The chicken or the egg

Yes, just a joke.

I'd have a hard time preparing for a school shooting or similar, simply based on the mere lack of guns in my environment. I think I held an actual gun in my hand once in my life and that was in Murica. And it was a civil war times rifle. Not sure I'd even be able to do a shoot without hurting myself.

Jesus Christ.

Close, but the best estimates are there are 470 million guns in US civilian hands.

That's the the lower boundary. The real number is probably closer to a billion.

You have to remember that untold millions of firearms were sold before anyone really started keeping track, no federal authority was keeping track before 1968ish, and that firearms will easily last a century if they are not fired too often and given even a minimum amount of care.

I myself inherited several pre-'68 firearms that would never have been counted. My 90 year old father in law has a dozen or more that he inherited or bought (western ranching family) that are still functional despite being manufactured over a century ago!

To put a fine point on the issue; into the 1970's you could buy firearms off the shelf at hardware stores or even CoD via mail order. 470 million is a low number.

Knowing the people I know, I bet that's much higher now!

you can read a chart correctly!

🎉😭

Around 40% in the USA own at least one firearm. It's probably higher now since trump is back in power.

Still an insane figure 😦

This is from 2017, almost 10 years old. I'd be interested to see how much it's changed, if at all, especially since there's that 30% who could see owning one in the future.

In terms of assigning responsibility, this is an easy one.

“You” refers to the firearm’s owner. Firearm ownership comes with a high degree of responsibility. It means knowing and following the four rules, at least two of which must be broken at the same time for someone to get hurt. It means maintaining a reasonable degree of control over that firearm at all times, whether it’s on your person or being stored.

If anyone is “finding” a firearm, reasonable precautions were not taken to secure that firearm.

These cases all boil down to gross negligence on the owner’s part. Legally and logically, the owner should be the one to suffer the consequences.

Unfortunately, in a lot of cases, the incident gets treated as a “tragedy” and legal consequences do not get applied.

I think there is a distinction between responsibility and blame. I don't think blame is easy to assign here, but responsibility is, the parents are responsible. Doesn't really change anything after the fact, but I also wouldn't say that the idea of personal responsibility is a fallacy. But just saying that people should be more responsible doesn't actually change the situation, you're right.

You should’ve kept it locked and trained your family to use it responsibly

I don't get it. Why not just have it locked away in some kind of safe? Why the need for training?

Seeing that reminds me, as atrocious as that is... the numbers are miniscule compared to the biggest killer. Pharma.

I get the point the comic is trying to make, but saying that more guns means more people die from guns isn't really a "gotcha"... In places with fewer guns, fewer people are using guns to do their murderings.

Fair point but see below...

I'd be more interested in a graph that shows total murders per capita compared to gun ownership per capita.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

The United States has over 4 times more murders per capita than France, for instance.

And you really shouldn't discount just how easy it is to kill someone with a gun. I don't have the stats at hand right now but knife related killings (as an example) are way less likely to happen because victims have a comparatively good chance to survive a knife attack.

There are solid reasons for keeping weapons that are designed to kill human beings out of the hands of most of us.

another way these facts get skewed: most gun deaths are suicides, not homicides

in the US, states with the strictest gun laws do also have the lowest suicide rates, maybe because when there isn't an easy way to quickly exit, fewer people do - and the same reasoning probably applies to homicides

either way, there are also accidental gun deaths (kids accidentally shooting themselves or others because they're playing with daddy's gun, etc.) - so gun policies absolutely do save or cost lives

Also, if everyone's out there getting shot, then of course I need a gun to protect myself.

yeah I think the real world is more complicated. Like, its not just about numbers, but also how control is implemented and even culture.

That is absolutely fucked up, but whats the relevance?