Stop! Hammer Time
So, someone I've known for a long time -- someone I do consider a friend, and someone I'm not going to name because of that -- gave me bullshit about guns this weekend.
It's apparently bullshit that's been going around for awhile: More People Are Killed In The U.S. By Hammers Than By Rifles.
Naturally, this has become a very popular meme in the conservative press.
My friend and I had been talking about several related issues, but that was the one where -- I admit it -- I shut off. At least partly because of the rattling off of this info, followed several times by the word "Fact!" as if saying that crisply and with authority completely destroyed any possible counter argument. But it doesn't. And I thought, My friend is utterly and completely missing the point.
I do not have a problem with my friend having guns of pretty much any type. This person is one of the most responsible gun owners I know, one whom I would trust to be safe and cautious with pretty much any hardware, and in fact someone I'd want at my back if the zombie apocalypse happens. But my friend is not the problem.
It's expressed succinctly by Alex Seitz-Wald at Salon:It’s a cute little meme, if wildly and obviously dishonest. First of all, set aside the fact that hammers and kitchen knives and cars are useful things outside of their capacity to maim, banning them would have tremendous negative impact on our economy and lifestyles. Guns, on the other hand, are designed specifically, primarily and exclusively for one purpose - to kill things. They have no other purpose, and heavily restricting their use would have no obvious impact on the economy or modern life (hunting will always be allowed).
Now, while rifles account for only a few hundred homicides every year, guns overall are responsible for many, many more murders - almost all of them. If you add up all the other methods used to kill people in 2011 (fire, drowning, poison, strangling, hammers, etc.), you get 4,081 non-gun homicides. That’s fewer than half of the 8,583 gun homicides. Guns killed more than 17 times more people than hammers and are responsible for nearly 70 percent of total murders. There’s a reason you don’t hear about mass hammering sprees.
My friend also invoked the Sandy Hook shooter, because those guns were obtained by the shooter killing his mother, who had obtained them legally. I should've been quicker on the draw (so to speak), but my friend is an emphatic, charismatic, and smooth speaker, with well prepared arguments, and I was a touch flustered, certainly too much to say Well I Think Killing Her For The Guns Is Probably Not Exactly Legal And Maybe Those Guns Weren't As Secure As She Thought.
And, looking at the FBI list, I had a wild counter-argument: If people die by strangling, maybe we should outlaw thumbs. 'Cause, after all, what else are they useful for?
Anyway. My friend promised to send me info at FB, but I don't see it anywhere, so I thought I'd jog the ol' memory.
This entry was originally posted at http://filkertom.dreamwidth.org/1609635.html. You may comment there or here, although LJ tends to have a livelier conversation at this time.
It's apparently bullshit that's been going around for awhile: More People Are Killed In The U.S. By Hammers Than By Rifles.
Naturally, this has become a very popular meme in the conservative press.
My friend and I had been talking about several related issues, but that was the one where -- I admit it -- I shut off. At least partly because of the rattling off of this info, followed several times by the word "Fact!" as if saying that crisply and with authority completely destroyed any possible counter argument. But it doesn't. And I thought, My friend is utterly and completely missing the point.
I do not have a problem with my friend having guns of pretty much any type. This person is one of the most responsible gun owners I know, one whom I would trust to be safe and cautious with pretty much any hardware, and in fact someone I'd want at my back if the zombie apocalypse happens. But my friend is not the problem.
It's expressed succinctly by Alex Seitz-Wald at Salon:It’s a cute little meme, if wildly and obviously dishonest. First of all, set aside the fact that hammers and kitchen knives and cars are useful things outside of their capacity to maim, banning them would have tremendous negative impact on our economy and lifestyles. Guns, on the other hand, are designed specifically, primarily and exclusively for one purpose - to kill things. They have no other purpose, and heavily restricting their use would have no obvious impact on the economy or modern life (hunting will always be allowed).
Now, while rifles account for only a few hundred homicides every year, guns overall are responsible for many, many more murders - almost all of them. If you add up all the other methods used to kill people in 2011 (fire, drowning, poison, strangling, hammers, etc.), you get 4,081 non-gun homicides. That’s fewer than half of the 8,583 gun homicides. Guns killed more than 17 times more people than hammers and are responsible for nearly 70 percent of total murders. There’s a reason you don’t hear about mass hammering sprees.
My friend also invoked the Sandy Hook shooter, because those guns were obtained by the shooter killing his mother, who had obtained them legally. I should've been quicker on the draw (so to speak), but my friend is an emphatic, charismatic, and smooth speaker, with well prepared arguments, and I was a touch flustered, certainly too much to say Well I Think Killing Her For The Guns Is Probably Not Exactly Legal And Maybe Those Guns Weren't As Secure As She Thought.
And, looking at the FBI list, I had a wild counter-argument: If people die by strangling, maybe we should outlaw thumbs. 'Cause, after all, what else are they useful for?
Anyway. My friend promised to send me info at FB, but I don't see it anywhere, so I thought I'd jog the ol' memory.
This entry was originally posted at http://filkertom.dreamwidth.org/1609635.html. You may comment there or here, although LJ tends to have a livelier conversation at this time.