In a recent guest opinion piece, Dr. Charles R. Peterson stated that gun-related deaths in this country are a public health problem. However, I would submit that they are really a large city cultural/gang problem.
As Dr. Peterson points out the U.S. has the highest per capita gun ownership in the world. In fact, the U.S. has almost 89 guns per every 100 people, whereas, Switzerland has about 50 guns per every 100 people, and Canada has about 33 guns per every 100 people. Yet there is no correlation between the number of guns and the murder rates in these countries. The U.S. has 4.8 murders per 100,000 population; the Canadians’ 1.6 murders per 100,000 pop; and the Swiss’ 0.7 per 100,000 pop. In other words the U.S. with almost twice the number of guns per capita as the Swiss has almost seven times the murder rate. This is true even though many of the guns in Swiss homes are actual fully automatic military assault rifles.
The Swiss government has placed over 420,000 SG 550 rifles along with ammunition in the homes of Swiss men and women after they have completed their training in the Swiss national militia. Switzerland maintains only 4,200 full time soldiers and relies on their government-armed militia to protect their country.
With a population of 8 million, Switzerland has about 50 murders per year, whereas Chicago with a population of 2.7 million had over 500 murders in 2012, this in a city with some of the most stringent gun laws in the country.
Why such a drastic difference in the homicide rate? The answer lies in large city gangs and their culture. If you discount the gang-related murders in our large urban areas the U.S. has a murder rate that is close to that of Belgium.
A number of years ago in a rural south central Minnesota county I prosecuted an Asian gang member from St. Paul for the drive-by shooting of a residence. He and other members of his gang drove by a home and fired six or seven rounds from a high powered pistol into a house. The reason for the shooting was that his sister had been disrespectful earlier in the evening when she was asked to leave a party after getting into an argument with another girl.
Every day in this country urban gang members, most of them teenagers or young adults, are shot and killed because they are wearing the wrong colors, they have given someone the wrong hand sign or they are involved in an illegal drug transaction that has gone bad. Taking away the rest of the citizenry firearms or drastically restricting our access to them is not going to solve this problem.
For years I went duck hunting in Mexico. The shotguns used by my friends and me were provided by our outfitter and guide. He told us that it took him over a year of government red tape to acquire a new gun for use in the field. Anyone caught owning a gun without the proper paperwork in Mexico is sentenced to an automatic 10 years in prison.
Six or seven years ago our Mexican hunting trips came to an end. The Mexican authorities would no longer allow our outfitter to take hunting parties into the rural areas contiguous to the resort city where we stayed. They feared we may encounter armed drug gangs, who in spite of the harsh penalties for owning guns still have acquired all the guns they want. Some of which have been provided by our own government.
According to National Institute of Justice figures, one-third of all homicides in the U.S. are the result of something other than gun shot. Infringement of our rights as provided under the Second Amendment is not going to significantly impact the murder rate in the country. Until such time as we can somehow change the gang culture of our large inner urban areas we are never going to effectively deal with the homicide rate in the U.S.
Don Spartz, J.D.
Baxter
Comments (17)
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Mr. Spartz.
The liberals will surely try to ignore it or pick it apart.
Can it be changed?
You are so right. Maybe we should start with the gangs in
(pick your city) . Why are there gangs? I wonder if it has anything to do with the breakdown of the family. Lack of education, lack of an emphasis on obtaining an education by the parents, lack of parents, Take your pick
.There are plenty of people who have had the opportunity to do something about this but, end up only promoting themselves. What do the community organizers do?
I don't know but, it seems all they do is register people to vote and get people on government programs.
How about teaching them to be self-sufficent?
5000 people under the age of
5000 people under the age of 18 die from gunshot wounds in this country every year. That is 25 times more than the rest of the world combined.
Show proof of that number,
Lefter. I say baloney.
I know what I am about to say
I know what I am about to say will get flagged but I will say it anyway. Let's take the 500 Chicago murders from 2012, can someone tell me how many of these murder victims were caucasian. We have huge violence problems here in the US but to ask such a question is politically incorrect and offends some people, so we pretend to look at the issue but can't discuss the facts that may upset certain cultures. Once again, we must live in the delusion of the liberal agenda.
Oh Boy
Here comes the big one Louise!!! I am going to agree with a lawyer.(get to you're bunkers people) A Very Good Letter Mr.Spartz.
and you wonder why?
being told from an early age by elders, then repeated over and over by religious and civic leaders of the the community, that you have no chance because the cards that you were dealt at birth are of the wrong suit... what do you expect?
who's to blame?
When you have people of the same killing each other over a street corner... I find it hard to blame those who don't occupy that street corner as the cause.
