Gun Control & RKBA
In reply to the discussion: Seattle Officials Aim for Gun-Law Changes [View all]DanTex
(20,709 posts)My problem with the status quo is that we have rates of gun violence that are 5-10X higher than the rest of the developed world. The number of people killed by guns each year is greater than the number of Americans that have died in 9-11, Iraq, and Afghanistan combined. Every two years, guns kill as many Americans as died in Vietnam. In fact, even in the very worst year in Vietnam, the US only lost about half as many lives as we do every year to guns.
It seems to me that gun violence is the one area where it's OK to brush of 30,000 unnecessary deaths as "seems to be working fine".
Here's an analogy. According to wikipedia, in 1968, there were 16,600 US casualties in Vietnam. Then in 1969, there were "only" 11,600. Now, imagine if you tried to argue in 1969 that "Vietnam casualties are way down from last year, everything seems to be working fine, let's just keep the war the way it is". The point is that, in both cases, we are talking about many thousands of unnecessary deaths.