I've Been Asked to Speak at a Gun Control Discussion

Colion Noir (sp), Arfcom, Mr Guns N Gear, all good sources. I am too old to spend time reading the drivel and convoluted "logic" that the gun grabbers invent.

 

Thank you. I tend to rely on FBI and CDC data as it is hard to argue against it as an accepted and verified source. For this event, I would also like to use data sources others will likely source as a counter. Examples: Giffords Institute on Gun Violence, Moms Demand Action, etc. While I know those charts and data often carry a bias, there are numerous ways to break down the data and compare for a "Bigger Picture" view. Example: A breakdown of gun violence death numbers:

Accidental vs Intentional*

(Intentional: Suicide, domestic violence, violent crime, legal intervention)

Then comparing to deaths via car accidents, knives, power tools, swimming pools, electrocution, cancer, disease, etc.

 

Colion is pretty good. I tend not to use influencers as references as they're usually paid and given scripts and talking points, plus I work with those guys directly in my professional capacity, so I don't want to provide any potential conflict of interest.

 

Should be all the evidence you need




No but really, I'm not sure what discussions you're expecting to have that you need peer-reviewed sources for. Much of this debate is just logic. I suppose you could look at historically free nations that turned tyrannical, where if its citizens were as well armed as the government and did not want tyranny, then it couldn't have happened. Further, "common sense gun control" arguments are almost always the age-old concept of punishing the responsible for the minority actions of the irresponsible. We've had constant pushes of infringements on the 2A as a "compromise" over the decades, and gotten nothing in return. You could look those up and couple with relative crime rates involving gun violence. You could research links in mental health and single motherhood over the years as an expected increase in gun violence (ofc that could bolster the argument for gun control if you're not careful, because as stated, people are irresponsible). You could cite police brutality/overreach as an example of the tyranny the 2A is meant to enforce against. You could compare cause of death with any other tool like cars or knives (we give citizens both, freely). The reality is improper gun use has major consequences, even if accidentally discharged, which is a massive deterrent and should remove any fear from concerned Karens. You could compare death rates to COVID, a "crisis" that caused a lot of these same people to cower inside; did removing themselves from the invisible threat prevent them from becoming a victim of it? No, because they wanted the benefits of going outside, so they took precautions and went outside, some of them becoming afflicted because people had COVID. (that's probably a little nuanced: mere presence of guns have a protective benefit, even for those scared of them. Mask-wearing is akin to gun safety.)

 

The before/after stats from other countries who have implemented mandatory "gun buybacks" is something to look into. If I were in attendance with zero bias, and only there to learn, I'd want to hear from people who have implemented these ideas that are floating around, and hear how it all worked out, or didn't.

 

Thank you for bringing these points up. I have a PowerPoint presentation that goes through each historic federal-level gun policy, how these legislative pieces were presented to the public, and who they intentionally or unintentionally impacted, to point out that we should also focus on how poor policy puts more people at risk of being on the receiving end of gun violence.

 

Interesting article, but a little uninformed point of view from the Mexican journalist. There are numerous federal statutes that address firearms trafficking both within the US and outside the US.

I retired from ATF, 22 yrs as an agent, worked for the Border Patrol before that, and spent 6 yrs working in Mexico as an ATF agent. I live in Mexico now. I have mountains of statistics and research regarding the firearms trafficking from US to Mexico. I trained Mexican law enforcement and prosecutors and worked with their military units.

Drugs, guns, lax enforcement. Federal prosecutors won't take cases until they reach a certain number of firearms, and the federal sentencing guidelines are structured so that in order to get any real time in prison, you have to traffick dozens and dozens of guns. This is one major reason Fast and Furious was even conceived back in the day. It went off the rails. Not because US law enforcement decided to funnel guns to Mexico, but because they needed minimum numbers to prosecute, and the Mexican Govt (shockingly!) didn't hold up it's end of the enforcement bargain.

