It's time that Americans woke up, smelled the coffee and too their collective heads out of the sad. Be smart, be modern, wake up and REPEAL the 2ND AMENDMENT
The United States has by far the highest rate of gun deaths (murders, suicides and accidents) among the world's 36 richest nations!!
* 2,827 children and teens died as a result of gun violence in 2003 (more than the number of American fighting men killed in hostile action in Iraq from 2003 to April 2006)
Americans value their constitution and the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment deals with the right to bear arms. Here is the price that ordinary Americans are paying for the privilege
* 8 children a day die in murders, suicides and accidents involving guns
* since John F. Kennedy was assinated more Americans have died from gunshot wounds at home than died in all the wars of the 20th century
* Osama bin Laden would need at least nine twin towers like attacks each year to equal what Americans do to themselves every year with guns.
* Murder rates in LA, NY and Chigago were approaching the hightest in the world (30 per 100,000) until moves were made in late 20th century to restrict access to guns to teenagers and the NRA wants these moves reversed.
If Osama bin Laden had had more sense, instead of launching a terrorist attack, he would simply have provided financial backing to the NRA!
From the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy:
“International evidence and comparisons have long been offered as proof of the mantra more guns = more death/fewer guns = less death. Unfortunately such discussions have all too often been afflicted by misconceptions, factual error and focus on comparisons that are unrepresentative. It may be useful to begin with a few examples. One is the compound assertion that: (a) guns are uniquely available in the U.S. compared to other modern developed nations, which is why (b) the U.S. has by far the highest murder rate. Though this has been endlessly repeated, in fact, b) is false and a) substantially so.”
The World Health Organization argues that by reducing gun ownership, it reduces murder and suicide BY GUNS. Well DUH. But it does NOT reduce homicide and suicide rates whatsoever! Since stricter gun control doesn't reduce homicide and suicide rates, then what is the real agenda of people like you who insist banning ownership of guns by law abiding citizens is a must?
There are an estimated 350,000,000 guns in the US -more guns than there are people. A few thoughts on this.
1. Just exactly HOW do you suggest that government goes about forcibly stripping gun owners of their guns when they refuse to forfeit this right? Because they certainly would. Do you envision midnight raids and kicking in doors of otherwise law abiding citizens or what? How...fascist of you. And exactly the kind of government abuse our founders most feared.
2. Amending the Constitution requires the consent of 3/4 of all states. That means the majority of people in at least 38 states must vote in favor of voluntarily FORFEITING their constitutional rights -with the understanding they will never get it back. Since 40 states just passed legislation making it even EASIER to own guns, which was the will of the people of those states and the Supreme Court upheld the right of Americans to own guns and given the fact there are hundreds of millions of guns in this country -just how likely do you think Americans will voluntarily forfeit this right during your lifetime?
3. There were about 10,500 homicides carried out with a gun in the United States in 2004 -the most recent year I could find. (The exact number is always more difficult to find when it doesn't fit in with the liberal agenda. Only when the homicide rate with guns rises can you readily find that data.) That means 349,989,500 guns were not used in a homicide.
Do you normally believe in punishing the overwhelming vast majority because a tiny minority chose to commit a crime? It is a FACT that stricter gun control does not reduce the overall homicide or suicide rates. So why are liberals obsessed with making people as helpless as possible -both against criminals who never follow the law anyway, but also against a government that would turn on its own people? Which happens even in this day and age. Which is why OUR founders included this as a God given right that no man had a right to take away.
Lets compare those figures with the fact there are only around 32,000,000 cars in this country. But around 45,000 people are killed in car accidents every single year. And hey, I'm pretty sure my math skills are adequate enough to realize that is about 1/10th the number of guns but they kill nearly 5 times as many people. And neither has a damn thing to do with Iraq casualties and it is nothing but a pathetic attempt to manipulate people by pretending one is somehow relevant to the other. I've seen conservatives accurately point out that an American runs a higher risk of being murdered in Los Angeles than a US soldier is likely to be killed anywhere in Iraq. True -but also a meaningless comparison.
Car drivers in the US are FAR more likely to ACCIDENTALLY kill you with their car than a US gun owner is likely to shoot you -accidentally or not. But owning and driving a car isn't a right. It is a state-granted privilege. Owning a gun is a right -and its the one that gets a liberal's panties in a real twist. If you liberals were REALLY motivated by a desire to save lives here -then you would be even more insistent that private citizens should not be allowed to drive a car at all. After all, a good nanny government would realize that is what it would take to save the most lives. NOT by removing ten times as many guns that are responsible for 1/5 the number of deaths -but that removal still won't lower the overall homicide and suicide rates. That will remain about the same -just dead by some other means instead.
But you liberals don't do that because you personally have a use for driving a car in spite of the far more dismal death rate with cars. Its owning guns you have no use for -and therefore insist that because YOU have no use for that right, no else has any use for it either and shouldn't be allowed to exercise that right at all.
Whether you personally value all your rights or not, whether you personally choose to exercise any of your rights - can never determine the value of that right for another person or determine whether they should be "allowed" to exercise that right. Not ever. That isn't how it works, sorry.
I have a great idea -how about you socialist-dabbling, nanny-government idolizing, leftwing whackos from other countries take care of the many, MANY problems in your own country first before being so arrogant enough to try and tell us how to do it better in our own country. Because last I checked, Canada is sure no Utopia.
