GUNS: Liberals are firing blanks

I don’t feel bullied by the NRA. I do feel bullied by liberals who believe they know what is “best” for us. Jim Spurr’s letter was not only NOT informative, it was inaccurate. The number of criminal deaths from guns every day is closer to 35. Sounds like a lot, but numbers by themselves without a context are just numbers. Five of those 35 homicides are gang related. Do you REALLY think new laws will make the members of the nearly 30,000 gangs (not gang members, but gangs) in the U.S. give up their guns or violence?

Then there are the deaths due to driving under the influence. They totaled about 10,228 in 2011, only about 2,400 behind gun homicides. Let’s outlaw alcohol. Oh! Forgot, tried that once, only expanded, yup, gangs.

Let’s see, we could outlaw doctors. Medical errors accounted for approximately 195,000 deaths in 2002. So you have a 15 times higher chance of dying in a hospital than from gun violence. Still probably not a good idea to outlaw doctors. Not included in the “medical errors” statistic are the 3,288 children we murder EVERY DAY with abortions. I know, it’s a woman’s right to choose. I just wish they’d choose not to get pregnant in the first place. But a woman walking into a Planned Parenthood clinic has a higher chance of causing a death than any other activity I can think of.

Now for some final statistics: There were approximately 114,640,402 gun owners in the U.S. as of 2010. In any given year, if gun ownership were really the problem, there should be a lot more criminal gun deaths in the U.S. In fact, the most dangerous problem in the our country is “STUPID” and as the saying goes, “You can’t fix stupid.”

Somewhere north of 90 percent of all guns used in homicides are illegally obtained or possessed, or both according to the National Institute of Justice, DOJ. Taking guns from those who legally posses them, will not fix anything but that nagging question in the head of criminals. Does that guy or gal have a gun? In the years AFTER a Washington, D.C., gun ban and trigger lock law was passed, the murder rate went to 73 percent higher, until the law was found unconstitutional. Since the Chicago handgun ban became effective in 1981, homicides in that city with handguns have averages 40 percent higher. In 1995, before the Supreme Court found the law unconstitutional, 95 percent of the homicides in Chicago were committed with handguns. Hmm, handguns are illegal in Chicago, so how does that happen? So no, Mr. Spurr, you are not anywhere near right.

KENT SETTY

Coeur d’Alene