While Gun Crime Has Plummeted Since 1993, No. of Guns in US Has Exploded
As the heated debate over America’s Second Amendment continues, many Americans are pointing to decades of statistics outlining the reality of weapon ownership and gun violence.
On Sunday, Young American Foundation spokesman Spencer Brown tweeted out a few statistics opposing the argument that has fueled gun-rights advocates for years.
Getting rid of guns doesn’t make us safer.
Since the mid 1990s, the number of guns in the US increased 62%, while the number of gun homicides dropped 49%, per Pew & Nat’l Institute for Justice.
It’s actually pretty simple: more guns = less crime. https://t.co/tBs1JSNuCp
— Spencer Brown (@itsSpencerBrown) March 26, 2018
The tweet was in response to Pepperdine student Michael Kleber, who countered that more guns meant more violence and who claimed the statistics themselves eradicated Spencer’s argument that “good guys” with guns help stop crime.
.@itsSpencerBrown yeah, the whole 'good guy with a gun' myth has been debunked on countless occasions.
Wish we could just hop on board with the rest of the Western, industrialized world and realize that less guns equals less violence rather than listen to this incessant drivel. https://t.co/t14dUElG6d
— Michael Kleber 🌐🌅 (@KleebsM) March 26, 2018
The post sparked an ongoing debate between the pair and others, as some suggested that gun violence was not always performed out of ill-intent, but rather self-defense.
https://twitter.com/itsSpencerBrown/status/978100067256229888
https://twitter.com/WitteTweets/status/978110163415597056
https://twitter.com/WitteTweets/status/978143756321992704
According to The Guardian, though America leads the way in terms of gun ownership, it also carries that largest proportions of mass shootings than any other developed country — nearly 11 times more.
Compared to those developed countries, Americans were “25 times more likely” to be murdered with a gun, as more than 30,000 Americans are killed each year, although nearly two-thirds of those deaths are suicides.
Though the Pew Research Center stated that, between 1993 and 2013 the gun homicide rate saw a 49 percent drop in gun violence, it noted a steady rate — with no sharp increase — of homicides since 2013, though a sharp increase of suicides using guns was seen.
In fact, the multi-million dollar gun industry — lead heavily by the National Rifle Association — has seen a large spike in gun-ownership since 1994, totaling nearly a 38 percent increase.
The Research Center cited citizens’ desire to protect themselves as one of the top reasons for gun ownership.
FBI statistics also point to the fact that handguns, whose ownership has increased nearly 71 percent since 1994, was the weapon of choice in a large proportion of gun violence.
Those same statistics from the FBI point out that the violent crime rate in America is less than half of what it was back in 1994, though it has done little to change Americans’ perspectives on gun violence.
Nearly 57 percent of registered voters believed that such crimes had increased since 2008, leaving behind the truth that crime has actually sunk alongside the soaring demand for weaponized protection.
However, though gun violence is reported by mainstream media as the everyday issue plaguing America, nothing rekindles the debate more than mass shootings such as the Parkland, Florida, tragedy that took 17 lives.
Since 2013, records show that nearly 300 school shootings have taken place throughout the U.S., which is an average of about one per week. There have also been 17 school shootings in 2018 alone.
“The US makes up less than 5% of the world’s population,” said CNN‘s Kara Fox, “but holds 31% of global mass shooters.”
The gun control debate was on display throughout the nation during Saturday’s “March For Our Lives” demonstration, which saw small crowds of gun-rights advocates and even larger swarms of gun-control advocates take to the streets.
Though gun-rights protestors cited recent statistics and the violence of mass shootings over the years, those that argue in favor of Second Amendment rights maintained that gun ownership was crucial for the safety of those facing everyday violence — including mass shootings.
“If something went wrong there,” argued Montana State University student Joey Chester, “the first people to show up are going to be people with guns.”
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