There are more than 129,817 federally licensed firearms dealers in the United States. Of those, 51,438 are retail gun stores, 7,356 are pawn shops and 61,562 are collectors, with the balance of the licenses belonging mostly to manufacturers and importers of firearms and destructive devices.
In 2010 there were 5,459,240 new firearms manufactured in the United States, nearly all (95 percent) for the U.S. market. An additional 3,252,404 firearms were imported to the United States.
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‘Anyone can buy guns in America. No questions asked.’
Gun ads target young adults!
‘Rock Hill Herald, a newspaper in South Carolina, printed a large ad for a big gun sale in Rock Hill on the same page as its coverage of Friday’s massacre in Newtown, Connecticut. The ad, which touted Christmas discounts on Smith & Wesson assault rifles, ran in Saturday’s edition on pages A4-A5:’
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Gun control ad in 1981. Not much has changed since then.
Ban guns. Close gun stores. Now.
No.
That gun control ad is a little bit simplistic. Back in those days in Switzerland for example, there was about one “assault” rifle per household, with 60 rounds of ammunition, all provided by the government for the household’s reservist(s). Plus, the criteria for buying most firearms could at that time be summed up as 1) be 18 and 2) be swiss or naturalized. Add 3) Have no violent crime convictions, for the stuff redneck dreams are made of.
Even today, people walk into supermarkets with a rifle on their back, because they went shooting and remembered that they still need baby wipes.
Yet somehow, few people get killed.
No matter where one stands on the gun control issue, the poster itself is simply wrong in it’s implication that guns=violence. Wether this is to be applauded or resented is á personal choice.
___________________________________________
As for the “children’s gun ads”: Most of those are for airguns, which can be used to kill people by shooting them (some models), but aren’t really _good_ at it. In fact, they are rather useless on anything bigger than a fox.
The only thing one might argue is that these airguns make firearms more “normal” on some way, but I’m not at all qualified in the whole psychology field, so no opinion on that.
Unbelievable. You parrot all the talking points that have been debunked:
From Alternet: (All the supporting reference links are in the article)
Time: The Case for Gun Control
I’m sick of pea-brained reasoning and outright lies by gun freaks.
Mik, you said he parroted talking points, but 95% of his post was on Swiss gun policies. To which, despite your wall of text, there was no retort, and after looking into it, seems to be true. I’ve seen the Swiss gun argument before and it’s got a strong point, I had hoped you were about to pose reasonable counter argument to it. Instead you ironically launched into a copy and paste parroting of talking points. Even if your points are also true, when it seems as though you picked a post at random to reply with a prewriten rant, its hard to take any of it seriously. Being right requires more than just feeling strongly about your argument.
Here is the point of his argument: No matter where one stands on the gun control issue, the poster itself is simply wrong in it’s implication that guns=violence. Wether this is to be applauded or resented is á personal choice
SO I ANSWERED THAT
First, his argument was that Switzerland has as many guns. My link to Harvard, in which I LISTED ALL OF THE REPORTS CATEGORIES, and OTHER COUNTRIES was one of them, FFS:
Report Links State Gun Laws To Rates of Slayings, Trafficking
Increased gun deaths tied to lax gun laws
To the best of my knowledge, Switzerland’s gun laws require fairly strict accounting of both guns and ammunition, since, unlike the US, they have an active citizen militia. I don’t know all the details, but it definitely doesn’t compare all that well with the US, and if the US tried to enact such a situation, the NRA would flip out because of the tight controls and registration requirements.
As a Swiss person who has some knowledge of guns (I was a sport shooter with 5,56 ARs and 9mm pistols for several years) I can assure you that Switzerland is by no means an example in favour of less gun control and more guns. A few points:
The Swiss army no longer issues ammunition to standing militia (except to career soldiers), and laws are continuously being drawn to better follow up on who has military weapons and whether they are fit to keep them. A recent law also allows reservists to leave their weapon at the arsenal so as not to have it around the house.
You may see recruits in uniform walking around with the Fass90 slung over a shoulder, but what you should know is they never have ammunition on them (unless on a military mission, e.g. protecting an embassy, in which case they’re not “walking around” just anywhere). You may also see a sport shooter with an assault rifle – it is a national sport – but know that not only is that person disobeying the rules of the shooting club (you must go straight from the range to your home to deposit the weapon, and should if possible carry it in a closed rifle-bag), but s/he will not have ammunition (unless stolen, a serious crime) and the rifle will most probably be “déculassé”, i.e. the breech bolt will have been removed at the firing range, rendering the weapon harmless.
While we may have many guns per capita, from what I know they are more often hunting rifles and collectors items (e.g. muskets) than handguns, not to mention the spike in the number caused by reservists keeping military weapons.
