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Well like all things in government, the
people tasked with the study simply directed the study to the Institute
of Medicine and National Research Council. However, many people have not
heard about the report. Could it be that much of the information in the
report didn't quite "jive" with Obama and the anti-gun crowd?
The report, titled Priorities for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-related Violence, which identifies the particular topics of gun violence to be researched over the next few years, made the point that the majority of deaths that take place annually by the use of a firearm are not related to crime, but to suicide.
"Between the years 2000-2010 firearm-related
suicides significantly outnumbered homicides for all age groups,
annually accounting for 61 percent of the more than 335,600 people who
died from firearms related violence in the United States," reads the
study.
That's obviously not a good thing. However,
it indicates that many Americans suffer from both a spiritual and mental
health issue. With that said, let's not then run to government to deal
with mental health issues. I've warned before and I'll warn you now:
That would be a very bad move.
Here's the great
news in the report though. It points out that virtually every study
which "assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns" discovered
the same thing. Those using their guns for self-defense "consistently
lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims
who used other self-protective strategies."
Oh and remember how we've been told by the
Obama administration and the socialist gun grabbers that guns aren't
used that often in self-defense? Well, the report shows that isn't true
either.
"Defensive uses of
guns by crime victims is a common occurrence, although the exact number
remains disputed (Cook and Ludwig, 1996; Kleck, 2001a)," the study
reads. "Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun
uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals,
with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3
million per year (Kleck, 2001a), in the context of about 300,000 violent
crimes involving firearms in 2008 (BJS, 2010)."
Yeah, not as uncommon as the propagandists would have us believe.
In all fairness, the report does point out
that "some scholars point to radically lower estimate of only 108,000
annual defensive uses based on the National Crime Victimization Survey
(Cook et al., 1997)."
July 2013
While the report does maintain that this will
always be a controversy in the field, the study does state that "the
estimate of 3 million defensive uses per year is based on an
extrapolation from a small number of responses taken from more than 19
national surveys," while the "estimate of 108,000 is difficult to
interpret because respondents were not asked specifically about
defensive gun use."
"A different issue is whether defensive uses
of guns, however numerous or rare they may be, are effective in
preventing injury to the gun-wielding crime victim," reads the report.
The report does have a downside. It indicates
that we have the most firearm related deaths of any western nation.
However, the good news is that the study claims that is rapidly
declining.
"Overall crime rates
have declined in the past decade, and violent crimes, including
homicides specifically, have declined in the past 5 years." However,
"Between 2005 and 2010, the percentage of firearm-related violent
victimizations remained generally stable."
Additionally, the report goes on to inform about other declines. "Firearm-related death rates for youth ages 15 to 19 declined from 1994 to 2009," the report continues, adding that accidental shootings were declining as well.
Additionally, the report goes on to inform about other declines. "Firearm-related death rates for youth ages 15 to 19 declined from 1994 to 2009," the report continues, adding that accidental shootings were declining as well.
The report also states that "Unintentional
firearm-related deaths have steadily declined during the past century.
The number of unintentional deaths due to firearm-related incidents
accounted for less than 1 percent of all unintentional fatalities in
2010."
The report also referenced video game
violence to see how it might contribute to gun violence, but said that
more research would need to be done and no research to the present has
been conclusive.
One last question that is on my mind is, how much did will this study end up costing the American taxpayer?
I added this in the end of the article, I ran across this picture and got a chuckle out of it and realized that there was a lot of truth to it.
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