1113 days, 0 hours, 19 minutes since Bush is out of office!.

Northern Illinois University Madness

Like the rest of the country...I've been deeply disturbed by what happened at Northen Illinois University on February 14th.

Once again, a lone gunman, who purchased legal firearms, from legitimate sources under the full auspices of a law-abiding citizen, snapped and killed a bunch of people.

Whether or not the same could be said of the Virginia Tech looney is up for debate. HE certainly purchased his stuff through legal channels...the problem is that the State of Virginia probably should not have allowed his purchases to be legal in the first place.

I've SEEN people snap. Perfectly good, normal people have completely come apart right before my very eyes on more occasions than I can count. I wonder what the outcome of these oh-so-many painful experiences would've been had there been a gun present.

Everyone, at some point in his/her life comes close to crossing the sane line.

Would anyone have guessed that O.J. Simpson was a cold-blooded killer? No.

Nearly 4 times as many people are killed in this country due to gun violence every year than were lost on 9-11...yet because of 9-11 most right-wingers are ready to throw our Constitutional Protections to the wind...as long as no one touches their precious guns.

I don't have a problem with guns per se. It's the sheer magnitude of HOW MANY are out there...HOW MANY of these damned things are made every freakin' day.

You see, I've taken some numbers from the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms...whose latest data is only as of 2006,(which was posted on 1/29/2008) and ran the numbers through some quick elementary school addition and averaging. It's really astounding.

Type of gun Number of guns
.22 Pistols
 141,651
.25 Pistols 9,625
.32 Pistols
 39,197
.380 Pistols
 126,939
9mm Pistols
 352,383
.50 Pistols
 351,465
.22 Revolvers
 84,452
.32 Revolvers
 2,242
.357 Magnum Revolvers
 99,562
.38 Special Revolvers
 85,321
.44 Magnum Revolvers
 54,308
.50 Revolvers
 56,184
Total # of handguns = 1,403,329
Rifles (no breakdown given)
 1,496,505
Shotguns 714,618
Miscellaneous (no breakdown) 35,872
Total # = 2,246,995
  Grand Total from 2006 = 3,650,324

So U.S. Gun Manufacturers made 16,666,142 guns over a 5 year period from 2002-2006, and when I added the totals provided by the ATF from 2001, 2000, 1999 & 1998 myWindows calculator gave me a total of 14,698,461 guns from 98' to 01'
...that all adds up to a nine year total of 31,364,603 guns from 98' to 06'.

52 weeks a year X 9 years = 468 weeks
31,364,603 guns divided by 468 weeks is an average of 67,018 GUNS A WEEK.
Thats 9,574 GUNS A DAY!

And this is not counting Imported Guns Manufactured by Companies like Glock, Sig Sauer, CZ, and Benelli that arrive on our shores and end up on nightstands, top drawers, under pillows, in holsters, back pockets, hoodies, jackets, purses, & tucked into pants waists daily.

It is a veritable arms race that works something like this:

  • The more crime that happens with the proliferation of guns...
  • causes more people to want to purchase them to protect themselves...
  • thereby increasing the demand for them...
  • therefore increasing their production...
  • thereby lowering the cost...
  • and therefore raising their prevalence.

It's a simple economics cycle of mind-numbing proportions. This escalation must STOP.

 

...Sickening.

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