A new Harvard/Northeastern University study beaks down gun ownership in the United States. There are 318,000,000 Americans in the country today (as of 2014). There are 265,000,000 guns in the United States today. One might conclude, when presented with those two numbers, more than 50% of the population must partake in gun ownership, but not true; not even close. Looking further into the gun ownership numbers gives us the real picture. Only 22% of the US population owns a gun (69,960,000). And, shocking but not shocking, half of all the guns in America are owned by only 3% of the population (9,540,000). http://mashable.com/2016/09/19/americans-gun-ownership-survey/?utm_cid=mash-com-social-huffpo-partner#.GofDOwz3sqY
I'm for hunting weapon ownership; guns designed for the purpose of shooting animals in the wild. Although I would never own one, I also do believe in a person's right to own a self defense pistol. I don't believe in carry and conceal and I don't believe anyone in this country should be able to purchase an automatic or semi automatic weapon, designed for killing as many human beings as fast as possible.
Some people, my guess would be at least 3% of the population, would look at what I just wrote and insist I'm against the 2nd Amendment. No, not at all. The founding fathers never meant the 2nd Amendment to be validation for people to own military grade weaponry in suburbia. The 2nd Amendment says you have a right to bear arms, which I fully endorse. It does not say what types of arms, just that you should be able to own a gun. I'm for meeting that basic requirement, and very little else.
The 2nd Amendment allows for us to ban certain types of guns from private ownership. It allows for us to regulate gun sales. It allows for us to limit gun ownership for people who have proven they shouldn't have access to a gun. It allows for us to have mandatory safety training. It allows for us to have mandatory background checks. It allows for us to regulate magazines and bullets. It allows for us to inspect all gun sellers inventory and make sure the guns are there. It allows for the gun industry to be held accountable for their product (although the Congress has passed laws which prevent them from having any liability for the gun carnage they've clearly encouraged). It allows for us to make gun locks mandatory. It allows for us to force people to keep their guns at home. It allows for us to even make membership into a 'well regulated militia' compulsory with ownership of a gun. Yes it does!
Here's a reminder of the level of delusion the average American gun nut maintains. After the tragic shooting of young children in Newtown, Connecticut, most Americans, over 90% wanted stricter gun regulations. The NRA, gun manufactures, their paid for politicians and a few million gun kooks said no. They thought the solution should be 1) Gun towers at every school in the country, staffed with an armed guard during the school day, 2) fortified entrances to the school, ones which could be locked down internally, designed to withstand a car driving 60 mph, 3) metal detectors and armed guards at every entrance of every American school, 4) mandatory loaded guns on every school employee's hip at all times, 5) a full armory in the school front office with heavy automatic weapons at the ready, 6) bulletproof glass for every external window at the school, 7) a 20 foot impenetrable fence surrounding the entirety of the school grounds, 8) safe rooms in every classroom which could sustain a bazooka blast, and 9) bulletproof whiteboards for the kids, so they could defend themselves from the gunfire by wielding it like Captain America's shield. As laughable as these 'solutions' sound, the gun fetishists were dead serious. They insisted this would all work, and for the American people to not entertain the idea of common sense, legal, gun regulations. What stopped their looniness was the price tag. When they figured out it would cost around 200 million for every school in the country, they tried to pull it back to #4 only, but then realized they couldn't force people to carry guns. That's not in the 2nd Amendment.
What percentage of the population is preventing legal gun regulation laws from being written? I don't think it's 22%, as I know many people with hunting weapons who are against the Wild West gun laws we currently have. My guess is between 13 - 15% of the US population are the ones fighting for a mandatory, Walking Dead version of gun ownership for everyone. The primary foot solders for the NRA probably consists of 5% of the population. That's it.
These people are broken; they're not worth listening to anymore. They're delusional fools who've fallen in love with their personal gun fantasy:
"Our gun kook hero is at the mall, getting his second mid morning snack, this one cheese covered, because it's closer to lunchtime. Then it happens! A Hans Gruber-esque military strike force, probably with ties to ISIS, has taken control of the mall. They have a nuke and are heavily armed. They demand a billion dollars or they'll begin killing hostages, starting with the cute girl our gun kook hero is secretly in love with. Thank God our gun kook hero illegally snuck his pistol into the mall today. Even though he's never had any military training, even though he's never had any weapons training, even though he's 80 pounds overweight and hasn't exercised for more than ten minutes in years, even though he was a straight 'D' student with limited tactical and logical thoughts, even though he has suffered through self induced failure after failure and self induced mistake after mistake, he knows this is his chance to save the day, proving he was always right, and, more importantly, everyone else was always wrong about our gun kook hero. He wipes the cheese off his chubby little fingers, draws his weapon, and prepares to kick some a..."
He's shot almost instantly, the first victim. They then take his gun and use it to kill 6 more people.
You see, gun kooks never want their fantasy world to become reality, because they know reality would make their gun fueled fantasies incredibly pathetic. Instead, they surround themselves with their pile of guns and keep repeating the other fantasy they've said over and over again; "these guns make me safer."
I hope they don't accidentally shoot themselves. Damn you reality!
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