(F)actually, Grandpatax....
the number for 2010 was 1,970. That's for all firearms causes, including unintentional deaths, for ages <1-18.
(sources: 10 Leading Causes of Injury Deaths, United States
2010, All Races, Both Sexes; CDC.GOV, and American Academy of Pediatrics -aapnews.aappublications.org/content/34/2/7.1.full)
Please don't just "guess" at numbers to push your agenda.
(No subject)
Oath Keepers 2A Rally Albany NY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Vb2Ggo4QhBs#!
I see some gun manufacturers
in Colorado are threatening to move their manufacturing jobs to other States if the new law passes there.
Also some gun and ammo manufacturers are threatening to restrict sales to the government. Will the Obama Regime try to nationalize them? (ala Chavez)
Or maybe criminalize their behavior?
Harry Belafonte
, entertainer, long-time left-wing activist and admirer of Third World dictators, inserted himself into the national debate on gun control when he claimed “white Americans” who agitate for gun rights are ignoring the black “river of blood that washes the streets of our nation.”
The actor was on hand to be honored at the 2013 NAACP Image Awards when he asserted in his acceptance speech that the “group most devastated by America’s obsession with the gun is African Americans.”
“Although making comparisons can be dangerous, there are times when they must be noted,” he said. ‘America has the largest prison population in the world. And of the over 2 million men, women and children who make up the incarcerated, the overwhelming majority is black. We are the most unemployed, the most caught in the unjust systems of justice, and in the gun game, we are the most hunted.”
Belafonte continued: “The river of blood that washes the streets of our nation flows mostly from the bodies of our black children. Yet, as the great debate emerges on the question of the gun, white America discusses the constitutional issue of ownership, while no one speaks of the consequences of our racial carnage.”
…
Belafonte failed to mention that a disproportionate share of gun violence in America is black-on-black. FBI and crime data from major city police departments show it’s black people “hunting” other blacks that largely comprises the “river of blood” flowing in American streets.
Translation; Obviously blacks aren't responsible for their actions, so whites must be blamed!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8NKPm34mLI
They should blame
the White Democrats that still enslave them.
"PROUD TO BE WHITE"
This is great. I have been wondering about why Whites are racists, and no other race is......
Michael Richards makes his point........................
Michael Richards better known as Kramer from TVs Seinfeld does make a good point.
This was his defense speech in court after making racial comments in his comedy act. He makes some very interesting points...
Someone finally said it. How many are actually paying attention to this? There are African Americans, Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, Arab Americans, etc.
And then there are just Americans.
You say that whites commit a lot of violence against you.. so why are the ghettos the most dangerous places to live?
You have the United Negro College Fund. You have Martin Luther King Day.
You have Black History Month. You have Cesar Chavez Day.
You have Yom Hashoah. You have Ma'uled Al-Nabi.
You have the NAACP. You have BET. If we had WET (White Entertainment Television), we'd be racists. If we had a White Pride Day, you would call us racists.
If we had White History Month, we'd be racists.
If we had any organization for only whites to 'advance' OUR lives, we'd be racists.
We have a Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, a Black Chamber of Commerce, and then we just have the plain Chamber of Commerce. Wonder who pays for that??
A white woman could not be in the Miss Black American pageant, but any color can be in the Miss America pageant.
If we had a college fund that only gave white students scholarships... You know we'd be racists.
There are over 60 openly proclaimed Black Colleges in the US ... Yet if there were 'White colleges', that would be a racist college.
In the Million Man March, you believed that you were marching for your race and rights. If we marched for our race and rights, you would call us racists.
You are proud to be black, brown, yellow and orange, and you're not afraid to announce it. But when we announce our white pride, you call us racists.
You rob us, carjack us, and shoot at us. But, when a white police officer shoots a black gang member or beats up a black drug dealer running from the law and posing a threat to society, you call him a racist.
I am proud...... But you call me a racist.
Why is it that only whites can be racists??
There is nothing improper about this message.. Let's see which of you are proud enough to send it on. I sadly don't think many will. That's why we have LOST most of OUR RIGHTS in this country. We won't stand up for ourselves!
BE PROUD TO BE WHITE!
It's not a crime YET... but getting very close!
More Guns - Less crime
Those who gave us numbers, did NOT include the world over. The USA is one of the LOWEST in homicides in the world. Where weapons are not allowed, it resembles another Germany. Don't fall for it. It CAN be documented.
Good work Mr. Spartz
Holey Moley Mav,
the lefters'll hire an assassin to hunt you for that one!
Back to the bunker, quick!
and then you have...
Joe "They're gonna put you back in chains" Biden. In other words, Joe was saying...If you don't vote for my main man...the old white guy party will set you back 150 years.