Let’s Control Cars, Alcohol, Swimming Pools, and . . .

I understand Diane Sawyer featured a story on ABC Friday night suggesting that gun ownership is at least partially to blame for the recent spate of multiple homicides. Any time people use guns to murder others, gun control advocates express similar sentiments.

However, it’s based on sentiment, not on rational thought. Since 1977, 27 additional states have passed laws allowing citizens the right to carry concealed weapons if they passed a background check, paid their fees, and completed a training class. In these states, deaths and injuries from multiple-victim public shootings fell by 60% to 78%.


Increased gun control inevitably leads to increased homicide rates. For example, the USSR with strict gun control since 1917, had homicide rates several times that of the US. Jeff Miron, Boston University, studied 44 countries and discovered that “stricter gun control laws tend to lead to higher homicide rates.”

It’s also interesting that deaths from drunk driving kill far more people (15, 387 in 2007) than both purposeful and accidental gun related deaths each year. For every 1,000,000,000 guns. one child dies accidentally, but for every 11,000 swimming pools, one child drowns accidentally. So why don’t these people call for abolishing swimming pools, cars, or alcohol? They are involved in far more deaths each year than guns.