Finally, the general attitude towards guns seems very different from the US: they are often seen as a necessary evil (because of the militia army), or as the realm of a tiny minority, namely hunters and sport shooters. There is no widespread paranoid idea of needing a gun to protect oneself from criminals or the government.
Yes.
This is one of those surreal moments brought to you by targeted advertising. As I’m reading this blog, I’m being shown advertisements for silencers and concealed carry classes.
Yes. Hell, yes
Not gonna happen
Did you see this one, Taslima? Gun ad in newspaper spread covering the Sandy Hook shooting.
p.s. my vote is yes, but I’m Canadian so I don’t think it counts
Unbelievable.
I highly doubt that was a mistake. I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out the newspaper offered the space to the gun seller at an inflated price:
“There are dead people on page four and loudmouths saying ‘If only they had guns at the school!’ This is a great time to buy space at 150% of regular prices.”
Companies who sell products and media who sell ad space are both well known for being opportunists. Advertising during disasters generates almost as much revenue the olympics or super bowl.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/01/business/media/marketers-ride-the-coattails-of-a-storm-not-all-successfully.html?_r=0
Here’s an idiot who actually promotes such unethical behaviour:
http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2221533/3-reasons-brands-should-market-during-natural-disasters
There’s an old saying about what it called ‘news’: “If it bleeds, it leads.” Death sells, and it attracts both rubbernecking viewers and capitalists capitalizing on others’ misfortune.
I am afraid to disagree with someone as learned as yourself, but I am pretty certain I cannot buy a gun legally anymore. I remember having to sign some legally binding document in the hospital that I no longer had the right to anymore because I was a danger to myself, ie still actively suicidal at the time of the signing. I wouldn’t even know how to go about getting one illegally even thought it must be happening all around me all the time according to the local news. But I would never have the needed money anyway. and what’s more I have no interest in owning or buying or using a gun. Never had. Even though my white supremeacist step-father had seven guns in the house and trained us how to shoot them accurately. Thank god he is now dead along with his stupid belief in a black white race war in this country. Anyway you being as learned as you are you are probably correct that I can still buy a gun, but I am not even ever going to try and get one.
#2 @Germanguy
It is simplistic, yes. Swiss people killed others over four times more often than British people did (in that year); despite having a population about seven times lower. It is out of proportion to the population size and a less extreme example of the crazy situation in the US. Simple.
Free availability of weapons enables gun crime, even in a highly law-abiding society such as Switzerland where people are trained to use their weapons and there is a strong culture of personal responsibility. Take away the social controls AND provide weapons and you get a USA murder rate.
Note that there are ~9x more suicides using guns than murders. i.e. if you have access to a gun, you are 9x more likely to kill yourself with it than someone else. Personally, I see no better argument for banning handguns than this.
http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/de/index/themen/14/02/04/key/01.Document.139172.xls
Blattafrax:
Why is gun crime different than other crime? It’s just crime, murder for example, the fact that A shot B doesn’t change anything really as opposed to B being stabbed, thrown in front of a train, or battered to death with a newspaper (that last one actually happened some time ago in Germanland). B is dead, end of story.
What needs to be done is reducing crime, no matter the source. I may have to do some datamining, but if I remember correctly the British murder rate went up a bit since the whole Dunblane deal, in spite of a total handgun ban. The (slight) decrease in firearms-related violence was more than made up by knife-, blunt instrument-, and “other”-related violence.
About suicide: suicide can be construed to be fundamental right. We have no right to tell someone not to end their life (or to do it), but possibly a moral obligation to supply them with painless and humane methods. Firearms are painless, if used correctly (which, sadly, the often are not).
Something I didn’t even notice the first time around: Japan is a much better example than Switzerland. Their firearm laws can be summed up as “Don’t even touch a gun without a license.” The license is far harder to obtain than the German or even British one, and restricted to hunting rifles and shotguns. The stance on handguns is simply “no”.
The whole Model Gun, PFC and Airsoft industries got their start over there because civvie ownership of firearms is almost impossible.
Yeah, a mass murderer using a knife is just as effective.
BTW, it is not just killing that guns permit. There is spousal abuse(threatening with guns) – every one of your points is wrong, and I notice that you don’t link to relevant data IOW [Citations Needed]
Just go do some reading at Harvard: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/research/hicrc/firearms-research/overall/index.html
Books
Homicide
Suicide
Homicide followed by Suicide
Accidents
Children
Women
Gun Ownership
Gun Storage
Guns at College
Gun Threats and Self-Defense Gun Use
Batterers
Gun Carrying
Road Rage
Other Countries
Policy Evaluation
Public Health Approach
Public Opinion
Surveillance and Data Quality
The difference between “gun crime” and any other type of crime is the gun. I’d have thought that was pretty obvious really.
