I have to admit, muse7, that I am an "on-the-fence" gun control advocate. Whereas I support the right of an American citizen to own a gun as provided under the Constitution, I don't understand why an average citizen has need for any type of semi-automatic weapon.
With that said, I try to remain objective when it comes to social hot buttons and I gather facts before determining where I stand on any issue. While doing some additional research, I found that, on the average, gun-related crime has actually decreased as is illustrated below by FactCheck.org:
I don't profess to be a statistician on guns, but the facts illustrated on violent gun-related incidents more or less speak for themselves on many different levels. Do I think it's right that nonfatal gun injuries have risen or that more people have been able to take their own lives through the use of guns? Absolutely not, but I also can't ignore the fact that murders, aggravated assaults and robberies have decreased, in spite of the gun manufacturing boom.since 2007.
Conversely, one of the things I find somewhat disturbing about this chart is that they illustrate most of their statistics from 2011, with the exception of gun ownership which is only illustrated as of 2007. What is to be gleaned from this? Are we to believe that their statistics are purposely skewed for some partisian purpose or scarier yet, is it possible that mantaining records on gun ownership has become so difficult that it would be impossible to illustrate how many people own guns as of 2011? I'm sure that even the most ardent gun advocate would agree that some agency should be aware of who own a gun, no?
