The National Rifle Association (NRA) website has an ongoing feature called the Armed Citizen. The feature reports stories of individuals successfully using guns either at home, on the street, or in their place of business to thwart intruders, robbers, burglars, and assailants (and, this month, an angry dog, too.). Gun-rights advocates call them “defensive gun uses” or “DGU’s.” I call them “good” uses of a gun.
During the month of March, the Armed Citizen reported five such DGU’s. The first one was dated March 18, 2014; the last one was dated March 31, 2014. You can find the feature here: http://www.nraila.org/....
However, not mentioned in the Armed Citizen was that during the 31 days of March, based on average numbers (source: http://www.bradycampaign.org), 2,604 Americans were killed by a gun (1,581 by suicide) and another 5,983 were wounded by one (310 by attempted suicide).
Those number represent “bad” uses of a gun. To put it another way, for each single “good” use of a gun as recorded in the Armed Citizen during March, there were 1,717 “bad” uses of a gun.
Granted, the NRA might not have reported or been aware of all the confirmed DGU’s that occurred during March. Indeed, gun-rights advocates often point to studies that show as many as 2-1/2 million DGU’s each year. That’s over 200,000 a month.
With such staggering numbers, though, it’s puzzling that the NRA could only list five DGU’s in the Armed Citizen in the entire month of March. How is that possible? Perhaps it’s because NRA and its 5 million members are too lazy or too busy to report all the DGU’s to the Armed Citizen.
Here’s another possibility: They can’t find them because the claimed 200,000 DGU’s per month is as bogus as Bigfoot.
Help reduce this suffering 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:
http://www.contactingthecongress.org
Gun Facts
Every year in the U.S.A., on average: *
-- Over 18,000 people kill themselves with a gun (51 each day)
-- Almost 12,000 people are murdered by a gun (32 each day)
-- Almost 600 people are accidentally shot and killed by a gun (1 each day)
-- Over 51,000 people are shot and wounded in an attack involving a gun (140 each day)
-- Over 16,000 people are accidentally shot and wounded by a gun (43 each day)
-- Almost 4,000 people are wounded attempting to kill themselves with a gun (10 each day).
Total killed by guns each year: Over 30,000 (84 each day)
Total wounded by guns each year: Over 70,000 (193 each day)
Total number of Americans either killed or wounded by guns each year: Over 100,000 (277 each day)
* Brady Campaign (gun deaths from police intervention not included here)