According to the CDC, in 2009, 24,518 people died from alcohol. This number does not reflect suicide, accidents, or homicides committed under the influence of alcohol...and according to the CDC, 443,000 die every year from smoking cigarettes.
Compare that to the same year, and the FBI Crime Statistics, we see that 9,146 deaths that year were by firearm. This is all deaths. Remember how the alcohol report from the CDC excludes accidents, homicides, and suicide? Hmm.....
So what am I trying to say with all of this? That I think Smoking & Alcohol should be banned? No. Of course not. But it is quite simple, anti-gun activists are telling the country one thing, but the numbers outlined above say something completely different.
The problem with people like The Brady Campaign is that they believe guns are responsible for Crime and Society is responsible for the Criminal. They do not believe in individual responsibility.
To them, something is always someone elses fault, so they can't have a solid seat in reality. That's why they create numbers to make their rhetoric look flashy...that's why they don't link to real studies done on the relationship in gun violence and gun ownership...and the one time they do (reference a recent Australian Crime report) they point to "gun crimes" and say "See? Less guns equal less gun crime" but they neglect to mention the soaring numbers in every other category like Rape, Murder w/ something other than a gun, robbery, and assault.
Ya know what, though? Someone else has already done a lot of the number crunching for us. And unlike entities like the Brady Campaign, they actually cite their sources and back it up with raw information for you to make your own decisions.
"Nationwide: one-half million self-defense uses. Every year, as many as one-half million citizens defend themselves with a firearm away from home.
Concealed carry laws are dropping crime rates across the country. A comprehensive national study determined in 1996 that violent crime fell after states made it legal to carry concealed firearms. The results of the study showed:
States which passed concealed carry laws reduced their murder rate by 8.5%, rapes by 5%, aggravated assaults by 7% and robbery by 3%; If those states not having concealed carry laws had adopted such laws in 1992, then approximately 1,570 murders, 4,177 rapes, 60,000 aggravated assaults and over 11,000 robberies would have been avoided yearly.
Vermont: one of the safest five states in the country. In Vermont, citizens can carry a firearm without getting permission... without paying a fee... or without going through any kind of government-imposed waiting period. And yet for ten years in a row, Vermont has remained one of the top-five, safest states in the union -- having three times received the "Safest State Award.""
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