The National Rifle Association (NRA) website has an ongoing feature called the Armed Citizen. The feature reports confirmed stories of individuals using guns either at home, on the street, or in their place of business to thwart intruders, robbers, or burglars.
During December 2013, the Armed Citizen reported six such incidents; the first one dated December 3, the last one December 31-- a period of 29 days. If you want a look at the feature, you can find it here: www.nraila.org/gun-laws/armed-citizen.aspx.
However, not mentioned in the Armed Citizen was that during the same 29-day period, based on average numbers (source: www.bradycampaign.org), 2,436 Americans were killed by a gun (1,479 by suicide) and another 5,597 were wounded by one (290 by attempted suicide). That’s a total of 8,033 “bad” uses of a gun. To put it another way, for each “good” use of a gun during those 29 days, there were 1,388 “bad” uses of a gun.
Of course, the NRA might not have reported or been aware of all the confirmed “good” uses of a gun that occurred during that 29-day period, but it’s unlikely they missed 8,027 of them in order for the “good” numbers to at least equal the “bad” ones.
The website also failed to mention that if there is a gun in a home, it is 22 times more likely to be used to kill or injure a member of the gun-owner’s family (due to domestic homicide, suicide, or unintentional shooting) than to be used in self-defense (source: www.bradycampaign.org).
Not included in my numbers are those times when a gun is used to frighten, threaten, terrify, bully, intimidate, or coerce innocent individuals, including family members. It’s another “bad” use of a gun that has yet to be quantified and reported.
Please help reduce the carnage caused by guns that goes on day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year. Call, write, email, or FAX your representatives in Washington, D.C. and tell them to support common sense gun control. Do it today. And do it again next week. And do it again every week after that until they get the message.
You’ll find contact information here:
www.contactingthecongress.org