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There are 4 comments on POV: Studying Gun Violence to Save Lives

  1. I keep my AR-15 chained up in my basement, in case it accidentally jumps out and kills 50 people. If only France had mandated such similar, restrictions, none of these tragedies would have happened.

  2. Well-written, thank you. I do think the missing piece of this puzzle is how to address the perpetrators of these crimes. What seems random often is not, and if someone is bent on violence they will choose any weapon at hand, not just guns. Terrorists often build their own explosives, for example. For me, gun safety should start with teaching our children, “Thou shalt not kill.” Of course, we can’t even post those words on the walls of our public schools any longer without fear of being sued.

  3. The increase in gun violence is chronologically correlated with the advent of the war on drugs (note the use of the word “war”) yet the antigun lobby would like you to ignore this 800 pound gorilla in the room. Mass shootings have primarily been perpetrated by young men with mental illness; many of these young men have also been on antidepressants known to increase suicidal ideology. More importantly nearly every mass shooting has been perpetrated by a person who passed a background so must reject the null hypothesis that background prevent these heinous crimes. On the contrary gun control has only served to make defenseless victims out of those brave citizens who would defend themselves against violence if they absolutely had too. The rare occurrence of a child getting hold of a gun and harming him or herself is truly tragedy but this problem should be addressed via education not restriction on the civil liberties of adults. Sorry, to those who want to coddled but freedom is inherently dangerous and not politically correct. Nevertheless, the odds of being shot are still lower than dying due to a medical error or in a car accident, so evidently the benefits of liberty still outweigh the inherent risks even in the case of the second amendment. The truth is that a right to life without the right to the best modern means of self defense is nothing but an empty promise.

  4. Support for my previous post can be found into the most recent data showing that fifty-six people were shot over the course of Father’s Day weekend in Chicago which has some off the most draconian gun control laws in the nation. Most of this gun violence had to do with drug trafficking and gang activity. Thus, there is no need for more gun control per se or more research either. Mexico has gun control and this has not prevented the cartels from getting guns there either. Background checks will not stop gun crime related to the sale of illegal drugs because the people involved in these activities do not care about any laws.

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