Progressive Wednesday

No, Guns Do Kill People: Sell

June 22nd, 2007 by Eric

Editors Note: In order to make it easier for you, dear progressive reader, to make progress with regards to this Wednesday’s topic, we have added a fourth item to the “to-do list.” So here it is, a “Wednesday” on a Friday.

One of the most often-used arguments for keeping a firearm is for personal protection. Some parents feel safer if they keep a firearm in the house in case someone decides to break in and rob their home and/or murder their family. I even read an article where someone wrote that they wished just one person was carrying a firearm in order to stop the massacre at Virginia Tech.

On the surface these arguments might seem to hold a .50-bullet-shell full of water, but when you take a quick glance at those things we call statistics, it becomes harder to buy that argument than it is to buy an assault weapon, though that’s not saying much. Here are some of those statistics from several different surveys and crime analysis with regards to armed break-ins, homicide, and children. Again, bullet point seems appropriately inappropriate.

• Keeping a gun in the home carries a murder risk 2.7 times greater than not keeping one.
• People are 21 times more likely to be killed by someone they know than by a stranger.
• There is no forced entry into the home in 84.3 percent of domestic homicides.
• 96.4% of homicides are not in self-defense.
• The highest rate of gun-related murder of females by state were Alaska, New Mexico, Wyoming, Louisiana, Nevada, South Carolina, Georgia, Oklahoma, Kentucky, and Tennessee respectively. Those states also have some of the weakest gun laws.
• In 1999, there were 3,385 firearms-related deaths for children ages 0–19 years.

To think that carrying or having a gun in the house for protection makes a few hefty assumptions: that the person using the gun would, in the heat of the moment, think to use it, be able to fire the weapon accurately, not hitting any innocent bystanders, and that the benefit would outweigh the negative impact that having those weapons would have on the crime rate.

My daughter will never be accidentally shot while in my home and my wife will never shoot me in a dispute because she has access to guns (and hopefully for other reasons, too). What I’ll ask you to do only applies to those who have guns in their homes. Consider a gun buyback program. You can find one in you area by doing an Internet search for “gun buyback” and (your city), or by calling your local law enforcement agency. Usually, these programs are run every year and will offer money in exchange for any gun, no questions asked. If there are no guns in the home, a gun crime can’t be committed.

Photo c/o this photographer