Quote:
|
Originally Posted by amerikangod
And yes, I've seen guns get pulled out when they shouldn't have, I've seen people get shot, and I know a couple of people that died due to gun violence. But I know plenty of other people that have died over way more mundane shit, and I think there are far greater societal threats that need to be addressed.
|
That could be someone's perspective when they are not seeing groups use guns to control entire communities (and don't tell me poor people can buy THOSE guns, and even if they did, there'd be some serious genocide there), places in certain countries that the only term to describe it is civil war. There are places on Earth where people's lives are really shit, and the chances of something happening to you have nothing to do with awareness or a casuality, they are real.
Of course other social threats have to be addressed but that takes a long time. But you can regulate the industry NOW and fairly easily and save thousands of lives. This is something DOABLE. I'm hoping most countries will sign the UN Treaty, but no surprise, US is the only country that seems to be resisting it.
We know that's possible, because we've seen many places regulate and limit guns and really see a decrease in homicide rates. That is just a fact, it's there to be seen and if people can be saved, why not? Which "liberty" principles should come before human life? In fact, I've seen a DRAMATIC decrease myself since the government started paying people to return their guns and destroying every gun every taken from civilians/criminals.
There isn't much "awareness" that'll make your life less shit if you're living in a violent town in Mexico, for example.
It's about time countries start taking responsibility for the repercussions of their doings in other places.
Cutting those deaths by let's say, half is pretty fucking doable. All you have to do is start introducing regulations to gun industry and ownership. Like I said before, 1,000 million legally purchased guns "go missing" every year. There is a loophole and those are the bits of information that a lot of people have been conveniently ignoring in this debate.
This is the homicide rate in ONE year by every 100,000 inhabitants in these cities:
Washington D.C. had a homicide rate of 45.8 homicides per 100,000 residents, Detroit had 42.0, Memphis had 24.7, Baltimore had 38.3, Chicago had 22.2
Are most of those stabbings? I doubt. I agree there are many OTHER factors to tackle in order to reduce violence, probably more important ones. But on the other hand I know you can easily, within the span of few years cut that by half at least.
The overall homicide rate in the US/100,000 is over 5.
Homicide rate in the United Kingdom by 100,000 inhabitants:
1,49