I recovered and traced THOUSANDS of firearms recovered in Mexico. It was the exception rather than the rule that the US based purchasers were prosecuted. Again numbers. Budget. It was only recently that ATF's annual budget appropriation exceeded 1 Billion. And the VAST majority of that budget simply keeps the agents paid and the lights on in the office. But, per capita, ATF agents convict more violent criminals than any other federal agency. They're working, but the laws just aren't on their side.

Add into the trafficking discussion the wholesale corruption of every level of Mexican government, the abysmal murder conviction rates down here, the never ending supply of weapons, and the continually increasing demand for illicit narcotics and mental illness in the US and this is what you have. One way to be barred from purchasing or possessing a firearm under US law is to have been "Adjudicated mentally defective" in a court of law. It happens. But, more often than not, those records don't make it into criminal histories. It's not the one thing. Both countries are culpable. And I am as vehement a supporter of the 2A as you will ever find. We have plenty of laws already on the books, we just need to enforce them stringently. On both sides of the border.

OP, if you look at the federal sentencing guidelines, I think you may find some interesting point/counterpoint for discussion regarding prosecutions and enforcement of laws already on the books.

 

interesting talking point...

30k people per year in the US alone die from a slip, trip, or fall injury:
https://callsam.com/blog/slip-trip-and-fall-accidents-list-of-surprising-statistics/

45k+ per year die from gun related injuries. 54% of those are suicide... we have a mental illness problem
data is from 2020

https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/home-and-community/safety-topics/guns/

 

I’ve only had one gun related accident in 30 years of gun ownership. I shot my self in the finger.

Spoiler: The Gun

 

@ElGringo - I didn't want to quote your whole post but did want to say thank you for sharing your experience. I appreciate the first hand knowledge you were able and willing to provide

 

i've had one accident when i was a kid. dad bought me a .177 pump pellet rifle and gave me the proper training on how to handle it. he watched me for a while while using it around the yard until he felt comfortable enough to let me out alone with it. taught me what birds i could/couldnt shoot with it and then let me loose.
i ended up shooting anything in sight, including old tires in the yard....i learned what ricochet meant after that one. i must've hit that tire square because the pellet came back and hit me right above my right eyebrow. could've lost an eye.


i didnt shoot it for a good 3 months after that

 

Definitely a piece of the problem, no bones about it.

Re the education piece, my friend and her husband own guns. He has most of his life, she never did until more recently. They are teaching their children (started at 7 and 6, now 9 and 8) about guns in all aspects. I reckon those children will always know the right and wrong things to do, whether they ever hold or fire a gun or not.

 

Excellent post. And not to sidetrack the thread, but just out of curiosity, what sort of regulations/loopholes are necessary in order to own a firearm in Mexico? Is there any sort of way to legally own one as a regular citizen?

 

"A Christmas Story" must not have been a popular one in your house lol

 

nope lol i honestly never seen the full movie to this day. only bits and pieces and the clip where the kid breaks his glasses

 

Haha my panties are riding just fine, I think yours are in a wad though based your reaction to my post.
Statistics can be selective and misleading that’s why I don’t rely on a source like the BBC thats consistently anti-gun. The UK has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the world.

This. CDC and FBI are good sources if you look at the details of the data.
Here’s a web page with statistics rarely cited in the news that are interesting, with links to reliable sources.
https://americangunfacts.com/

 

"Guns don't kill people, people kill people".....Grandpa, 1986

"Guns kill people like spoons make people fat"...Grandma, 1 minute later

 

<joke> I can't hear "guns don't kill people" and not think of this song </joke>

 

Another huge percentage of that stat is gang and drug related violence (shocking, we have drug problem too), It doesn't break down that far but if its the same stat as the one I'm familiar with only 2 to 3k of the homicides are unrelated to them.

 

I've seen that a few times now, and it still cracks me up that someone decided to put WSJ as "skews right"