Showing posts with label U.S. gun deaths. Show all posts
Showing posts with label U.S. gun deaths. Show all posts

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Why is the NRA so much like Al Qaeda?

Osama bin Laden and his gang
The answer: Because they both kill innocent Americans.  This idea came from a comment by Jim Waldo in the Duluth, Minnesota Tribune headlined, “Reader's View: NRA outpaces Osama bin Laden in the killing of Americans.”  Jim says: “Even with all the media attention on massacre shootings in Virginia, Arizona, Colorado and, now, Wisconsin, there hasn’t been enough mention of the National Rifle Association or of assault-weapons sales.”  The two are synonymous. 

Jim adds: “The silence from the association {NRA} has been deafening.

This reaction by the leading gun nuts is typical.  During the immediate period following gun bloodbaths, they use the time to fire up the NRA membership with threats that this will cause a wave of new gun control laws taking away their firearms.  That is designed to sell more guns, which is their basic goal since gun manufacturers are the major financial supporters of the NRA.  Not caring about innocent people killed, obvious by their silence other than they are sorry.

In doing the numbers, I came up with a figure of 5,000 Americans that Al Qaeda has killed directly.  Perhaps more have died indirectly, but the 5,000 figure seems to be an agreed upon amount.  Now, let’s look at the other side of the picture which involves the National Rifle Assn. (NRA) and its lobbying efforts to make guns available to anyone in the United States that wants them, including the Seung-Hui Chos, Jared Loughners, James Holmes, and Wade Michael Pages.

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), which is the best source of statistics on gun deaths, there are 31,347 firearm deaths a year which equals 10.2 deaths per 100,000 population.  And that’s every year.  There have been 432 deaths caused by guns in the U.S. just since March of this year when I started my Monthly Shooting Report.  My numbers reflect only what is reported by the media, missing several shootings, but are still astounding.


Wacky Wayne LaPierre

Jim Waldo asks two questions of the NRA that I have been asking for several years.  First, why anyone in the American public, other than law enforcement and the military, needs assault weapons?  Second, Jim would like to know just what the NRA has done to prevent guns getting into the hands of the mentally disturbed.  Like the four individuals mentioned above.  He won’t find out since the NRA is too busy on their next campaign to sell even more guns.

My final comparison is to show similarities between the NRA’s head, Wayne LaPierre, and Osama bin Laden.  Bin Laden had a goal of killing as many Americans as possible, no matter what.  Although LaPierre’s intention is certainly not to kill Americans, his goal of selling as many guns as possible, no matter what, is indirectly responsible for killing thousands of Americans every year.  The intent is different but the results the same.  Americans die from too many guns.

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