"Guns" - Milt Priggee, WA, US
Showing posts with label NRA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NRA. Show all posts
Thursday, July 9, 2015
Friday, April 10, 2015
Saturday, April 4, 2015
Inside America's Machine Gun theme park
America: the land where you can never have enough guns. Like that Isaac Asimov's quote that science has raced ahead to 21st century, & we humans think that our mentality is also developed enough to be in 21st century, but society is still in caveman mentality.
What do you expect when you give a caveman a gizmo from 21st century? Feelings of awe, wonder, & power. If that gizmo is some kind of firearm, then the result could be far more dangerous. Similarly, you don't give the bottle of industrial-strength cleaner to a toddler; it will kill itself.
What do you expect when you give a caveman a gizmo from 21st century? Feelings of awe, wonder, & power. If that gizmo is some kind of firearm, then the result could be far more dangerous. Similarly, you don't give the bottle of industrial-strength cleaner to a toddler; it will kill itself.
Ironically, developed countries, like America, consider themselves "civilized" countries but love to make, own, & sell firearms to the world. Developing countries are considered "uncivilized" & "barbaric" by developed countries, & people in those developing countries (South Asia, Asia, Africa etc) don't own as many guns, or make guns, or even sell guns to other countries.
Who is more "barbaric" & "uncivilized" now?
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Children as young as 13 can shoot military-grade firearms at America's newest gun-themed attraction.
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Children as young as 13 can shoot military-grade firearms at America's newest gun-themed attraction.
Machine Gun America in Florida is offering gun lovers full access to an arsenal of high calibre automatic weapons.
Customers can spray submachine gun bullets at target posters ranging from Osama Bin Laden to vampires, with ticket prices starting at $100.
Even visitors with no prior weapons training are handed heavy weaponry such as the MP5, M4, & the Glock 17 to destroy targets.
Young women are so far one of the largest demographics of visitors to Machine Gun America.
John Webster, 21, from Tampa, Florida, USA visited the range with his two friends. He said: 'My heart was pumping - I never fired a gun like that in my life. To feel so much power was just exhilarating - pulling the trigger & having your whole body shake, there's nothing like it.'
Saturday, February 21, 2015
Gunned down ... New face of American fatalities
So, US have essentially become a warzone by its own actions. We immigrants bemoan that in several "developing" countries (i.e. Pakistan, Brazil, India, African countries etc) gun violence keeps increasing & these are labelled "war zones" & dangerous countries. Problem is that these kinds of stories & stats are not frequently reported in the media to the point that we all think that Western countries are safe & sound.
So I did my own quick calculations on death & killings (being a Pakistani myself, I'll compare Pakistan & US):
US Population (July 2014 est.) (per CIA World Fact Book): 319M
Per this article & CDC, about 33,563 were killed by gun violence in 2012: about 0.01% of 2014 pop.
Pakistan Population (July 2014 est.) (per CIA WFB): 196M
Using US death percentage of 0.01%, we get about 21,000 deaths in Pakistan ("should-be-deaths")
Per website, pakistanbodycount.org, there were 32 suicide attacks, killing 243 people & injuring 705 (total = 948) in 2012.
51 drone attacks killed another 349 & injured 98 people (total = 447), bringing the total lives affected by terrorism in 2012, in Pakistan, to 1,395.
Yes, 1,395 total lives affected. If we strictly compare apples to apples, meaning deaths vs deaths, then that number (killings in Pakistan) drops to 592. (0.0003% of population).
Even if we assume that these numbers from PakistanBodyCount.org are underreported & exaggerate the numbers to 20 Pakistanis dying, on average, on a daily basis in cities & civil unrest all over the country; even then, we only add an additional 7,300 deaths in the above total of 592 ... still far below the American deaths of 33,563.
Deaths by guns, in US, in 2012: 33,563.
Deaths by guns, in Pakistan, in 2012: 592
You can decide for yourself which country is more unsafe !!!
Power of media can show one country to be far more unsafe than it really is, & show another country far safer than it really is ...
On top of that, when 3,000 Americans died on 9/11, the whole America was after revenge & destroyed Afghanistan, Iraq, & even Libya, & in the process, sow the seeds of hatred & discontent in the peoples of those countries to the point that now, we are reaping the "wonderful" fruits of those invasions. These 33,000 deaths are 11 times more than how many Americans died on 9/11, but is any American shouting for blood & revenge?
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The year 2015 may well be the first in recent US history that firearms fatalities exceed traffic fatalities. Gun deaths by homicide, suicide or accident have been steadily increasing, following a low point in the year 2000, & are expected to top 34,000 by 2015.
In contrast, deaths from motor vehicle accidents have dramatically declined in the same time period, & are expected to drop below 33,000 in 2015, based on the 10-year average trend.
Restricting gun ownership ... has been much more difficult due to the powerful lobbying efforts of the National Rifle Association & other advocacy groups, & because of the Second Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees all individuals the right to bear arms (a right that has been upheld by the US Supreme Court).
... the overall trend is unlikely to change: guns kill people, cars not as much.
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