Pat Oliphant for April 25, 2014

Another victory for gun violence advocates.

Ye-haaa. Let’s have some more school shootings

Jase99, I assume that number is per household. Don’t all males have to have be in the reserves and maintain a weapon at home? Numbers can really be misleading. Ahhh LaPierre, that – will only be happy when you can have tactical nukes at home.

The following is the point of view of someone who sees the problem, is dismayed the often vitriolic debate, and certainly doesn’t have the answer:.The old TV Western shows I watched as a kid are in reruns on many stations now. I watch them with interest and see things from a different point of view: Have Gun, Will Travel; Wanted Dead or Alive; The Rifleman; Bat Masterson; Wyatt Earp. Each of those shows featured a certain special type of firearm (I had a toy facsimile of the Buntline Special). Often, the real star of the show was the gun. My favorites were Annie Oakley, Maverick, and Gunsmoke, with sympathetic main characters who didn’t enjoy killing. Toy guns were very popular back then, and I had several. I can’t count how many imaginary “bad guys” I shot..Often the main characters of those Westerns did fantastically skilled , if not impossible, things with the guns like plugging coins in the air or shooting a gun out of a bad guy’s hand without bloodying it. We kids took those things as possible and common. . I grew up and saw guns actually hurt people. The wounds are usually a mess, not neat and precise as on those old shows. Do some people my age still think in using a gun, even with training, they will be Western heroes? Probably in a panic situation they would more like Barney Fife..Guns have always fascinated people. What is bringing on this extreme gun obsession in recent years? Is it due to societal circumstances, or commercial campaigns? People away from the cities naturally have safety concerns against human and animal varmints. City people don’t generally understand that. On the other hand, I don’t think country people understand city situations, either. Is the answer to have everybody armed everywhere?.The most bizarre argument I hear to concealed gun-carry is that people will be more polite to each other if they don’t know who is armed. Etiquette at the threat of having a gun pulled on you is fear of everyone around. That’s doesn’t build and maintain a healthy community. Open carry sends an even worse message, I think. What we are doing now just can’t be the final answer to our problems.

Clever comic… I don’t necessarily agree with the point, but it’s still a clever comic.

Here is another way of looking at it. Highest gun ownership vs murder rate.

United States 101/100 vs 4.2/100,000Serbia 58.2 vs 1.2Yemen 54.8 vs 4.2Switzerland 45.7 vs 0.7Finland 45.3 vs 2.2

The United States is first in gun ownership and 103 in murder rate among reporting countries.

archimedes

Quite contrary.

Look at the lower murder rate in Philadelphia, with an easy concealed carry law as opposed to the high murder rates in DC, NYC, and Chicago with restrictive CC laws. All 4 cities have equivalent poverty rates, crime rates, and gang membership. I agree with Mr. King that correlation is not causation, but remind him that correlation is a rational gateway to a rigorous analysis of causation and, if other possible causative factors are found to be non-dispositive, then the correlation becomes a causative factor.

On a happier note this website, gocomics, also has a strip “Origins of the Sunday Comics” that today contains an early 19 hundreds strip by George McManus [of Maggie and Jiggs fame] called Newlyweds that has a parrot that makes somewhat sarcastic comments on the action in the strip. I wonder if this is where Pug came from?

^^^^^^“Every township has a target range (active reservists must pass an annual test), no ammunition for army weapons can be opened except at the range or when actually in service, and there are programs for the kids to teach responsible gun use (now even including the girls…I believe last year a girl won the annual kid’s marksman contest in Zuerich)”——————————————————————————__________Sounds like we should expand the NRA because that kind of training and safety with guns is exactly what they do.

All true, but all besides the point. The numbers of gun ownership for switzerland were civilian guns not military so there is clearly a large number of personal guns owned as well. There is a gun range in most communities where I live as well. Virtually every township has a range or gun club. There are numerous programs for teaching children the proper respect and use of firearms in the US as well. The NRA and the Boy Scouts, just to name two, have such programs. I agree the culture is different, but that has little bearing. The culture is clearly different between my community and Chicago as well.

archimedes

This is your subjective opinion. I was raised around hunting, where we ate what we shot. I continue to shoot at ranges now (live in a city), as an enjoyable hobby that also enhances my hand/eye coordination.

I appreciate that you don’t appear to like guns, but please don’t disparage others.

Your response to Archimedes is interesting, but a bit misleading, also. Lumping accidental shootings with " shootings that are not considered ’murder’" does not explain what those other shootings are. The actual highest category for death by firearm is suicide which accounted for 59.8% of all firearms deaths in 2009. By comparison, accidental shootings were %1.8. In this sense, though tragic, very few of the deaths are accidental – the result of people not knowing how to use them properly or not securing them, etc.

I love the artwork Pat does!

prfesser,

we have many parents who are horrible parents, whose children are maimed, injured, or otherwise damaged due to accidents. Are you suggesting they not be allowed to kids? Restricting the rights of the competent because incompetence exists in others is not the way to run a society.

archimedes

Rifles make the headlines, but aren’t the real problem with crime and homicides/suicides, that would be hand guns. Most of the NRA action since LaPierre (actually before him) has been about handguns, NOT RIFLES!

Regulation of those handguns is where the focus should be, and where the highest percentage of “owners” haven’t a clue how to use the weapons, ethically, or with practiced skill.

60’s = kill em all, let god sort em out…..

I just find it amusing as hell to think of how they’re going to justify the increase in gun violence in the bars that they are now allowing guns to be brought into.

Gun owners are the most fearful suspicious people around.