The whole purpose of a gun is to be as deadly as possible. That is what they are designed, engineered and manufactured to be. Guns make crime easier, particularly the wounding or killing another human being. It may be theoretically possible to murder somebody with a rolled up newspaper, but:
1) it’s obviously extremely difficult to do;
and:
2) that is not the designed purpose of the newspaper.
That may be true. In fact, I’ve read that the rate of gun murders/assualts has also increased in the UK in that time (I don’t know how accurate those reports are as nobody seems to be linking to authoritative sources). Despite the lack of citations, I’m quite prepared to believe that’s true.
HOWEVER…
I haven’t seen anybody make the simplistic argument that gun control legislation, or the lack of it, is, on it’s own, the sole factor involved. Just that it is one of many factors. There’s also economic and social inequality, social cohesion and dozens of other variables. If you want to focus on other ways of reducing gun violence, and actively campaign and work towards making a substantial difference on any of those other factors, no one is going to stop you. Probably the people advocating for tighter gun regulations would applaud your efforts.
Thing is, the gun lobby never seems to get around to that part. 100% of their efforts seem to go into arguing against even the smallest, most incremental tightening of legislation and painting apocalyptic visions of inevitable government tyranny should even one American lose one of his precious weapons.
Well that’s different. The problem is that very often, suicidal impulses are transitory. They may last a few minutes or hours, or a couple of days and then go away, or at least reduce significantly. The wide availability of, and access to, firearms allows those transitory feelings to become fatal far more easily. Pop over to see JT (once of this parish) and ask him whether he feels his human rights have been infringed by a lack of ready access to a handgun during his lowest periods.
What’s your point here?
Sigh…
Population of Japan ~125 million.
Population of Switzerland ~7 million.
So how does having 50% more total gun deaths in Japan (low availability of weapons) relative to Switzerland (high availability) help your case?
And the rolled up newspaper thing is bizarre. Yes, I admit it’s technically possible to kill someone with a plastic duck, but given the choice between being attacked by a man with a bath toy or an automatic assault rifle I suspect most would prefer the first.
You’re kidding, right?
World population review:
IndexMundi
There are over 16 times the number of people in Japan.
I like how you specified: So how does having 50% more total gun deaths in Japan (low availability of weapons) relative to Switzerland (high availability) help your case?
You seriously think you make a valid argument? Really? REALLY??
I misread you, Blattafrax! What you were saying,I ended up repeating. Sorry!
I prefer the guy with the automatic weapon attempting to kill me, thanks. At least I can hope it’ll jam and he won’t be able to clear it fast enough before getting rushed.
The guy with the rubber duck is likely going to be *way* more determined.
If I might point something out gently. . . about nine of those ads date from, I’d say, the 1950s through 1970s. Those are the ones aimed at children, for toy guns, air rifles, BB guns, and so on (nos. 2 through 9 and 11). I haven’t subscribed to _Boy’s Life_ since 1979, so I am not sure what the current state of gun advertising is — but regardless, those ads are between 30 and 60 years old and do not reflect current advertising practices in the US.
When the omnipotent power of the universe gives me unlimited power, that will be high on the list of my priorities. Otherwise, it’s only a worthy, but impractical wish.
The best reasonable solution that I can think of is decades of social ostracism for the millions of gun fetishists.
How, precisely, does one ostracize millions (and, let’s face it, more likely tens of millions) of people in any meaningful way?
Isn’t it amazing? It’s always some crazy, disgruntled man or boy who decides to take his manly gun and massacre mobs of people; usually children, animals, or women. I heard about something that recently occurred in China where some psycho man used a large knife to slash a bunch of innocent children at their school. He left many of them deformed. Those kids will have to grow up being traumatized from this unfortunate happening, AND they will be permanently disfigured. Men do all kinds of terrible things like murdering their entire family, throwing gasoline on their wives or girlfriends, killing innocent animals, and more. Notice how Adam, who recently murdered al of those kids in Connecticut killed his MOTHER as well.
Usually if any despicable behavior is credited to only one gender it’s safe to assume it’s wrong. I heard this same assertion on the radio this week, adding also that it been started in the 80’s, and has been escalating ever since.
Well maybe so on the escalation; I haven’t checked it out, but I can think of one example before the 80’s (albeit 79), and the perpetrator was a woman. Brenda Ann Spencer fired at children in an elementary school playground, killing two adults and wounding 8 children. The reason I remembered so readily is it’s the subject of the song I Don’t Like Mondays by the Boomtown Rats.
