A small portion of the gun death interactive chart at Slate.
Slate has joined forces with the twitter feed @GunDeaths to track the number of Americans killed by guns since the Newtown massacre on December 14, 2012. As of today, that number stands at a staggering 1,045 people. And those are just the gun deaths that have been reported. That’s why Slate’s editors caution that their tally is “incomplete” given that “Suicides, which are estimated to make up as much as 60 percent of gun deaths, typically go unreported.”
Still, over a thousand gun deaths in just over a month is unacceptable. And this doesn’t even take into account the number of people injured by guns. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence estimates that 97,820 people are shot in America every year. That’s 268 people a day.
I can’t believe we as a country are willing to tolerate this level of carnage.
300 millions guns, with 12% of our population disabled these massacres are expected.
January 20, 2013 at 2:11 pm*mentally disabled
January 20, 2013 at 2:11 pmGun Control -An incomplete Conversation:
The one part that has been missing entirely from the national conversation on gun-control and gun-safety is likely the most important. That is, a requirement that all gun owners have insurance for any accidental or deliberate harm their guns do.
No, this does not deal with the types of weapons and their lethality. & no, it does not keep all guns out of the hands of the reckless, mentally ill, kids and other irresponsible users. But it does add the one control that impacts all other concerns in a way that nothing else can do:
1) It couples social responsibility for gun ownership with financial responsibility for that ownership. It relieves the taxpayer and public treasury from bearing the burden of medical, social, legal and law enforcement costs associated with gun violence. In doing so, it incentivizes gun-owners to do all in their power to see that adequate regulations are put in place to reduce the ability of those that shouldn’t have guns to get them; and to be more vigilant about their own gun-safety practices The less the irresponsible can get their hands on guns and the safer responsible owners handle their own guns, the lower the premiums for individual gun owners.
2) It quantifies the actual risk of having guns in our society and gives an accurate picture of what the real costs are. Insurance companies are very reliable when it comes to assessing risk — their profits depend on that assessment. It also weens responsible gun owners from being fear-fueled by organizations such as the NRA into thinking ‘gun control’ has some relation to 2nd Amendment erosion. Insurable behaviors are also legitimized by the very fact that they are insurable recognized as useful functions as well as ones entailing a certain amount of risk for the public.
Mandated automobile insurance provides a good analogy to the proposal for an insurance requirement for gun ownership. With respect to the risk and dangers of automobile use, we have clear classes of both responsible and irresponsible users. Requiring all to have insurance spreads the cost of risks from all causes and without any question about targeting only the irresponsible class. That class (drunk drivers, for example) may additional criminal and financial penalties. But we find no slogans suggesting that “automobiles do not kill people, only drivers kill people”. Drivers, the users of cars are held financially responsible for the harm their cars do.
Most importantly, gun owners now have a financial stake, as well as a moral one, in promoting an overall reduction in gun injury. The more they work to do this, the less it costs them. In short order, we should find gun owners taking an increased role and interest in regulations that do keep guns out of the hands of reckless or criminal users and limit them to responsible use. And of course, their organizations which now are mainly organized around denying that responsibility in any but a vague educational role, will come around as their membership comes to insist on strong, sensible legislation. We will no longer hear hysterical screech about Second Amendment enroachment when suggesting reasonable ways of keep guns out of the hands of those who shouldn’t have them, and making sure those who do have them are properly register and insured.
While it is true, some gun-owners will protest the increased burden of paying a little extra for that ownership to buy insurance, if one consider how expensive guns are that small additional cost adds no real barrier to owning a gun if one wants to. The considerable insurance costs of owning a car do not deter people from getting one if they need it. It goes without saying, that gun insurance would be non-transferable, and required at the time of any sale of a gun, private or public, along with the registration of the weapon.
From so many points of view, gun insurance, adds the piece that makes any other controls work far more effectively than they otherwise would.It is time we added that to the conversation and put it on the table. At least to ask why neither side of the debate has yet considered doing so.
– red slider, 2013
January 20, 2013 at 3:07 pmThese are despicable statistics.
My question is: what would happen to the guns that would be recalled/confiscated by the government?
Follow-up: Is a gun more likely to be used while in the possession of US residents or the US government (and allies)?
I’m not sure the answer to this, but given that both are clearly dangerous options it seems to me that the first target of an anti-gun violence movement should be the gun manufacturers. We should be demanding a gun production moritorium first, and then deal with the question of what to do with the existing guns second. No?
January 20, 2013 at 11:01 pmYou can surf any other site and there was 400 deaths since newtown an average of 18. So shut up allready. Bunch of sheep and cattle.
January 22, 2013 at 6:53 pmHere is a new wrinkle in bringing guns under better control that you might wish to share and pass along:
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Given that family members in households of gun-owners are 40 times more likely to be injured or killed by accidental shootings or in domestic arguments, it is perfectly reasonable that gun registration require every member of a household (say over the age of 13) in which a gun is to be stored on the property, be required to give their permission before a gun permit can be issued or the weapon registered. It makes perfect sense that those who bear the increased risk of death or injury must also agree to taking that risk.
January 23, 2013 at 5:30 pm