What’s Wrong Today:
The Newtown shootings
have generated millions of words, many colored with understandable emotion. The
facts were difficult to find, since the news services all got some part of the
story wrong right from the start and repeated those inaccuracies for many
hours. Some of that was understandable, some less so.
Facts must drive
solutions to problems. Many facts surrounding the current state of the gun
culture in the US are reported with more than a tinge of opinion. There is
nothing new in that, it happens every day in our politics.
So it was nice to
find that the Fiscal Times offered up some
information about guns in America that is worth repeating. Their reporting is by Blaire Briody
and Maureen
Mackey. Here, as they reported, are some numbers associated with guns:
31:
Mass shootings in the US since Columbine in 1999.
70: People killed in mass shootings this
year in the US (not including the shooters who killed themselves). Seventy-two
more people were injured.
19.5/1:
Ratio of people
killed by guns in the US compared to other developed countries in the OECD. For
15-to-20-year-olds, firearm homicide rates in the US are 42.7 times higher than
in other OECD countries, according to a 2011 UCLA
School of Public Health study.
80:
Percent of all
firearm deaths that occurred in the US, among the 23 developed countries looked
at in the UCLA study. 87% of all children ages 0 to 14 killed by guns in these
countries are US children.
47,500:
Murders from firearms
in the US between the years 2001-2005 alone – and nearly 8 in 10 of these
murders involved a handgun, according to the FBI.
165,600: Number of signatures on a White House petition started on Friday, December 14th,
after the events in Newtown, demanding the Obama administration “produce
legislation that limits access to guns.”
16.8
million: Applications in
2012 to purchase firearms, up from 8.5 million in 2002, according to the FBI. Kentucky saw the most firearm
applications this year at 2.3 million.
$31.8
billion: What the firearms
industry generated in 2011 in job creation, sales and taxes, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF). (Curiously, the
NSSF is located in
Newtown CT.)
30
percent: The growth of gun
industry-related jobs during the recession (between 2008 and 2011), according
to the NSSF.
693
percent: The rise in stock market
value of Sturm, Ruger & Co., the largest publicly-traded gun maker, from
Obama’s inauguration until the day before the shooting. Smith &
Wesson stock was up 289% over that time. Since the shooting, however,
both stocks have fallen more than 15%.
600:
Estimated number of
guns bought back in Oakland and San Francisco, California, this past Saturday,
December 15. Each weapon was exchanged for $200 in cash. In Baltimore, Maryland, people sold back 461 guns the same
day.
600,000:
Semi-automatic
shotguns and rifles bought back as part of new gun control measures in Australia after a 1996 mass shooting in which 35 people
were killed. The country also prohibited private sales of guns. From 1995 to
2006, homicides by firearm in Australia plunged 59% and they haven’t had a mass
shooting since.
$1,100:
Price of a Bushmaster
Model .223 on GunBroker.com, the same model used in the Newtown shooting.
300
million: The approximate
number of firearms owned by civilians in the US as of 2010, according to the
book Firearms and Violence: A Critical Review. Some 47% of
adults report having a gun in their home, according to an October 2011 Gallup survey.
10
years: The maximum time in
prison for gun possession by any of the following: someone convicted of a
crime, someone dishonorably discharged from the military, a person with a
history of mentally illness, or an illegal immigrant.
1.1%:
The percentage of
the 108 million background checks processed through the federal system
that were denied between 1994 and 2009, according to a 2009 report from the Department of Justice, the latest data
available.
99:
The number of laws the NRA has pushed through in the past four
years making guns easier to own, carry in public or harder for the government
to track. Eight states currently allow firearms in bars.
$17
million: Amount the NRA spent on campaigns during the 2012 election cycle.
Two more facts that were not in the
Fiscal Times article:
- A report by Mayors Against Illegal
Guns finds: Failure by 23 states in
submitting mental health records to the system, with another 17 states
reporting fewer than 10 records and four submitting none at all. - After the Virginia Tech shooting, federal agencies were required to
report relevant mental health and substance records to the NICS database.
However, the vast majority of federal agencies have not complied:
a. Currently,
52 of 61 federal
agencies that are listed
in the FBI data obtained by Mayors Against Illegal Guns have reported zero mental health records to
NICS
b. 59 of 61 federal agencies have submitted zero substance abuse
records to the database, including the Drug Enforcement
Administration (!), the Department of Defense and the Air Force, Army, Navy
and Marine Corps
Now it is your turn
to think about what other information
you need to make an informed decision about any policy changes we should
make regarding the gun culture and gun ownership.
Tomorrow, a possible out of the box
solution on gun control.
