Maybe you don't remember the discussion I started here about that regarding gun thefts in Atlanta. Yes, that's a bad thing--untrained doofuses with guns. Am I to assume you'd be in favor of mandatory training for firearms owners?
To be clear, the problem is the thieves, not the gun owners. I'll note that many guns stolen from cars are the result of a maze of local laws that prevent CWP holders from carrying in many places, so if they are out running errands or doing their daily business they must make a hard choice--go unprotected all day or leave the weapon in the car when going to places where they can't legally carry. If we'd prosecute actual gun crime there would be less gun theft and also fewer people feeling the need to protect themselves. But that's racist.
I don't speak for JR, but encourage anyone who buys a gun to get some training. I guess you're a big NRA supporter, hodad, since they,
by far, provide the most training to US gun owners (including law enforcement officers). I would note that none of Bloomberg's "guns safety" organizations provide
any training at all. Nor do the other big gun control groups (Brady, Giffords, etc.).
Also of note, and not in a good way, is that the increase in gun ownership has also led to more suicides. An interesting thing about suicide is that the vast majority of people who survive their first attempt do not try it again. Unfortunately, there are few more effective ways to commit suicide than with a handgun, so that means a lot of folks aren't going to get that second chance.
That is a diaper load and you know it. Guns don't cause suicide. A simple examination of world-wide suicide rates is educational:
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/suicide-rate-by-country
I think you'd readily agree that the US has the highest gun ownership rate at 1:1 per-capita or even higher (and some 40-50% of households with guns). Yet we are not near the top of the list in suicide rate, not even among developed countries. Explain how South Korea, with pretty much zero private gun ownership can have a suicide rate nearly double ours if guns lead to suicide. Does Belgium have more guns per-capita than the US? Hungary? Croatia? And Japan has an only slightly lower suicide rate than the US with practically zero private ownership of guns.
Suicide in the US is driven by several factors, not the least of which is the large number of veterans with PTSD thanks to too may poorly conceived foreign entanglements. Economic despair as blue collar jobs have disappeared are another large factor. Increased drug use and dependency (thanks, in part, to our open southern border) factor in as well. And in the past couple of years, the combination of radical desocialization due to lock downs and mask mandates plus the loss of many thousands of small businesses are a big factor. Notably, suicides are up significantly among younger Americans the past two years.
Guns may be the most common way out here in the USA, but they aren't the cause. We aren't doing much to address the actual causes, sadly.
Some numbers: There are an estimated 400M guns in private hands in the USA (there are no hard numbers available, but gun ownership rates have increased significantly since ~2012) and there were ~30,000 suicides by firearm last year. That means one out of every ~13,000 owned firearms was used in a suicide. Assuming 50% of people live in a household where at least one gun is present (commonly used estimate), that would result in 165M / 30,000 which is one in 5500 "available guns" being used in a suicide. Guns aren't the cause.
