The statistics are truly astounding. In 2011, the number of people who died from a bullet fired from a gun was 31,940.
Eight hundred fifty-one deaths occurred because people were stupid in handling guns. There were 19,766 suicides, many of which might have been prevented if it were not so easy to get a gun. There were 11,101 murders by gun, as well as 222 deaths from guns, for unknown reasons.
We don’t know yet what the statistics from 2014 will be, but the blood and bodies are already piling up because Americans are unable to be responsible with guns.
The extremely money-larded lobbying of gun manufacturers and the money-engorged National Rifle Association are able to manipulate access to reliable gun violence statistics on the internet, even though internet users are supposed to enjoy “net neutrality” and we are constantly bombarded with pro-gun propaganda on American corporate media.
When a person kills another in the United States, 60 percent of U.S. homicides occur using a firearm, which is the 26th-highest rate in the world. In other gun-permeated countries, such as Finland (45.3 guns per 100 people), only about 19 percent of homicides involve a firearm.
It is time for voters who care about public safety – voters who care about being able to go outside of their homes to schools, universities, grocery stores, movie theaters, shopping malls, even churches, synagogues, mosques and other houses of worship – it is time that voters who go to these places when they step outside of their door can visit these places safely without the fear of being shot dead by someone who has a gun and who definitely should not have a gun, because we are afraid of the National Rifle Association.
We have to begin with our lawmakers at every level. If a lawmaker is a member of the association, they are unfit to serve the public and must be voted out. This is a beginning to ensure that public safety and the rights of people to live and be unharmed are not buried under the so-called rights of those who insanely believe that they have a God-given right to own a gun and carry a gun anywhere they please.
Karen Hedwig Backman, Federal Way
