Originally posted by helenheaven
One million Americans have died in firearm homicides, suicides, and unintentional shootings since 1962.
That is the equivalent of 333 sept 11 attacks
How many people have
lived during that time period? How many of those deaths are suicides, how many are homocides, and how many are
accidents? Accidents happen, many more thousands die in auto accidents every year. Many, many people die in the US every year playing recreational
sports. Should we outlaw cars and sports? Thousands of people kill themselves every year with razor blades, aspirin, or rope. Should we outlaw them
too? True, we do have a problem with murder here, but the rates are only one or two people per hundred thousand more then other nations with stringent
gun laws. A lot of murders that occur happen to people that put themselves in that position, drug dealers, criminals and the like. I think if you took
a poll to find out if American's are scared of crime, very few would say yes. Wait they did take that
poll! Most Americans
don't live in fear of crime (page 212-215).
Also in the first table of this PDF of the
International Crime Victims Survey, you'll
find that crime rates are lower in the US compared to a lot of the industrialized world.
So basically, that's a very misleading number.