There has been yet another spurt in gun sales after the Newtown massacre, like similar spurts after Obama's election and re-election.
All aided and abetted by the gun industry and its well-paid demagogues, who have, for obvious self-interest reasons, propagandized that Obama wants to take away guns from legal owners.
Whether people are buying more guns for hunting, range shooting, personal protection, or the Second American Revolution, one thing is certain -- they are endangering themselves and their families by having guns in their homes.
By a lot, compared to non-gun-owning households.
More, below.
The Confederate states are the stronghold of Second Amendment extremism and related Second American Revolution fantasies.
So it's remarkable that the Southern Medical Association published an article that found that having a gun in a home is way more dangerous to people in the home than to notional home-invaders.
Based on a review of the available scientific data, Dr. (Steven) Lippmann (of the University of Louisville School of Medicine) and co-authors conclude that the dangers of having a gun at home far outweigh the safety benefits. Research shows that access to guns greatly increases the risk of death and firearm-related violence. A gun in the home is twelve times more likely to result in the death of a household member or visitor than an intruder.
The most common cause of deaths occurring at homes where guns are present, by far, is suicide. Many of these self-inflicted gunshot wounds appear to be impulsive acts by people without previous evidence of mental illness. Guns in the home are also associated with a fivefold increase in the rate of intimate partner homicide, as well as an increased risk of injuries and death to children.
One example of that is this sad story, about
a gun rights heroine shot by her husband, in a murder-suicide that orphaned three school-age children, in her gun-protected home.
Gun-rights extremists are a minority, part of the roughly the 20 percent or so of the Republican far-right.
In our democratic republic, their extreme views, and the absurd lies their demagogues tell, should not be allowed to thwart the will of the majority.
Who want reasonable gun safety regulations that will limit the death toll of our gun violence epidemic.