General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: The CDC study on guns...shut down. [View all]krispos42
(49,445 posts)What is that percentage? I have no clue. 1%? 10%? 99%? But it's there, because you can't reasonably expect me to believe that of the 11,000 people in 2013 that are going to kill somebody with a firearm, in all 12,000 or so circumstances where murder was going to be committed that if they didn't have a gun they would just go home and eat Cheetos and pout.
And then there's the "helpless victim" effect. Criminals become emboldened by disarmed citizens and start do do more attacks on people rather than property. And you go through this multi-decade period where the people are disarmed but the criminals aren't.
And you can't really expect there to be no more guns.
Like I said before, 95% of murder scenes only have 1 victim, and 3% only have two. The mass shootings you're worried about are a tiny fraction of the overall homicide rate. They get the media attention (the M$M media, remember) but don't have any real effect. 16,000 people a year versus 15,960? That's a legislative success? That's effective government?
Yeah, if Loughner didn't have a gun, he probably couldn't have nearly killed her, especially with a crowd of people around. Or at least not wounded or killed so many other people. But how hard would that be to achieve? Virtually impossible.
Even if handguns were hard to get, Loughner could have also used a bolt-action, scope-sighted hunting rifle. Park in the lot, stand up on his roof, and *pow*. The only real difference between a hunting rifle and a sniper rifle is what's in the crosshairs. Or a buckshot-loaded pump shotgun under a coat. 5 rounds in 5 seconds, sending some 60 pellets nearly the same weight and size of a 9mm bullet at Giffords.
Gabby's head may have been hard enough to survive a 9mm bullet from a pistol. It would NOT survive a .30-caliber bullet from a rifle, and her body would not survive shredding from 00-buck at close range.
You want fewer gun-related deaths? Legalize drugs.