I've published a lot on guns and have listed 17 posts below.** Though I have included a few that mention guns tangentially, I have also omitted a few.
These mass murders constitute only a small fraction of the gun deaths in a year in the U.S. and don't happen very often which is their attraction, I guess. It has been 22 months since the San Bernardino event and 5 yrs since Sandy hook. The TV news media loves these things. MSNBC spent the whole day in saturation coverage on the Las Vega story preempting all their normal programming. Newspapers were better.
Gun deaths from murders, suicides, and accidents approximate the number of automobile deaths in a year and we have accepted both as a routine cost of living in the US.
Gun violence in the United States results in tens of thousands of deaths and injuries annually.[1] In 2013, there were 73,505 nonfatal firearm injuries (23.2 injuries per 100,000 U.S. citizens),[2][3] and 33,636 deaths due to "injury by firearms" (10.6 deaths per 100,000 U.S. citizens).[4] These deaths consisted of 11,208 homicides,[5] 21,175 suicides,[4] 505 deaths due to accidental or negligent discharge of a firearm, and 281 deaths due to firearms use with "undetermined intent".[4] Of the 2,596,993 total deaths in the US in 2013, 1.3% were related to firearms.***
I only publish this item because it is a new variation on a theme.. First of all, is the shooter's age - 64- that is unusual. Second is the extreme measures he took in setting up his attempt complete with surveillance cameras and 29 guns! It is obvious he did not just "snap." He reserved a corner room in a hotel on the 32nd floor. He had to break out the windows of the room to fire his weapons. I'm surprised someone didn't hear the falling glass as the holes are quite large so a lot of glass fell. Lastly, the terrorist not only used semi-automatic weapons but modified them with something called a "bumper stock"*** to simulate an automatic weapon. Apparently this bumper stock can be bought easily for as little as $40, but $99**** is what I found Googling. He also sent his girlfriend out of the country and then wired her $100,000. This was a well thought out plan.
Well, we are not going to give up our guns anymore than we are likely to give up our automobiles. Interestingly, Australia is a country that did give up many of their guns.
Uniform legislation agreed to by all states and territories -- the national government has no control over gun ownership or use -- specifically addressed mass shootings: Rapid-fire rifles and shotguns were banned, gun owner licensing was tightened and remaining firearms were registered to uniform national standards.
In two nationwide, federally funded gun buybacks, plus large-scale voluntary surrenders and state gun amnesties both before and after Port Arthur, Australia collected and destroyed more than a million firearms, perhaps a third of the national stock, according to Professor Philip Alpers of the University of Sydney, who is editor of gunpolicy.org. No other nation had attempted anything on this scale. The national government also banned the importation of new automatic and semiautomatic weapons. And the buyback was paid for by a special one-off tax on all Australians. (http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/19/world/us-australia-gun-control/index.html)
Estimates are that there are 300 million guns in America. All the Federal and state legislation since the Sandy Hook massacre has been to loosen gun laws.
* http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/gun-background-checks-house-234564
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/04/number-senators-voted-against-background-checks-proposal/
** http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2016/01/death-and-injuries-by-guns-in-us.html
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2016/07/guns-guns-guns-again-again-again.html
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2013/09/let-me-see-if-ive-got-this-right.html
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2014/02/actually-guns-do-kill-people.html
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2014/10/deaths-from-domestic-and-foreign-causes.html
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2015/12/can-he-hold-out.html
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2014/04/prey-animals-and-predator-animals.html
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2012/07/what-about-8000-others.html
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2016/01/us-has-most-of-everything-including.html
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2015/06/guns-and-illegal-terrorists-in-america.html
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2013/12/selective-polling.html
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2017/04/trumps-first-100-days-legislation.html
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2017/03/see-what-he-does.html
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2017/02/stock-price-outlook-for-2017.html
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2015/11/usa-nation-of-scaredy-cats.html
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2015/05/if-i-had-to-have-republican-president.htm
*** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States
**** http://www.slidefire.com/l
https://www.gunsamerica.com/blog/bumpfire-systems-stock-review-video/
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