Please Don't Protect Me...I'll Rely On God

Are We still burying non gun owners who are being killed because either gun owners failed to properly secure their legal guns, or they live with mentally unstable people and they don't see it? The kids have access to them...and the list goes on. Excuses, excuses that's what gun owners give the loved ones to bury their dead.
Fear is what fills their minds. Fear that they have created. Sadly We live in a country where people could have chosen freedom but became certain that fear was worth holding on to.

National Gun Ownership34 %

Sex
Male37 %
Female31 %

Race
White37 %
Non White32 %
Black33 %

Age
18 – 29 31 %
30 – 49 40 %
50 – 64 45 %
50 +42 %
65+38 %

Education
College Post Graduate30 %
College Graduate37 %
Some College41 %
High School Graduate or Less42 %

Income
$75,00047 %
$50,00049 %
$30,00044 %

Region
East22 %
Midwest39 %
South50 %
West37 %

And Then These Facts and Statistics...

10 Pro-Gun Myths, Shot Down

Fact-checking some of the gun lobby's favorite arguments shows they're full of holes.

—By Dave Gilson

| Thu Jan. 31, 2013 7:01 AM EST

By cutting off federal funding for research and stymieing data collection and sharing, the National Rifle Association has tried to do to the study of gun violence what climate deniers have done to the science of global warming. No wonder: When it comes to hard numbers, some of the gun lobby's favorite arguments are full of holes.

Myth #1: They're coming for your guns.
Fact-check: No one knows the exact number of guns in America, but it's clear there's no practical way to round them all up (never mind that no one in Washington is proposing this). Yet if you fantasize about rifle-toting citizens facing down the government, you'll rest easy knowing that America's roughly 80 million gun owners already have the feds and cops outgunned by a factor of around 79 to 1.

Sources: Congressional Research Service (PDF), Small Arms Survey

Myth #2: Guns don't kill people—people kill people.
Fact-check: People with more guns tend to kill more people—with guns. The states with the highest gun ownership rates have a gun murder rate 114% higher than those with the lowest gun ownership rates. Also, gun death rates tend to be higher in states with higher rates of gun ownership. Gun death rates are generally lower in states with restrictions such as assault-weapons bans or safe-storage requirements.Update: A recent study looking at 30 years of homicide data in all 50 states found that for every one percent increase in a state's gun ownership rate, there is a nearly one percent increase in its firearm homicide rate.

Sources: Pediatrics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Myth #3: An armed society is a polite society.
Fact-check: Drivers who carry guns are 44% more likely than unarmed drivers to make obscene gestures at other motorists, and 77% more likely to follow them aggressively.
• Among Texans convicted of serious crimes, those with concealed-handgun licenses were sentenced for threatening someone with a firearm 4.8 times more than those without.
• In states with Stand Your Ground and other laws making it easier to shoot in self-defense, those policies have been linked to a 7 to 10% increase in homicides.

• This Is How the NRA Lies to Gun Owners About Obama's Agenda
• NRA's School Security Plan Cites Phony Shooting
• This Collection of NRA Ads Reveals Its Descent Into Crazy
• The NRA Myth of Gun-Free Zones
• Gunmakers and the NRA Bet Big on Silencers. What Could Go Wrong?
• Investigators Discover NRA Materials in Newtown Killer's House
• EXCLUSIVE: Unmasking the NRA's Inner Circle
• Meet the NRA's Board of Directors
• The NRA Myth of Arming the Good Guys
• How the NRA and Its Allies Helped Spread a Radical Gun Law Nationwide

See our full special report on gun laws and the rise of mass shootings in America.

Myth #4: More good guys with guns can stop rampaging bad guys.
Fact-check: Mass shootings stopped by armed civilians in the past 30 years: 0
• Chances that a shooting at an ER involves guns taken from guards: 1 in 5

Myth #5: Keeping a gun at home makes you safer.
Fact-check: Owning a gun has been linked to higher risks of homicide, suicide, and accidental death by gun.
• For every time a gun is used in self-defense in the home, there are 7 assaults or murders, 11 suicide attempts, and 4 accidents involving guns in or around a home.
• 43% of homes with guns and kids have at least one unlocked firearm.
• In one experiment, one third of 8-to-12-year-old boys who found a handgun pulled the trigger.

