very quickly. They can be used with large magazines and high-velocity ammunition, and are infamous for causing egregious damage to soft tissue and bone. In recent years mass shooters wielded them in Aurora, Colo., Orlando, Fla., and Newtown, Conn., among other places.”

courtesy Guns.com

Vice: You Can’t Talk About Guns Without Talking About Race

Ever notice the far left tends to “go there” at lightning speed? Maybe they need mirrors . . .

While gun-rights activists often frame firearm ownership as an issue of personal protection, the history of guns and gun control in America tells a different story. Guns equip private citizens with political power over authorities that might otherwise feel freer to constrain their actions. It’s an only somewhat uniquely American concept, born from the founders’ disdain for monarchs and tyranny.

That spirit has persisted in modern times, occasionally finding a target in the alleged tyranny of Americans’ own federal government. Take Cliven Bundy, the right-wing Nevada rancher who faced a $1 million fine in 2014 for willfully flouting federal law and who successfully repelled the government by amassing what amounted to a very well-armed militia. He later spent two years in jail until charges against him—and his sons—were dropped earlier this year after repeated prosecutorial mishaps by the feds ranging from a not-guilty verdict to a mistrial. His status as a fringe folk hero had long been secured.

In August 2017, armed hordes of militiamen came out to the deadly Charlottesville Unite the Right rally, some presenting themselves as mere peacekeepers rather than fellow travelers on the far right. But they probably just served to complicate the police response to what amounted to vicious fighting between white supremacists and counter-protestors over a confederate statue. Meanwhile, the statue at issue is still standing, and while it’s tied up in litigation over whether removing it would violate state law, it’s hard not to conclude the precedent of people wielding guns in its defense helped protect it.

Of course, as with most things in America, owning and using a gun for political purposes is perceived very differently if you’re a person of color.

 

courtesy Chicago Tribune

LEOs at Scene of Shooting Offering Crucial Testimony

Given the current climate in LE this will interest some . . .

Chicago police officers trailed 17-year-old Laquan McDonald for more than half a mile, keeping their distance and buying time.

Even after McDonald punctured the tire of a squad car with a small folding knife, no one threatened to shoot him. Walking slowly down Pulaski Road, McDonald was pinned in by a construction fence to his right and surrounded by a half-dozen squad cars and 10 armed police officers. There was nowhere for him to go.

“We were trying to buy time to have a Taser,” Officer Joseph McElligott testified Monday in a hushed Cook County courtroom. “(McDonald) didn’t make any direct movement at me, and I felt like my partner was protected for the most part inside the vehicle. … We were just trying to be patient.”

McElligott was one of two patrol officers to offer crucial testimony during the first day of fellow Officer Jason Van Dyke’s trial. He is charged with first-degree murder in the October 2014 shooting of McDonald — the first time in decades that a Chicago police officer has stood trial for murder in an on-duty fatality. Police dashboard camera video of Van Dyke shooting McDonald 16 times as the teen appeared to walk away from police roiled the city on its court-ordered release more than a year after the incident.

Tom Selleck Quits NRA Board

Selleck’s publicist, Annette Wolf, confirmed to the Trace that he stepped down, saying that his participation had been minimal: “He has nothing to do with policy. He’s never been active on the board or anything the NRA engages in. He’s almost always been a silent board member.” She followed that up with a statement saying, “Tom Selleck has stepped down from the board of the NRA due to his work schedule. Mr. Selleck remains a member of the NRA.”

58 COMMENTS

  1. In one year there are 600,000+ abortions in the USA alone…let that sink in. One year…every year…in one developed country…600,000+ lives prevented… .
    I am pro-choice and pro2A…just don’t think abortion should be birth control…plenty of other ways to prevent pregnancy.
    And bans don’t work…look at prohibition of alcohol in the USA…FAIL!!!
    Look at the current “war on drugs” since 1969 or so…FAIL!!!
    No way to get rid of all the guns and ammo out there…not and have somewhat free, democratic societies.

    • The amazing thing is that number is down by over half from 20-30 years ago.

      If you don’t think abortion should be used as contraception you oppose 99.99% of abortions. I will agree that just banning something doesn’t magically make it disappear, but such a pernicious practice doesn’t need to be officially condoned either.

      • I propose a grand compromise on abortion. We allow one, one freebie abortion, to anyone far and wide. After that you are forcefully sterilized.

        • Abortion and sterilization in the same procedure (ie, no backing out). The screeching would be earsplitting, but I’ll go along. However, I’m pretty sure this would require an amendment. Who knows, it might pass, given that parts of both sides would support it.

    • So you’d rather have 600,000 welfare leeches born every year. Daddy is off shooting his friends for their shoes. Better get some foodstamps for baby Tywann.

      • Statistically only about 200,000 would have grown up to be welfare leeches or criminals. The rest productive tax payers and maybe even the guy who cures cancer or the common cold, or maybe discovers the secret to cold fusion as the answer to all our energy needs, etc.

        A better way to handle this would be to simply round up all the adult welfare leeches and have them summarily executed without trial in the streets.

