An actual letter from an actual reader....

In my city's local newspaper, The Courier Journal, today's readers' letters section contained a letter concerning the forgotten victims of Monday's shootings: gun rights.


I am sick of hearing how we Americans have lax gun laws and that that is the reason for insanity like the Virginia Tech massacre.

I am sick of hearing about how Britain, Germany, Sweden and all other countries and even states in my very own country that ban guns have lower homicide rates using guns and lower crimes associated with guns.

Ahh, xenophobia, shortsightedness, and an underlying resistance to common sense. Surely, this letter is followed by an absolutely ridiculous statement that makes the reader wonder of drool was on said missive? Right you are....

Put into print their crime statistics including homicides and other crimes not involving guns but include knives, swords, crossbows, baseball bats, blunt objects or any kind, automobiles and any other item that could be used as a weapon to kill a human being.

If anybody could give the lowdown on the crossbow and sword international crime ring that I'm assuming the "liberal media" has kept from me, please let me know.

Cleverly disguised as bullets, the arrows have caused the police to focus on the activities of the Society for Creative Anachronism.

But I'm betting it's a hell of a lot less than 30.

it would just take a LOT longer.

And I love how they will use the car as a comparison, but if anyone suggests having to get a license to own a gun... well, that's different.

I'm still willing to bet that if we added all other 'things' used to commit murder, we'd still be number one.

Our non-gun homicide rate is as high or higher than the TOTAL homicide rates of many western European nations with strict gun laws.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-crime-murders-per-capita
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_wit_fir_percap-crime-murders-firearms-per-capita

We're better than countries such as Russia, Mexico, Poland, the Ukraine, the Baltic nations, and Jamaica, all of which have very strict gun laws.

The difference between Western Europe and the countries above is that they have incredible poverty, a huge income disparity, poor social-safety nets, low-paying jobs, and other ills. We have a terrible drug problem, a huge population of convicts and ex-convicts, a crappy health-care system, and very few unions, so wages are low, which forces both parents to work. There are other social problems as well.

We as a country have the highest rate of gun ownership, about 770 per 1,0000 people. We own two-thirds of all civilian-owned firearms in the world, some 240 million of them. Our firearm ownership rate compared to the rest of the world is 40 times higher than the rest of the world.

This site will also help. It is murder rate by US state:
http://www.statemaster.com/graph/cri_hom_tot_num_of_vic_percap-total-number-victims-per-capita

Here is the top twenty murder states, along with their rating on the strictness of their gun control laws (higher is more strict)

#1/50 Louisiana: 1.311 per 10,000 people
#2/5 Maryland: 0.916 per 10,000 people
#3/33 Mississippi: 0.904 per 10,000 people
#4/25 New Mexico: 0.788 per 10,000 people
#5/28 Nevada: 0.75 per 10,000 people
#6/6 Illinois: 0.744 per 10,000 people
#7/25 Tennessee: 0.704 per 10,000 people
#8/12 South Carolina: 0.7 per 10,000 people
#9/14 Michigan: 0.67 per 10,000 people
#10/41 Georgia: 0.668 per 10,000 people
#11/35 Alabama: 0.665 per 10,000 people
#12/3 California: 0.663 per 10,000 people
#13/31 Arizona: 0.652 per 10,000 people
#14/12 North Carolina: 0.631 per 10,000 people
#15/31 Indiana: 0.577 per 10,000 people
#16/14 Missouri: 0.571 per 10,000 people
#17/45 Texas: 0.57 per 10,000 people
#18/17 Virginia: 0.513 per 10,000 people
#19/41 Arkansas: 0.511 per 10,000 people
#20/23 Pennsylvania: 0.502 per 10,000 people

Louisiana is terrible, with very lax laws. However, this state has gone through a massive post-Katrina crime wave, so that's not a good example, IMHO.

Maryland, California, and Illinois, very strict laws. And they are #2,6, and 12. North Carolina and Missourie, pretty strict laws, and still in the top twenty.

The bottom ten:

#40/41 Vermont: 0.209 per 10,000 people
#41/25 Oregon: 0.198 per 10,000 people
#42/29 Utah: 0.19 per 10,000 people
#43/2 Hawaii: 0.188 per 10,000 people
#44/45 Montana: 0.171 per 10,000 people
#45/9 Iowa: 0.148 per 10,000 people
#46/35 South Dakota: 0.142 per 10,000 people
#47/50 Maine: 0.106 per 10,000 people
#48/28 New Hampshire: 0.092 per 10,000 people
#49/41 North Dakota: 0.079 per 10,000 people

Only two states with strict gun laws made it into the bottom ten.

One state is missing in the statemaster.com list, not sure which one.

Oh, here's the link to the report. It's from before the post-9/11 concealed-carry laws that were passed in some states, so it's not totally up to date. Best I could find.

http://www.soros.org/initiatives/justice/articles_publications/publications/gun_report_20000401/GunReport_Chart1.pdf

Nature has its way

thankfully he was able to fight off his attacker and the cut was not deep. Last week his friend was attacked by a knife wielding female five foot two, he is six foot one, he ended up with over thirty stitches, to believe other weapons are not dangerous is short sighted to say the least, agree that guns can harm more, but there are other ways of doing harm...

Look at the attackers on the nine one one planes, they simply used box cutters and supposed bombs.