Myth #6: Carrying a gun for self-defense makes you safer.
Fact-check: In 2011, nearly 10 times more people were shot and killed in arguments than by civilians trying to stop a crime.
• In one survey, nearly 1% of Americans reported using guns to defend themselves or their property. However, a closer look at their claims found that more than 50%involved using guns in an aggressive manner, such as escalating an argument.
• A Philadelphia study found that the odds of an assault victim being shot were 4.5 times greater if he carried a gun. His odds of being killed were 4.2 times greater.

Myth #7: Guns make women safer.
Fact-check: In 2010, nearly 6 times more women were shot by husbands, boyfriends, and ex-partners than murdered by male strangers.
• A woman's chances of being killed by her abuser increase more than 5 times if he has access to a gun.
• One study found that women in states with higher gun ownership rates were 4.9 times more likely to be murdered by a gun than women in states with lower gun ownership rates.

Myth #8: "Vicious, violent video games" deserve more blame than guns.
Fact-check: So said NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre after Newtown. So what's up with Japan?

	United States	Japan
Per capita spending on video games	$44	$55
Civilian firearms per 100 people	88	0.6
Gun homicides in 2008	11,030	11

Sources: PricewaterhouseCoopers, Small Arms Survey (PDF), UN Office on Drugs and Crime

Myth #9: More and more Americans are becoming gun owners. 
Fact-check: More guns are being sold, but they're owned by a shrinking portion of the population.
• About 50% of Americans said they had a gun in their homes in 1973. Today, about45% say they do. Overall, 35% of Americans personally own a gun.
• Around 80% of gun owners are men. On average they own 7.9 guns each.

Myth #10: We don't need more gun laws—we just need to enforce the ones we have.
Fact-check: Weak laws and loopholes backed by the gun lobby make it easier to get guns illegally.
• Around 40% of all legal gun sales involve private sellers and don't require background checks. 40% of prison inmates who used guns in their crimes got them this way.
• An investigation found 62% of online gun sellers were willing to sell to buyers who said they couldn't pass a background check.
• 20% of licensed California gun dealers agreed to sell handguns to researchers posing as illegal "straw" buyers.
• The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives did not have apermanent director for 7 years, due to an NRA-backed requirement that the Senate approve nominees.

