Originally posted on The Why? Movement's blog, TheWhyMovement.org:
Why do so many gun control opponents base their views on suppositions that have, effectively, been substantively contradicted by evidence? Can Americans, as a people, not have a gun control debate based on reason instead?
Among these fictitious suppositions are that:
- Having a gun affords people greater safety
- Gun control is the start of a slippery slope to fascism
- Gun control doesn't work
- The National Rifle Association is interested in enforcing existing gun laws
- There's no correlation between the 2007 repeal of the Assault Weapons Ban and incidents of school shootings
- Most spree shooters get their guns illegally
- The Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms has too much power,
- Countries with more (presumably unregulated) gun ownership are safer
- The United Nations Arms Treaty will negate the 2nd Amendment
- Race has nothing to do with The National Rifle Association's views on gun control
- The Second Amendment is under threat from a tyranny of the (voting) majority
- America is simply getting more violent
- America's Founding Fathers did not support gun control.
- Criminals will easily find ways to get guns despite gun control.
Here are the facts about gun control, which most gun control overenthusiasts seems to be vastly ignorant:
1) States with the most gun laws have the fewest gun deaths.
2) States with stricter gun control laws have fewer deaths from gun-related violence.
3) More than half of mass shooters in the United States used what is conventionally considered an assault weapon and high-capacity magazines.
4) 25 of the 62 mass shootings in the United States since 1983 have happened since 2006.
5) More than three quarters of the guns used in the above-mentioned shootings were obtained legally.
6) Canada has tighter gun control laws than The United States
7) Israel and Switzerland are NOT gun-toting utopias
8) The United States' Second Amendment is NOT threatened by the UN Arms Treaty (second source here)
9) Hitler and Stalin did NOT tighten gun control prior to their fascist regimes
(Second and third sources are here and here, respectively)
10) The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms cannot inspect gun dealers once a year, request or require that they submit their inventory, or keep them from destroying records of background checks within 24 hours. Likewise, the ATF has no permanent director.
(Second and third sources here and here).
A logical conclusion from this is that the ATF has been rendered incapable of preventing guns from being sold on the Black Market.
11) The National Rifle Association protects wife beaters' gun rights.
12) The National Rifle Association supported gun control when the Black Panthers wanted to arm themselves.
13) Most people support gun control and oppose absolute banning of gun possession.
14) Women are much more likely to be murdered if they own a gun, and there's no clear evidence to suggest that gun ownership reduces a woman's chances of being killed.
15) Countries that have more guns have more violent deaths; both in terms of homicide and suicide
16)Having a gun in one's house is more of a health risk than a health benefit.
17) The National Rifle Association specifically lobbied to curtail research into the health risks of gun possession.
18) America is not getting "more violent"
19) Gun control IS constitutional
20) The Founding Fathers DID support gun control; "infringement" did not mean "unlimited freedom of gun ownership.
21) Criminals WILL NOT easily find another way to get guns if we have gun control.