        • I would just love to hear what kind of source can tell us what aborted fetuses would have “statistically” grown up to be. Ouija board? Crystal ball? Sounds *extremely* bogus!

        • Larry, that statistic came straight out of my butt. But the actual numbers (if they could be substantiated) wouldn’t change the ultimate truth that executing people for what it’s possible or even likely they are to become is one step beyond ‘thought crime’. The kind of logic that’s used to justify genocide – in this case, of 55 million people and counting.

    • “600,000+ lives prevented”
      No, that should be “600,000+ lives ended”
      Contraception prevents lives, abortion ends lives.

  2. It still AIN’T 1st degree murder. Young LaQuan was on drug fueled crime spree. The cop is guilty of being…a puzzie. No you can’t talk about guns without talking race. Eliminating Chiraq,Baltimore,Detroit,Newark,ETC America is a swell place.

    • I like that they always talk about it as a ‘small folding knife.’ It was a 3 inch blade- not a K-bar but plenty dangerous. I wonder how many reporters would want me to go after them with the 3-inch Gerber I keep in my pocket.

    • Could still be 1st degree murder. I can’t cite it now but I read years ago that courts had ruled that a shooting can go from justified shooting to premeditated murder in less than a half second. Doing a 16 round mag dump would seem to qualify. I’m glad to see the cop facing some consequences for having the attitude that it’s OK to kill fellow citizens.

      • 16 rounds is one sign, to me, but even more important is a dozen cops present and just one begins shooting. Together? I think the boy’s a goner.

  3. If criminals were industrious enough to manufacture their own weapons at home they’d be machinists or welders or some other productive worker instead of criminals.

    • They can use the proceeds of their criminal activities to buy guns from unscrupulous machinists and welders. If third world shops using antiquated tools can turn out functional firearms, imagine what an American shop could do with CNC equipment.

  4. “No Ghost Guns. No 3-D Firearms. And no purchasing any component used in making either of these weapons.”

    Let’s see…

    3-D guns are made with 3-D printers.

    Well, that’s gonna suck for owners of 3-D printers.

    NJ just made spools of filament illegal…

    • It seems to me it’s worse than that. What else do you need to make a ghost gun? Well, let’s see, a fire control group (or drop-in trigger assembly), a barrel, handguard, barrel nut, charging handle, lower parts kit, sights, gas block, gas tube, BCG….read literally, all of these parts would have to be serialized and sold only through a licensed gun dealer to be legal in New Jersey. But wait, THERE’S MORE! Ghost guns include Glock clones and 1911s. Need a part for either? SOL, buddy.

      • The upshot is that if NJ courts find such to be the case, the whole law is highly likely be be found unconstitutional. Then again, if the SC worked right, most of the gun laws in NJ would have been so found a long time ago.

  5. ‘Guns equip private citizens with political power over authorities that might otherwise feel freer to constrain their actions. It’s an only somewhat uniquely American concept, born from the founders’ disdain for monarchs and tyranny.’

    So Vice is pro-monarchy and pro-tyranny and against private citizens with political power over authorities?

    ‘Cliven Bundy… successfully repelled the government by amassing what amounted to a very well-armed militia. He later spent two years in jail until charges against him—and his sons—were dropped earlier this year after repeated prosecutorial mishaps by the feds ranging from a not-guilty verdict to a mistrial.’

    Uh… seriously, Vice? This is the peg you’re hanging your anti- Second Amendment hat on? Somebody you admit is a ‘folk hero’?

    ‘…owning and using a gun for political purposes is perceived very differently if you’re a person of color.’

    Do they have a clue what the origins of American gun control are? To disarm the ‘persons of color’? Yet they approve?

    • They also admit that private citizens held their own against the federal government. Which is contradictory to what they always say about a militia vs. the government.

      Yep, they are perfectly comfortable with Donald Trumps leadership.

      Vice and salon have some exceptionally dimwitted contributors. Unfortunately probably the readers to go with.

  6. Legislation banning the manufacturing of any untraceable or covert firearm was approved…

    LOL! “banning” … “untraceable”…. “covert”

    Good luck with that!

  7. Half the world’s gun deaths occur in the Americas, okay that’d be the western hemisphere, Half the world’s gun deaths occur in the Eastern hemisphere. So all the world’s gun deaths occur on the world. That’s totally unacceptable, hopefully humans can start gun deathing somewhere else.

    • I had the same thought, but in actuality the Americas only contain ~13% of the world’s population, so 1/2 of all gun deaths is significant. I think this is explained by the low rates of civilian gun ownership worldwide (i.e. China & India). If you disaggregated suicide and included gun deaths in war zones in Africa and the Middle East, those numbers would be significantly different.

      • So WTF are you SAYING?? It sounds as though you might be suggesting that it’s possible to make such numbers say whatever you want, almost as though such factoids are completely meaningless!

  8. As far as I know Tom Selleck hasn’t proposed a pay cut, much less dismissal, of Wayne LaPierre in response to his public admission he lied to the membership in 86 in order to achieve the exact opposite of his job. I won’t miss him. More space for Adam Kraut.

