Nimnim did I read your post correctly or did you say 32,000 gun deaths in 2011? I assume there is confusion on my part and I didn't read it as intended because those numbers are WAY OFF. In 2011 there were 12,500 TOTAL homicides in America. About 8,500 by firearms. Further dividing the homicides we get the following numbers by weapon type:
Handguns: 6,220
Rifles: 323
Shotguns: 356
The rest of the homicides are comprised of "other guns/not stated" (1,600), knives (1,600), personal weapons(hands, feet whatever, 728), blunt objects (496).
Okay, I believe those homicide numbers INCLUDE justifiable police shootings and civilian defense shootings. I don't know the numbers but off my head around 700 for police and 400 for citizens. All of these numbers I put up are rounded and not exact as I can't find them listed in row and don't want to copy, paste and organize it all. Close enough. So we have about 7,000 total firearm homicides. Look at how many of those occurred in inner city and are gang related. Again can't be troubled to do 100% accurate math at this second but it is around 1/3rd of that number. Gun homicides and homicide in general has been dropping since the mid 90's.
Look at states without bad inner city gand problems and their gun homicide rate per 100,000 is actually less than similar industrialized nations with sweeping gun control. Pretty amazing, huh? Yet you won't hear this on mainstream media spew.
Another interesting point about this numbers: look at the rifle deaths. Hardly anything compared to handgun homicide yet Obama is on this "rapid killing ability" of "assault-styled" weapons. Err, assault styled rifle? What the hell is that and how is it more dangerous than any other rifle or semi-auto handgun? Answer... it's not but that is the point. It is a fear tactic against scary black "military-styled" semi-automatic rifles to try and sway sheep into supporting his legislation. He cannot argue numbers so instead he uses this tactic. An AR-15 isn't putting out any more rounds than times you click just like any other semi-auto. Yet it is incorrectly labeled "assault rifle" to try and sway an uninformed populace. That is what amazes me about this entire debate. Obama and the anti-gun crowd can't present actual statistical fact supporting such bans because the statistics show no correlation, no real finding or in some cases (like the 94' ban), find them to be 100% ineffective in every facet.
Instead they NEED to use words like "rapid death, assault rifle, assault weapon" to try and categorize semi-automatic rifles by exploiting aesthetic accessories like pistol grips, muzzle suppressors, barrel shrouds, collapsible stocks etc. None of these things suddenly change the ability of the rifle into a true, fully automatic assault rifle nor allow the user to put out more rounds than a handgun. They can't be honest because there wouldn't be any support for these bans if that were the case. The goal is to scare people into supporting legislation that has been proven to be ineffective to begin the steps to a full-out gun ban years down the line. Their tactics won't change.
I think they underestimated how many Americans were willing to research the issue and inform themselves. That and how close people hold those first 10 natural rights in the constitution and the idea behind 2A which is self-preservation. If it was about stopping gun violence they would ignore rifles all together and go after handguns, but let's face it even most lefties cannot support handgun bans as that is the last bastion of self-defense. Even Piers Morgan says "I am not saying to take away handguns". Yet the numbers say handguns are far more deadly than an AR-15 for many reasons including conceal-ability. The mag ban has no feet because that also has no working basis in reality. It takes a second to reload a mag on any weapon. Not even an inconvenience and banning mags (like they did in NY) assumes a criminal is going to only load the legal 7 bullet max into his illegal 15 round magazine. Yeah, not going to happen. So you're making criminals out of hundreds of thousands of law-abiding citizens and quite literally accomplishing nothing in the way of stopping mass-murder.
Where are the real ideas? Why wasn't Obamas first brilliant idea to offer a tax exception on gun safes for instance? Because this is NOT about stopping any murders. It is a facade with no real, working ideas other than the hidden agenda of progressive gun restrictions against law-abiding citizens of this country.
