It works out to
about three percent.
The Violence Policy Center released a study Wednesday that finds people are much more likely to use a gun to kill someone without cause than to protect themselves.
According to the study, gun owners committed 259 justifiable homicides compared to 8,342 criminal homicides in 2012, the most recent year data was available.
The figures are meant to compare only "justifiable" and "criminal" homicides, stripping out deaths by suicide or accidental shootings, and thus vastly underreports the total number of gun-related deaths during that time period. Other statistics
from the study:
• 13 states reported no justifiable homicides during 2012.
• At 205, Texas led the nation in justifiable homicides during the period 2008-2012. The next highest were California (110), Michigan (84), Tennessee (84), Georgia (61) and Arizona (59). Numbers for Florida were unavailable.
• 91% of justifiable homicides were committed by men; 98% of the persons killed in those homicides were men.
• 58% of those killed were black; 38% were white.
• 75% were committed with handguns.
• In total, guns were used as a means of defense against a violent crime or attempted violent crime by 0.8% of victims; this figure includes gun use by off-duty law enforcement personnel.
Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2011—Netroots Nation joins Laborers' Union for jobs and infrastructure rally:
Many of us were just arriving for Yearly Kos in 2007 (the second and last time it would be Yearly Kos rather than Netroots Nation) when news came that the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis had collapsed, killing 13 people. Today, the Laborers International Union of North America (LiUNA) held a jobs and infrastructure rally looking across the river at the rebuilt I-35 bridge, and busloads of people from Netroots Nation joined a mass of people in Laborers' orange t-shirts.
The mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Rep. Keith Ellison, Sen. Ben Cardin, former Michele Bachmann opponent Tarryl Clark, and others addressed the crowd, emphasizing the need for infrastructure investment that would create jobs, make us safer from our bridges to our drinking water, and improve energy efficiency. Two speakers, though, capped the rally.
Van Jones told the crowd that:
The dignity of your fight, the moral center of your fight, is that you're not just fighting for yourselves...What's key is that when you fight you aren't fighting just for your families, you're fighting for the whole American family. |
And if you're not familiar with Laborers' President Terry O'Sullivan, let's just say "fiery" would be a good description of his speaking style. That would be fiery as in:
Teabaggers need to get their head out of their ass and see the real world and invest in America. |
Tweet of the Day
Michael Savage: Pope Francis Like False Prophet 'Directing Mankind To Worship The Antichrist' cc @ed_kilgore
http://t.co/...
— @sarahposner
On
today's Kagro in the Morning show,
Greg Dworkin rounded up 2016 news on Hillary, Jeb!, and The Donald. The debate wars. How the pope got religion on climate change. If Jade Helm wasn't crazy enough for you, watch Texas go full-on gold buggy, with it's crazy-sounding plan to establish its own Fort Knox.
Joan McCarter visits to warn us about the newest Gop plan to derail net neutrality, remind us that the trade fight isn't over, keep us on
King v. Burwell watch, and share a laugh about the Gowdy vs. Issa Benghazi spat.
Find us on iTunes | Find us on Stitcher | RSS | Support the show!
High Impact Posts • Top Comments • The Evening Blues