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Gun stats cartoon

On Jan 18, the Sun-Gazette ran a cartoon with the following statistics. A cartoon of a shotgun, with the heading “Used in fewer than 323 murders during 2011”, and a cartoon of a hammer saying “Used in 496 murders during 2011”, with the subtitle: “Which one should be banned?” These statistics, like most of the right wing info on guns, are a lie.

Check the FBI site. It says 323 murders by “blunt instruments”, like clubs, hammers, etc. People crush skulls with whatever blunt object is close by, when a spontaneous 3rd degree murder occurs. But just hammers? No. The statistics for 2011 show 6,220 handguns used in murders. Are people saying handguns should be outlawed?

I have to wonder where the humanity has disappeared with people fighting about this. When someone breaks into an elemenatary school, and kills 28 people with a hammer, I’d want to outlaw hammers. Or, if they kill 20 people in a moviehouse, or kill that many on a college campus. The fact is, all mass murder shootouts are made with semi-automatic weapons.

As for the argument, that they will get the semi-automatic shotguns anyway, so why outlaw them? Heroin is outlawed even though you can still get heroin on the streets. Nobody thinks we should legalize heroin. But making heroin illegal sure makes it harder to buy.

The facts are these: If that kid’s mother in Newtown didn’t have a thing for semi-automatic weapons, a lot of people would be alive right now, and a whole lot of people would not have their lives destroyed. Let’s just be humane, rational people, just this once, just about this one thing.

William T Hoffman

Williamsport

Submitted by Virtual Newsroom

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