News

The relationship of Americans and our guns is such a weird, religious-level issue

I've heard this claim before and haven't really been able to dig into it. One question that came up through that article related to this paragraph:

The study focused only on homicide risk and did not examine how living with a handgun owner might increase or decrease the risk of being victimized in other ways, including by nonfatal assault, home invasion, or property theft.

This sounds like something like a home invasion that would have ended in a homicide but didn't (due to a gun or other reasons) wouldn't be counted. The cases that are due to a gun would seem especially important.

From across the pond, it seems wild how bad it spiralled out due to capitalism. You guys got sold on the idea of having to defend your own house at any point of time... Leads people to have fantasies of being in such a scenario to use their custom piece to end a fool!

Are we really surprised it ended this way?

We don't call it Misery for nothing. Though sadly there's a sizable chunk of this country I'd rather not set foot in; others you couldn't pay me enough to live there. Even PA from where I grew up has gone to shit. Still, compared to Mississippi or Alabama, Missouri is living in the future.

Just feels like people are zombies in these areas. Right-wing media, corporations, low education, alcohol/drugs, lead exposure, TBIs really did a number on these areas...

Knowing your target (and what is beyond it) is one of the core rules of gun safety.

To be fair it could have been a cop and they don't ask questions first either before unloading multiple magazines worth of ammo so 🤷

That's why you've got to grab your cool guns and start blasting immediately -- you might never get another chance.

It's low but nonzero, and depends on your exact location.

But what's wrong with them is the constant stoking of their fear by Fox News and similar media, that tells them that the illegals are breaking into their houses to steal their wives and rape their jobs, or something.

Nearly ~~600,000~~ 900,000 burglaries occur yearly in the US, with 27.6% occurring while occupants were present and 25% of those incidents involving ~~an assault~~ violent crime on the occupants. (https://insurify.com/homeowners-insurance/insights/burglary-statistics/) That comes to ~~37,500~~ ~62,100 ~~break-in assaults~~ victims of violent crimes from break-ins in the US per year, divided by 123.6 million households in the US comes to a 1 in ~~3,296~~ 1,990 chance of a household's occupants being assaulted in a break-in each year. That's ~~68%~~ roughly as many incidents as being injured or killed by a firearm anywhere in the country each year as tallied by the GVA. Hardly zero, unless you also mean to minimize US gun violence.

Though either of these stats are hardly able to be applied broadly across the entire country given their driving force of poverty and its extreme regional & local disparities.

Edit: Actually those 600,000 burglaries only account for 69% of the US population. The actual number is ~900,000 nationally, bumping the math's number of violent crimes including assault, robbery, and rape experienced in homes up to ~62,100 or 1 in 1,990, surpassing being a victim of broad gun violence as tallied by the GVA when removing instances of justified self-defense.

Oh yeah? Name 3 things that is great about Missouri!

No seriously, I'm asking because I have a friend who feels the same way, and I want to go, "Well, you still have (3 things here)" and cheer them up.