Welcome to Buster's Blog

Irregular commentary on whatever's on my mind -- politics, sports, current events, and life in general. After twenty years of writing business and community newsletters, fifteen years of fantasy baseball newsletters, and two years of email "columns", this is, I suppose, the inevitable result: the awful conceit that someone might actually care to read what I have to say. Posts may be added often, rarely, or never again. As always, my mood and motivation are unpredictable.

Buster Gammons















Tuesday, October 6, 2015

Gun Nuts Want To Baffle Us With Bullshit


It happens after every mass shooting.  The gun nuts try to dismiss the concerns with their standard boilerplate slogans and spin.  They try to baffle us with bullshit, then quickly change the subject.  The aftermath of the Umpqua Community College massacre is no different.  This time, the gun nuts are sounding two familiar themes:
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"This isn't a gun problem, this is a mental problem." -- Donald Trump

"Mentally ill people prone to violence are [the problem]." -- Marco Rubio

1.  The problem isn't really guns, it's crazy people.  While this makes for a good sound-bite, it's bullshit!  There are lots of "crazy" people, those who are mentally disturbed to some degree and seem to fit some sort of profile.  But the overwhelming majority of them are not mass murderers.  The real problem is indeed guns -- lots and lots of guns, way too many and too easily accessible by all of us, regardless of mental state.  Indisputable fact:  As the number of guns in circulation decreases, the number of gun violence episodes decreases accordingly.   End of story.  Period.  (*Data below, if you're interested.)
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"It's clear that gun-free zones are sitting-duck zones." -- Mike Huckabee

"These gun-free zones are a disaster."  -- Donald Trump

"UCC is one of those gun-free zones that attracts shooters." -- Sean Hannity

2.  Gun-free zones encourage mass shootings and increase the likelihood of their occurrence.  We'll let The Nightly Show's Larry Wilmore handle this one:  "You're saying the odds of being bitten by a shark actually increase in places with no sharks?!"  What ridiculous bullshit!  I guess it follows that the best way to survive in shark-infested waters is to pack your own shark.  (Refer again to the data below.)

Oh, by the way, in April the National Rifle Association held its 2015 annual convention at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville -- a public venue with a strict no-firearms policy, i.e. a gun-free zone.  Was it an irony-free zone too?  I hope the gun nuts feared for their lives in such dangerous surroundings.

And isn't it interesting how conservatives who are so adamantly "pro-life" are at the same time anti-gun control?  Just sayin'.
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Number of Civilian Guns Per Capita By Country
1st Place -- USA, 113 guns per 100 residents
Last Place -- Japan, 0.6 guns per 100 residents
(Our gun possession rate is 188 times that of Japan.)

Number of Gun Deaths Per Capita By Country
1st Place -- USA, 10.2 gun deaths per 100,000 residents
Last Place -- Japan, 0.06 gun deaths per 100,000 residents
(Our gun death rate is 170 times that of Japan)

Sources:
Survey of Small Arms, 2007
Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva, Switzerland
World Health Organization
Dr. S. Bangalore, NYU Medical Center, New York City
Dr. F. Messerli, St. Luke's Medical Center, New York City
ABC News



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