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Rage Against the Facebook Comments

As a disclaimer, the numbers are very difficult to deduce because the vast majority of violent crimes committed with a firearm don't end up with the firearm getting into the hands of the police. Because of that, its hard to tell if the gun was stolen, purchased legally, or what have you. But here goes- The 1997 DOJ survey of roughly 15,000 convicted criminals showed that of those inmates who used a firearm in the act of a crime, -0.7% got it from a gun show (Possibly legal, possibly not) -1% at a flea market (Possibly legal, possibly not) -3.8% at a pawn shop (Likely legal) -8.3% from a retail store (Almost certainly legal) -39.2% purchased from another criminal or stolen from a rightful owner (Illegal) -39.6% borrowed or stolen from friends or family (illegal, for all intents and purposes) [1] What this shows is that, even assuming that all the gunshow and flea market sales were legal, then the number of criminals that stole or purchased the firearm from another criminal outnumber the legal purchases almost 3 to 1 (13.8% Legal means, 39.2%  certainly illegal). If you factor in friends and family, that becomes 5.7 to 1. (13.8% legal, 78.8% illegal) If we acknowledge that, since that 78.8% obtained their guns either in a way that was illegal or outside the jurisdiction of any law enforcement agency (There's no way to prevent you from stealing something you have free access to), than we must logically acknowledge that additional laws wouldn't have stopped them from being obtained. This means that stricter gun control would, at BEST, prevent 13.8% of guns from being obtained that are used in crimes. the other 78.8% would be completely unhindered. I've heard it said that that means that you should simply remove all firearms. Lets examine that for a minute: Based on sales and production data from gun manufacturers, there were roughly 300 million firearms legally owned throughout the united states in 2010 [2]. Based upon surveys in the same year, 40-45% of households in america own firearms [3] There were 12,996 Murders in the US in 2010 according to the FBI. Of these, 8,775 were committed with SOME type of firearm (6,009 handgun / 358 rifle / 373 shotgun / 96 "other" / 1,939 undetermined) [4] According to the National Gang Center, there were 2,020 murders that were directly related to gang violence [5] This leaves us with 6,755 murders committed in the US with a firearm. Now, for the sake of simplicity, i'm going to continue as though every murder that was committed with a firearm was committed with a DIFFERENT firearm. Logic would dictate this is incorrect, but it will give a "highball" number and give the "Best case scenario" in the following hypothetical. If we assume that completely and totally removing firearms from the country could happen overnight and instantly, and that somehow no one was able to make them in their workshop, then you end up removing about 300 MILLION guns from the US people. Of those 300 Million guns, AT MOST 6,755 would have been used in the commission of a violent crime. That means that you just disarmed 40-45% of the US population, who had absolutely no intention of doing anything illegal, because of the statistically 0.0000225166% of guns that are used in commission of a crime. And you still can't prove that even half those crimes would be committed ANYWAY, just with a different tool. That's... incredibly unfair to the people who own the other 99.99998% of guns. [1] http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=940 [2] Book: Firearms and Violence: A Critical Review. By the Committee to Improve Research and Data on Firearms and the Committee on Law and Justice, National Research Council of the National Academies. Edited by Charles F. Wellford, John V. Pepper, and Carol V. Petrie. National Academies Press, 2005. Pages 56-57: Also, http://www.nraila.org/Issues/FactSheets/Read.aspx?ID=83 if you can't get access to the book [3] A) Dataset: "Average Number of People per Household, by Race and Hispanic Origin, Marital Status, Age, and Education of Householder: 2009." U.S. Census Bureau, January 2009.http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/hh-fam/cps2009.html Total households = 117,181,000 B) Dataset: "Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for the United States, Regions, States, and Puerto Rico: April 1, 2000 to July 1, 2008." U.S. Census Bureau, December 2009.http://www.census.gov/popest/states/NST-ann-est.html As of July 1, 2009, total people = 307,006,550 [4] http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2010/crime-in-the-u.s.-2010/tables/10shrtbl08.xls [5] https://www.nationalgangcenter.gov/Survey-Analysis/Measuring-the-Extent-of-Gang-Problems

The fact that someone managed to show how fucking stupid arguments on the internet in this manner is just fucking beautiful