I posted a comment to that blog, pointing out a couple of factual errors, WITH a link so people can check out what I'm saying.
I doubt it'll get published, but at least the blog owner will know that some people know s/he is a lying sack of...
renoglock22 said:
I want to know where they get their stats from. I mean come on, "it's the law abiding citizens with guns committing homicides" WTF.
It claims some stats from the FBI:
Over 50% of U.S. gun homicides are due to arguments not criminals. (FBI Annual Uniform Crime Reports).
Technically, almost all homicides are due to criminals. Only the justifiable ones aren't (self-defense & lawful police action). If someone is committing a homicide (non-justifiable) s/he is by definition a criminal.
Looking at the
2010 FBI Violent Crime Report,
the total
murders blamed on "arguments" is 3,396, out of a total victim count of 12,996. That's 26%.
If you throw in "romantic triangle" & "brawls" it's 3665 for 28%.
They
could accurately say that 2/3 of murders in 2010 were by firearm (8737 / 12946).
So taking 2/3 of 3665 is 2456, for 19%.
That's a far cry from the blogger's claim of "over 50%".
See how bad people in the US have gotten in math?
The only category that is marked as having anything to do with firearms is "sniper attack": 0.02%.
(Two one-hundredths of one percent.)
We would have a fraction of the gun homicides we have if only the criminals had guns.
Technically true, though misleading.
100% is a fraction: 1/1.
Even if they're only referring to the current numbers of criminal homicide, & not lawful self-defense or actions by a LEO, the fraction would still be pretty large. I'm guessing better than 99%.
As an interesting aside, have a look at the graph toward the bottom of the page
here.
It shows about a 200,000
drop in the number of violent crimes between 2006 & 2010.
Isn't that interesting?
Wonder what the numbers of cc licensees & legal gun owners have done during the same time.
This is rich:
sales to criminals represent 25% of the Gun Industry’s annual sales.
(Source: Expert witness report filed as part of the 1999 NAACP lawsuit vs. the Gun Industry.)
Manufacturers are only allowed to sell to FFLs, aren't they?
And FFLs can't be prohibited persons or they'd lose their license, right?
But even if a manuf. could sell to a citizen, there'd have to be a background check, proving that citizen wasn't a prohibited person, right?
So I think their 'expert witness' is full of hooey.
According to Wikipedia (I know, not terribly reliable):
The United Kingdom has one of the lowest rates of gun homicides in the world, and did so even before strict gun control legislation came into force.
Gun ownership levels have traditionally been low. This was the case even before the imposition of modern firearm legislation.
(Emphasis added.)
So it's not the restrictions on freedoms of good people that's causing their firearm-related crime rate to be low.