I found some interesting articles online pertaining to preventable causes of death in the United States. Amazingly enough firearms are towards the bottom of that list, approxinately 16,000 suicides vs 10,000 homicides. At the top of the list are the usual suspects tobacco, obesity, and alcohol related deaths totaling close to 630,000 combined. What happened in CT, clear enough, was a tragic event, however, it should be more transparent than ever to us the ability for the media and government to use fear and lack of education in order to push their agendas. The 'shock factor' in an event like this, where multiple deaths occur within an extremely short period of time, relatively speaking, create a much better story for the media to brush a broad stoke with. This allows them to easily show photographs of victims, report stories of deranged madmen, and link the causes to a single devise. What is truly sad is the excitement the media gets out of a story such as the Newtown one. What else can we come up with to avoid discussing the fiscal cliff, the European debt crisis, and government inaction in Libya? The lack of firearm related knowledge the average person has allows for stories like these to be easily used into swaying people to believing what they are told by reporting agencies and their 'leaders' in public office. Sadly, it is human nature to be afaid of something which you are uneducated on. This leads to the elimination of creative and self thought, something we as a country have the freedom to exercise. Many people would be too afraid to shoot an AR-15, let alone own one; so who's keeping them from knowing how dangerous it may or may not be? I could rant about this for hours, and were I in post grad studies, would find it a very interesting thesis to work on. Just needed to find a place to rant and keep it off the social media sights where the internet Einsteins are always correct. I for one will be bringing my girlfriend upstate to our hunting camp to bust off some 5.56 rounds this winter in hope of educating at least one person with little to no knowledge of guns.
I was helping a female friend of mine who even before this shooting had been considering getting a gun. she is utterly terrified of all guns though. I was explaining to her semi auto pistols & revolvers & all that stuff. Then I grabbed the 22 version of an AR, I thought she was going to pass out. "Why do you have a machine gun? Is that legal? OMG I dont even want to hold it." Then I asked her which gun she thought would be more powerful, this scary one or (grabbing a bolt action remington 700 in 7MM mag) or this one? You obviously know which she chose.
Would it be she interprets more powerful as can shoot more bullets? I had almost the same talk here at work, from what I got some think different types of guns kill better.
