America Is the Greatest Purveyor of Violence in the World Today

[billh58]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-a-love/america-is-the-greatest-p_b_820729.html

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With 90 guns for every 100 people and 270 million of the world's 875 million known firearms, according to the Small Arms Survey in Switzerland, the U.S. by far is the most heavily armed nation in the world. Yemen, in second place, has 61 guns per 100 people, followed by Finland with 56, Switzerland with 46, and Iraq with 39.

And not surprisingly, America has the world's highest gun-related death rate, with nearly 100,000 people shot or killed with a gun each year. Over a million Americans have been killed with guns since King and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated, according to the Childrens' Defense Fund. Moreover, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence says that America's homicide rate is 6.9 times higher than rates in other 22 advanced nations combined. And among 23 high-income countries, 80 percent of firearms deaths occur in the U.S.

This is a travesty and an embarrassment in the industrialized world. And with guns aplenty in a nation that is hungry, ill and need of repair, guns are ready available for the mentally unstable, domestic abusers, criminals and others who should be prohibited from having a gun. But what do you do when the county itself is sick? As Michael Moore recently noted on Twitter, "Tons o guns & unstable people all over world but they don't kill each other like we do. Guns Don't Kill People. Americans Kill People. Why?"

The Second Amendment -- an anachronism that was meaningful only when people hunted for their food -- reads, "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." It is hard to believe, but the gun lobby and right-wing militia groups who would wage violence against the government have interpreted this to apply to an unlimited right for individual citizens, the right to amass a personal army. The weapons makers pay politicians millions of dollars to back it up. Unfortunately a right-wing Supreme Court tends to agree.

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Like Mr. Love, most thinking Americans and especially Liberal Democrats see and understand that the United States has allowed the right-wing NRA extremists to hijack our political process and flood our nation with lethal weapons. This state-of-affairs was never the intent of the Founders when they wrote the Second Amendment, and the extreme neoconservative Gang of Five SCOTUS members are seditious traitors to the trust bestowed on them, and to their country.

Support a gun control organization of your choice today in any way that you can. The future of this nation depends on the reversal of the "guns for all" policies purchased from corrupt politicians by the right-wing gun lobby all across this nation.

[jimmy the one]

1. Swiss Myth

With 90 guns for every 100 people and 270 million of the world's 875 million known firearms, according to the Small Arms Survey in Switzerland, the U.S. by far is the most heavily armed nation in the world. Yemen, in second place, has 61 guns per 100 people, followed by Finland with 56, Switzerland with 46, and Iraq with 39.

The above number of guns per capita (46) for switzerland I believe is a high estimate, lower estimates go about 33 per hundred or 33%.
The nranuts & gun lobbynuts & gunpunks the world over have frequently cited switzerland as an armed utopia where more guns means less crime. Let's take a closer look at how the swiss & america stack up:

........................... Switzerland ....................... USA
population ................ ~ 7 million ............ ~310 million
total guns ................. ~3 million ............. ~300 million (hi est)

So we see that there are only about 3 million guns in switzerland (including those home guard assault rifles), and there are about 300 million guns in america. In other words there are approximately 300 million more guns in america.
If we were to reduce the proportion of guns in america to the swiss proportion of guns per capita (~40%), america would need eliminate about 180 million guns. So much for gunnut utopia.
.. carrying concealed is disallowed in switzerland unless one demonstrates need (essentially a 'may issue' state).
.. one needs a permit to purchase, at least in most cantons (counties).
.. earlier this century I think, the swiss changed the rules for where the ammunition for those home guard assault rifles was to be kept, it is now kept in a swiss govt/military ARMORY, and not at the militia man's house. They tried to get the assault rifles confined in their armories as well but this bill failed, maybe some on the fence lawmakers hedged by thinking 'OK, you can keep your bulletless assault rifle at your house'.

The Second Amendment -- an anachronism that was meaningful only when people hunted for their food -- reads, "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

I sorta disagree with author on this point, certainly the way he worded it, for in 1791 americans had ample food for they were an agrarian society, agriculture & farms, something like 80% - 90% americans farmed or lived on farming, so food was not in short supply; and trapping & fish & berry picking provided much food, so this american canard of hunting to provide food for the family is pretty much a myth, altho they surely did to supplement the food supply, it wasn't really done that much for you could lose your teeth if you chomped into embedded buckshot or musket ball fragments in the meats.
.. about the 'only' meaningful time people hunted for food, that I can think of, would be when they were actually activated on militia duty, when their food chain from the farms & towns was hindered by the war (1812 etc).

[billh58]

2. All good points, and

thanks for the info...