The Gun debate sandbox

Yearly there is 1 child killed by a gun for every 1 million-plus guns.

There is one drowning of a child for every 11,000 residential swimming pools.

The ratio that is relevant to a civil society is gun violence per capita. Why? because guns are by far the most efficient killing machines available and when widely available they are used as the preferred tool of violence to the detriment of civil society by an exponential rate of efficiency. American society is living proof. All other civil societies that limit access to these killing machines are generally speaking LESS VIOLENT and as a consequence MORE CIVIL.

Chaz -- "I'm saying it isn't the law ( or absence thereof ) that makes a safer society."

The Bruce -- "you idiots a civil society or not?"

Gun crime has plunged in the United States since its peak in the middle of the 1990s, including gun killings, assaults, robberies and other crimes, two new studies of government data show.

Yet few Americans are aware of the dramatic drop, and more than half believe gun crime has risen, according to a newly released survey by the Pew Research Center.

In less than two decades, the gun murder rate has been nearly cut in half. Other gun crimes fell even more sharply, paralleling a broader drop in violent crimes committed with or without guns. Violent crime dropped steeply during the 1990s and has fallen less dramatically since the turn of the millennium.

The number of gun killings dropped 39% between 1993 and 2011, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported in a separate report released Tuesday. Gun crimes that weren’t fatal fell by 69%.

That's what it's really about. It's not about hunting weapons; it's not about the "National Guard" (which isn't a militia). It's about everyday law-abiding citizens having the ability to resist a tyrannical government. And with that deterrent in place, we've managed 230 years without our government descending into tyranny (though it's come close).

And that's why Progressives hate it. Deep down, progressives (i.e. socialists) are not populists. Deep down, progressives despise the majority of their fellow citizens, and don't trust them at all. They love America but hate most of the Americans. Progressives are entranced with the possibilities presented by a benevolent dictatorship. They ignore the peril, that it can mutate into a malevolent dictatorship because they believe in their own virtue. They're sure it won't happen if they're in charge. As to Democracy? It's a burden, a barrier; it gives the vote to all the rednecks and knuckle-draggers who have been mislead by the evil capitalists (remember the Doctrine of False Consciousness? Pernicious claptrap, that one, but it has a lot of currency on the left) and will resist the Progressive program even though it's Obviously the right thing to do.

If only Progressives, as an enlightened elite, had the ability to impose their program on the rest of us, eventually we'd come around to their point of view. But that means they need dictatorial power, and Democracy prevents that.

And the last and strongest barrier against the creation of a benevolent dictatorship by the Progressive enlightened elite is that damned Second Amendment, and all those firearms owned by the rednecks and knuckle-draggers.

So let's be clear: Progressives don't fear guns in the hands of criminals, or not very much. It's not about school shootings, either. It's guns in the hands, and homes, of law abiding citizens that Progressives hate. Those are the guns they wish were gone; those are the guns they will try to eliminate if they can. Because those are the guns which stand in the way of them taking over.

Yet few Americans are aware of the dramatic drop, and more than half believe gun crime has risen