A 3-year-old, a 6-year-old, cops and robbers and a gun ...then tragedy

The 3-year-old boy who was one of two people killed in city shootings since Saturday night was accidentally shot by his 6-year-old brother while the two were playing cops and robbers, according to police.
The boy, whom authorities identified as Eian Santiago, was at a residence at about 9:05 p.m. in the 1000 block of North Francisco Avenue in the Humboldt Park neighborhood on the West Side when his 6-year-old brother got hold of a revolver and shot him in the head.
According to Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi, the two had been playing "cops and robbers" when the 6-year-old saw the handgun atop a refrigerator, took it and fired it in the direction of his brother. Guglielmi could not further describe the weapon other than saying it was a handgun.
The boys' father, 25-year-old Michael Santiago, was charged with felony child endangerment in connection with the shooting. He kept a loaded gun on top of a refrigerator, according to police. He is expected to appear in bond court Sunday.
Guglielmi said that Michael Santiago told police he was a former member of the Spanish Cobras gang and that he had purchased the gun from another gang member for protection. Guglielmi said police are in the process of tracing the weapon.
After the shooting, the boy's family members took him to Norwegian American Hospital. He later was transferred to Mount Sinai Hospital, where family members gathered as word of the shooting spread.
As word of the shooting spread, people walked up to the ambulance bay at Mount Sinai in groups of two or three. By 11:20 p.m., about two dozen people were waiting in the cold, including a young woman who had been wailing almost nonstop for half an hour.
"Why can't I go in?" she asked someone inside, sobbing.
A few minutes later, she screamed in the same direction.
"What do you mean, he's dead?" she screamed. "What do you mean, we can't go in?"
"No, no, no, no," said one man as he walked up to the hospital. He came to the wall and sank into a crouch.
"Oh, God, why," he said, his voice ragged.
In other shootings:
At about 2 a.m., a man was killed and another was wounded in a shooting in Rosemoor, said Chicago Police spokesman Officer Hector Alfaro said.
They were pulling away from a curb in a vehicle in the 10600 block of South Prairie Avenue when people walked up and fired shots.
The driver, a 22-year-old man, was shot in the upper back and pronounced dead on the scene. A 19-year-old man was shot in the knee and taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center. His condition was stabilized.
At 10:10 p.m., a 37-year-old man was shot in West Chatham, Alfaro said.
He was discovered on the sidewalk in the 7900 block of South Lafayette Avenue with a gunshot wound to the head. He was taken to Stroger Hospital in serious condition.
At 9:15 p.m., a 36-year-old man was shot in Cragin, Alfaro said.
He was in the 5500 block of West Altgeld Street when he was shot in the calf. He was taken to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center in good condition. No information was available about the man's exact age or the circumstances of the shooting.
At about 9 p.m., a 22-year-old man was shot in the Washington Park neighborhood, police said.
He was in a vehicle that was stopped at an intersection in the 5300 block of South Michigan Avenue when a car pulled up alongside and someone inside began shooting, Alfaro said. He was hit in the leg and taken to Stroger Hospital. His condition was stabilized.
About 8:45 p.m., a 26-year-old man was shot in the Fifth City neighborhood on the West Side, Alfaro said.
He was in the 0-100 block of South Homan Avenue when he was robbed and shot in the leg, Alfaro said. He went to Mount Sinai Hospital, and his condition was stabilized.
Police initially said the person was a juvenile who had been shot in the 3300 block of West Monroe Street.
At 8:40 p.m., a 35-year-old man was shot in Woodlawn, Alfaro said.
He was in a parked car in the 6100 block of South Ellis Avenue when another car pulled up alongside and someone inside fired shots. The man was shot in the head and taken to Stroger Hospital, where his condition was stabilized. A law enforcement source said the man was conscious and talking.
Police initially said the shooting happened in the 6400 block of South Ellis Avenue.
About 2:30, a 40-year-old man was shot in the Scottsdale neighborhood, police said.
He was in the 8500 block of South Pulaski Road when he was shot in the hip. He drove himself to Advocate Christ Medical Center and his condition was stabilized.
The Chicago Tribune's Deanese Williams-Harris contributed.