  9. “If a shooter uses a semiautomatic rifle instead of another type of gun, it appears to roughly double the chances of victims being wounded and killed…”

    Yeah, there’s a reason that the military uses rifles- they work. It’s why I want one if I’m going to be in a shootout, too.

    Confounding variable: criminals who bring a rifle are planning to get in a gunfight. That intent is going to cause more damage.

  10. It’s too bad Mr. Selleck has quit the board.
    His support among the Hollywood elitists was a great trade.

  11. The history of gun control in North America is the history of violent White supemacism and the efforts of its proponents to create for themselves a “safe working environment”.

    Gun control has always been a way to disarm the disfavored and the despised prior to enslaving or destroying them, be they Blacks, Indians or Jews.

    • Quoting what I’ve heard,” The South made slaves of the black man,, Machines made slaves of us all.”

      • Actually, machines also made slavery both profitable and popular.

        Prior to Eli Whitney’s little gadget for extracting seeds from raw cotton, it wasn’t economical to keep and feed the sheer number of slaves required to process the product by hand, cotton was too expensive to be widely produced and sold at rates people were willing to pay, so slavery was a dying thing. After his device, the number of slaves necessary to produce cotton dropped dramatically, the cost of producing cotton went down, more could buy it and wanted it, and suddenly slavery was a grand idea that turned cotton into a hugely profitable commodity.

        And so it goes.

      • Black men were enslaving each other for thousands (tens of thousands?) of years before the discovery of the new world, and eventually the evolution of the South.

    • What about the British? They tried to disarm the colonists before they tried to to take over here in the U.S. The British citizens are disarmed. Hitler disarmed the German citizens before he tried to take over the world. Non of the three appear to be “race related”. Just power hungry.

      • “What about the British? They tried to disarm the colonists before they tried to to take over here in the U.S.” …British troops attempted to disarm the King’s “subjects”. They weren’t trying to “take over” anything. The colonies were British to begin with. We were British subjects to begin with.

  12. “….that gun violence is one of the greatest public health crises of our time,”

    In the words of Fuhrer Hogg, I call B.S.

    The sum of the all of annual deaths listed in the study is smaller than the number of deaths caused by medical errors in the United States alone.

    Medical errors are a far greater “public health crisis”.

    Of all causes of death in the United States, firearms are implicated in less than 1%. Cancer and heart disesse are the cause of most deaths.

  13. I know why the Left always makes gun rights a race issue: guns are predominantly black! The Left always seems to want control of anything that’s black! 😋

    Though my statement is mostly satirical, I personally think a white or stainless steel frame and slide would look great.

  14. “This study confirms what many have been claiming for years – that gun violence is one of the greatest public health crises of our time,” said Dr. Mohsen Naghavi
    SAID SOME DOCTOR?
    As a doctor I guess he has no interest in the fact that he and his colleagues cause more than double all of these deaths combined… in just the US alone! A minimum of 250K, while all these “gun deaths”(which include suicides, self inflicted harm.) are half of that amount for all 5 countries combined. I guess, as a doctor, this author has a very good reason for ignoring this very much worse problem, since these deaths are his fault, and not able to be blamed on his machines or staff.
    https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-05-03/medical-errors-are-third-leading-cause-of-death-in-the-us
    I guess Dr. Death here doesn’t want people to know about his complicity in far more deaths, and these people went to him for help. But he doesn’t care, so long as the sheep can be distracted by self inflicted deaths, perhaps they will not think about the far greater danger caused by he and the rest of the fake ‘healers’ out there.
    One thing is for certain, he is incorrect. Guns are far down the problem list, unless one cherry picks around all the other BIG problems that he would rather ignore.

  15. “Half the World’s Gun-related Deaths Occur in Just 6 Countries, Including the U.S.”

    I would really like to see the “per so many people” numbers on this… if you look at the total number and not compare it to the population… it can be perceived either way.

  16. Now, I’m no gunsmith, but I’m pretty sure the components that go into an unserialized gun are the same as the ones that go into a serialized one.

  17. “A prominent gun control activist has refused to denounce one of his supporters who was arrested after attempting to stab a GOP Congressional candidate at an event on Sunday.“

    That’s why they want us disarmed. So they can stab us if we run for office. Eureka!

  18. So about this NJ bill…

    “The bill (A-3129)- sponsored by Assembly Democrats Paul Moriarty, Gary Schaer and Annette Quijano – would make it illegal to purchase firearm parts for the purpose of unlawfully manufacturing firearms without a serial number and to manufacture or possess covert or undetectable firearms and 3-D printed firearms.”

    It literally does almost nothing. You just have to put a serial number on guns you make… first one put a “1” second one put a “2”… real easy and so profoundly stupid. And the second part of the bill just restates federal law — it’s already illegal to manufacture an undetectable firearm. 3d printed guns need a certain amount of metal in them to set off a metal detector. We already know that.

    • Too confusing for my little brain. Think I’ll just number all of them 0423. All good, right? Laws as brilliant as banning guns by name, like the AR-15, so you have to change the name to go right on selling them.

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