Another impractical wish — they constitute too large a proportion of the population to be ostracized.
And now I wish that I had a better, more reasonable solution to the prevalence of guns in the U.S. Sadly, I don’t. I think the existing attitude toward guns is so deeply inculcated in so much of American culture that the problem will remain intractable for the foreseeable future. (This despair notwithstanding, I’ll still support whatever piecemeal, incremental gun reform manages to make its way to the legislature.)
Jennie, what are you trying to say here — you think it’s defensible to generalize from serial killers to “men”? That’s an assertion as ill-founded as it is repugnant.
Wow, thanks for posting all these gun ads just in time for Christmas. 😉
Is it just me, or does the freckled kid in the “Gee Dad a Winchester” ad look like he’s already psychotic and ready to go on a shooting spree? I can just imagine the insane laughter as he walks through some public place clutching his gun and forcing his victims to listen to his story about how “my Dad got me this gun for Christmas, isn’t it neat-o?”.
For that matter, wasn’t it the heir to the Winchester fortune who was convinced that she was being haunted by all the people who died from being shot by Winchester guns? Funny how it didn’t seem to get her to shut down production, since this ad certainly postdates her lifespan.
F you buddy. That ad and others put me through college. Just kidding( with the F you) . The ad was taken the day Kruschev was banging his shoe at the UN, 1961. I was 12yo and in the 7th grade. Contrary to your speculation I grew up to be productive 65 yo with four kids and and not a gun to be found. It is very funny to look back at this ad. I also find it amazing that you can find these things on the internet.
To be fair most of the ads aimed at children are for air guns. However something really does need to be done about your gun laws, they’re nuts. I was trying to explain US gun law and the 2nd amendment to my tipsy mother last night, it was hilarious 🙂
When looking at the different ways of slowing gun-related crimes, lets examine a system which has actually been proven to work in the past in the US, known as Project Exile. This was an experiment performed in Richmond Virginia in the late 1990’s, where gun related crime had reached a peak. It was a simple project, impose maximum penalties for any and all gun-related crimes with no possibility of the guilty party for peals or plea-deals. This also provided the person to be housed in federal prisons. This simple change in just how to charge the individual, lowered the gun-related crimes in the city by a hefty margin (approximately 40%). This is now being used in other major cities to try and curb their crimes as well. So maybe we don’t need more laws, just a few more judges who would be willing to impose the top possible penalties in these cases.
Us horrible evil firearm enthusiasts are here to stay. We’ve been around since before our nation was formed, and will be long after. Its pathetic how naive the lot of you are. I can go to Lowe’s and buy everything I need to make a shotgun for under $50. Ban all guns, and I’ll make one. Or are you going to ban steel pipes, threaded end caps, and nails?
Britain sure is doing great with their banned guns. Look how low their violent crime is! Oh wait, the criminals just stab or beat people now. And somehow there are STILL occasional shootings! WEIRD!
You all are far more disillusioned than any of the retarded right wingers if you honestly believe the crime rate in the US revolves around firearms. Go do something productive. Like legalize late term abortion. Because that’s totally not murder too, right?
You must be a simpleton of the lowest mental order if the sight of a gun (and in this case toy guns) can scare you.
Too bad all the women being gang raped in India don’t have guns.
Yes, because there’s absolutely no chance that those guns would be taken from them before they were able to use them — or after a single shot — and then be in the hands of criminals who are already willing to kill women. Right. Brilliant.
Seriously, can you gun nuts go have your power fantasies on some other planet? You’re seriously screwing up this one.
I am a Russia-born citizen of the United States. When I was six years old, I was almost raped, and was brutally assaulted when I fought back.
My good friend pulled the man off of me and lost three teeth and vision in one eye in the ensuing fight, which only ended when my friend took the knife the man was wielding and stabbed him to death. Had my friend not been there, I would have been raped and murdered on the sidewalk.
Don’t you for a fucking second tell me I’m better off without a gun.
Ah, I see this post must have triggered some right-wing website or something, because we have 4 responses to a more-than-one-year-old post in one day. You guys need to learn not to do that — one response might be a lone nutjob; 4 means you’re obviously acting in concert.
As for your post: love how you assume you would have had a gun (or maybe your friend), but the rapist wouldn’t. In all likelihood, if guns had been involved in your almost-rape — which you recall in amazing detail for something which happened when you were six, may I add — you would be dead now, because the rapist would probably have replaced that “brutal assault” with a shooting instead. Maybe you think that’s preferable, but speaking as someone not involved in either side, I’d rather be assaulted than killed, and frown on people who want to make the former more likely than the latter.