Source: Just the facts: Gun violence in America – U.S. News.
The big picture: Every year in the U.S., an average of more than 100,000 people are shot, according to The Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Violence. Every day in the U.S., an average of 289 people are shot. Eighty-six of them die: 30 are murdered, 53 kill themselves, two die accidentally, and one is shot in a police intervention, the Brady Campaign reports.
Between 2000 and 2010, a total of 335,609 people died from guns — more than the population of St. Louis, Mo. (318,069), Pittsburgh (307,484), Cincinnati, Ohio (296,223), Newark, N.J. ((277,540), and Orlando, Fla. (243,195) (sources: U.S. Census; CDC) One person is killed by a firearm every 17 minutes, 87 people are killed during an average day, and 609 are killed every week. (source: CDC, based on 2011 data)
I will for the most part just let these statistics stand on their own. One of the things not shown here is that the rest of the world’s data in this area is for the most part much much lower, even in the old Soviet Union. I’m all in favor of people having hobbies but I wish some would find something else to play with.
Below is a quote from another article that this one, if you read it, shows is totally false but is the logic that is commonly used by gun rights groups. The only part of the statement below that I agree with is the last sentence.
“People are killed in greater number by cars, bats, hammers, hands, and feet,” he added. “Examining the tool and attempting to ban the tool will have absolutely no effect. We’re dealing with a people problem.
RJ's Corner 
Very depressing statistics. I came across this recently:
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Author Warren Farrell (Why Men are the Way They Are) recently drew attention to the cries of parents in Newtown, Connecticut, “What’s making our children kill?” Farrell points out that it is not our children who are killing. It is our sons. All but one of the 62 mass murders in the past 30 years was committed by boys or young men. So what’s the difference? Girls live in homes that have guns. Girls are exposed to the same media violence as boys. Girls are also about as likely as boys to develop mental illness. So, what is the difference?
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Any thoughts?
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Testosterone….. 🙂
I joke but you are certainly right. We need to understand why that is. I agree with most in that the solution to all this killing is not totally about guns and background checks. We need to understand at why people want to kill so indiscriminately and to thoroughly address the mental illness in this country. When most of the mental health facilities were shut down during the Reagan years the topic took a back burner and now it is coming back to bite us ten fold.
Thanks for the additional thought on this sobering topic…
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