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Source: Pew Research
I frequently find most of the arguments used by the pro gun side against standard background checks or reduced size magazines to be mostly silly and emotional.
There are numerous simple things we can do to reduce deaths, accidental or otherwise. There are no legitimate arguments, only paranoid ravings of the deluded.
However, this data point via Pew Research is quite astonishing — I’d imagine that most of the public on both sides of the gun control/21nd Amendment debate are mostly unaware:
• Violence plunged through the 1990s, but has declined less dramatically since 2000.
• Compared with 1993, the peak of U.S. gun homicides, the firearm homicide rate was 49% lower in 2010, and there were fewer deaths, even though the nation’s population grew.
• The victimization rate for other violent crimes with a firearm—assaults, robberies and sex crimes—was 75% lower in 2011 than in 1993.
• The rate appears to be higher in 2011 compared with 2008, but the increase is not statistically significant.
• According to a new Pew Research Center survey, today 56% of Americans believe gun crime is higher than 20 years ago and only 12% think it is lower.
• Bureau of Justice Statistics review notes homicides that claimed at least three lives accounted for less than 1% of all homicide deaths from 1980 to 2008.
Quite fascinating.
The takeaway to me is that we as a society all should be doing more of what works to make all of us safer, freer, healthier — and continuously looking for ways to improve on that.
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