There’s yet another move afoot to send wet kisses to the NRA and allow guns in Tennessee’s parks. While the Depends crowd will no doubt bring up the threat of boogey men waiting to rape your women and steal your children and flat-screen TVs, today’s New York Times has this to say about our safest, most responsible evah (h/t, Jo in comments):
There is no central tally of the effects, with states often barring release of concealed-carry data and Congress hewing to the gun lobby’s opposition to research on guns’ effects on public health. But a methodical gleaning of eight years of news accounts by the Violence Policy Center, a gun safety group, found that in research involving 722 deaths in 544 concealed-carry shootings in 36 states and the District of Columbia, only 16 cases were eventually ruled lawful self-defense — even though this has been a major gun rights selling point for the new laws.
Nothing screams “my pro-gun argument completely lacks any basis in reality” louder than “states barring the release of concealed-carry data.” But I digress.
More gravely, the study found that the fatalities included 17 law enforcement officers shot by people with legal permits along with 705 slain civilians. There were 28 mass shootings (involving three or more victims) in which 136 people were killed — even though concealed carry has also been sold as a defense against massacres like the one in Newtown, Conn.
In studying the 544 shootings, the center found 177 cases where people with gun licenses were ultimately convicted of crimes, including homicides, and 218 cases where the permit holder used the gun to commit suicide. There were 44 total lives taken by licensed individuals who first murdered others, then committed suicide.
The full death toll attributable to concealed carry is undoubtedly larger because the center’s study did not cover all 50 states. Lawmakers dare not allow a national tally, so badly needed, to be kept by the government. No one is sure how many citizens now legally carry guns, but estimates run beyond 11 million nationally with many statehouse agendas pursuing even more permits.
What we don’t know surely won’t hurt us, amiright? But let’s put this “safest, most responsible evah” bullshit to bed right now.
And now, your Tennessee gun report:
• February 9, 2015:
This pants-wetter claims the mall in Morristown violated his 2nd Amendment Rights. Apparently he needs to revisit the concept of “private property rights.”
• February 7, 2015:
A 19-year-old Chattanooga man accidentally shot himself when he adjusted the gun he had in his pants. He does not appear to have hit anything important.
• February 4, 2015:
1- A 15-year-old in Morgan County accidentally shot himself. He died.
2- A 69-year-old Greeneville man pointed a loaded gun at another man, then clocked him on the head with it. Appears to be road rage, from what I can tell.
• January 31, 2015:
Mississippi, Tennessee, and Arkansas are in the top ten states for gun deaths in 2013. Tennessee ranks ninth. For more on this, see our January 30 gun report item.
• January 30, 2015:
State Senator Frank Nicely has proposed a “Second Amendment sales tax holiday” which would eliminate sale tax on firearms, ammo and hunting supplies the first weekend of September. From the story:
The bill is modeled after similar legislation in Mississippi.
Because Tennessee is so dumbed down we’re actually getting ideas from Mississippi, the state that is permanently last in everything sane people want to be first in.
My thought is we don’t need a sales tax holiday. We need to double or even triple the sales tax on guns, ammo and hunting supplies, to compensate for the cost of all the gun fail. I’m tired of privatizing gains and socializing losses. There’s a public cost associated with gun ownership and we need to make the gun owners responsible, by requiring liability insurance and providing funds to be used toward the medical and law enforcement costs that stem from gun ownership. Personal responsibility time.
• January 29, 2015:
1- Nashville man trying out new birthday shotgun accidentally shot out his neighbor’s window. Yes, alcohol was involved.
2- A Franklin County sheriff’s deputy was in Murfressboro and left his gun and bulletproof vest in his car, whereupon it was stolen. Slow clap.
• January 26, 2015:
Someone shot a bald eagle in Vonore, Tennessee. There’s a $10,000 reward for information.
• January 19, 2015:
This Memphis man shot two dogs with an AK-47. One died.
• January 18, 2015:
This Dyer County man chased a German shepherd puppy around his neighborhood shooting at it until he finally killed it.
• January 16, 2015:
A McMinn County man was arrested after waving an AK-47 and pointing it at traffic.
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