This morning's shooting is an absolute tragedy, as is every shooting death or injury that occurs across our nation. So I think it's worth reviewing a few necessary statistics with gun ownership:
1. A woman's chance of being killed by an abusive spouse or boyfriend, father increases 7 fold if he has access to a gun.
2. Women were shot by husbands, boyfriends, and ex partners 6 times more often vs. a male stranger.
And some other points to consider:
3. For every 1% increase in gun ownership rate, there's a 1% increase in firearm homicide rate:
4. Owning a gun is correlated to higher risks of gun homicides in the home.
5. Higher rates of gun suicide
6. Higher risks of accidental deaths by gun shots.
7. For every 1 time a gun is used in a home, there are 7 gun assaults or murders, 11 gun suicide attempts, and 4 gun shot accidents in the home.
Of course there's many other stats out there that could be cited, but what's also maddening is the fact that the NRA and the powerful gun lobbyists have stymied and successfully kneecapped firearms research over the years. Strange that. Imagine what we'd really come to know if more actual data and research was made available?
Addendum: A recent DKos diary gave me another one to add:
8. Our country is averaging more than 1 mass shooting per day now. Good God.