People are getting shot by toddlers on a weekly basis this year

© The Washington Post

This week a 2-year-old in South Carolina found a gun in the back seat of the car he was riding in and accidentally shot his grandmother, who was sitting in the passenger seat. This type of thing happens from time to time: a little kid finds a gun, fires it, and hurts or kills himself or someone else. These cases rarely bubble up to the national level except when someone, like a parent, ends up dead.
But cases like this happen a lot more frequently than you might think. After spending a few hours sifting through news reports, I've found at least 43 instances this year of somebody being shot by a toddler 3 or younger. In 31 of those 43 cases, a toddler found a gun and shot himself or herself.
In August, for instance, a 21-month-old in the St. Louis area found a loaded handgun at his grandmother's house and shot himself in the torso. His mother took him to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Earlier in the year a Michigan 3-year-old found a loaded .40-caliber handgun in a closet while his dad and brother were outside. He shot himself in the head and died before rescue workers arrived.
[This is what one year of gun deaths in America looks like]
The stories go on and on like this: Roughly once a week this year, on average, a small child has found a gun, pointed it at himself or someone else, and pulled the trigger. Boys are disproportionately likely to do this: I could find only three cases where a girl under the age of 4 wounded someone with a gun. In 13 of the 43 total incidents, a child's self-inflicted injuries were fatal. In two other cases, another person died after being shot by a toddler: a father in Alabama, and a 1-year-old in Ohio.
In one instance, a 3-year-old managed to wound both of his parents with a single gunshot at an Albuquerque motel.
Shootings by toddlers have happened in 24 states so far this year. Missouri has seen the most, with five separate incidents. Florida has had four. Texas, three. Due to the low number of total cases and the isolated nature of these incidents I'd caution against drawing broad conclusions from the map above. But it is worth noting that the shootings don't necessarily follow broader population trends. California, the most populous state in the nation, hasn't had any. Nobody has been shot by a toddler in New England or the Upper Midwest.
These numbers are probably an undercount. There are likely instances of toddlers shooting people that result in minor injuries and no media coverage. And there are probably many more cases where a little kid inadvertently shoots a gun and doesn't hit anyone, resulting in little more than a scared kid and (hopefully) chastened parents.
Notably, these numbers don't include cases where toddlers are shot, intentionally or otherwise, by older children or adults. Dozens of preschoolers are killed in acts of homicide each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But I haven't included those figures here.
[How often do children in the U.S. unintentionally shoot and kill people? We don’t know.]
These cases are invariably referred to as "accidents" in media reports. But as Everytown for Gun Safety, a group that advocates for stricter gun laws, argues, many incidents like this are preventable. In a study of accidental shootings by children of all ages (not just toddlers), they estimate that "more than two-thirds of these tragedies could be avoided if gun owners stored their guns responsibly and prevented children from accessing them."
There are policy and technical responses to preventable childhood gun deaths as well. States and localities could require guns to be locked up at home, a policy supported by 67 percent of Americans. Various types of smart gun technology, which prevent anyone other than their owners from firing a given gun, exist as well. But gun lock requirements and smart guns have been vehemently opposed by the National Rifle Association and its allies.
Instead, the NRA continues to promote a response that seeks to solve gun problems with more guns, and aims to broaden the saturation of firearms in nearly every sphere of public and private life, from homes to schools to churches to bars to airports and beyond. In a country with more guns than people, it's only natural that a certain number of small children are going get their hands on an unsecured firearm, with tragic consequences.
[Guns in America: For every criminal killed in self-defense, 34 innocent people die]
Depending on where you stand on gun policy, you may feel that 13 dead toddlers in 10 months is too many. Or, you might reason that stuff happens, and that this is part of the price we must pay to protect our gun rights.
I've included my tally of toddler shootings below. News sources are linked in the City column. Know of any this year that I missed? Drop me a line.

Date	City	State	Child's age	Child's gender
1/8/15	High Rock Lake	NC	3	male
1/21/15	East Lake	FL	2	male
1/21/15	Benton Harbor	MI	3	male
1/24/15	Las Vegas	NV	3	male
1/31/15	Albuquerque	NM	3	male
2/3/15	Davie	FL	3	male
2/9/15	LeBleu Settlement	LA	3	female
2/23/15	Florissant	MO	3	male
2/27/15	Houston	TX	3	male
3/3/15	Hillsboro	TN	3	male
3/8/15	Green River	UT	3	male
3/19/15	Chatsworth	GA	2	female
3/26/15	Montoursville	PA	2	male
3/30/15	Jefferson	GA	3	male
4/3/15	Raleigh	NC	2	male
4/12/15	Cleveland	OH	3	male
4/30/15	Peoria	AZ	2	male
5/9/15	Louisville	KY	2	male
5/9/15	San Antonio	TX	3	male
5/15/15	Oklahoma City	OK	2	male
5/17/15	Venice	FL	3	male
5/19/15	Snowville	UT	3	male
5/23/15	Jackson	MS	3	male
5/25/15	Lunenburg	VA	2	male
5/30/15	Myrtle Beach	SC	3	male
6/12/15	Jeffersonville	IN	2	male
6/12/15	Cincinnati	OH	3	male
6/15/15	York	PA	3	male
6/26/15	Pontiac	MI	3	male
6/29/15	Franklin Township	MI	3	male
7/2/15	Shreveport	LA	3	male
7/6/15	Spring	TX	3	male
7/14/15	Conway	SC	3	male
7/15/15	Kansas City	MO	3	female
7/18/15	Columbia	MO	3	male
7/21/15	St. Louis	MO	3	male
8/4/15	Miami	FL	3	male
8/5/15	South Anchorage	AK	3	male
8/18/15	Hoover	AL	2	male
8/25/15	Hanley Hills	MO	1	male
9/22/15	Lake Placid	NY	3	male
9/22/15	Dallas	OR	2	male
10/12/15	Rock Hill	SC	2	male

More on guns and gun policy:
There are now more guns than people in the United States
So far in 2015, we’ve had 274 days and 294 mass shootings
This photo captures America's relationship with guns
You have to see how many more people are killed by guns in America to actually believe it