Are there too many gun owners in the United States?

Are there too many gun owners in the United States? No, I do not believe that there are too many gun owners in the United States.

 

 

How many guns are registered in America?

 

That’s a seemingly obvious question without a straightforward answer. There’s no universal gun registry, and thus not a simple way to pin down the exact number of firearms in the U.S.

 

There are estimates, however. According to the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey – the leading source of international public information about firearms – the U.S. has the best-armed civilian population in the world, with an estimated 270 million total guns. That’s an average of 89 firearms for every 100 residents — far ahead of Yemen, which comes in second with about 55 firearms for every 100 people, or Switzerland, which is third with 46 guns for every 100 people.

 

There are certain types of firearms that do require registration in the United States: those subject to the National Firearms Act, including machine guns, shotguns and rifles with barrels shorter than 18 inches, and silencers.

 

According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which handles that registration, there were more than 3.1 million National Firearms Act-registered weapons in the U.S. as of March 2012. That includes more than 488,000 machine guns and more than 2 million “destructive devices” such as grenades, which are also classified under the law.

 

Are we seeing any trends in gun ownership?

 

Despite the high number of guns estimated to be in the U.S., indications are that gun ownership is actually on the decline. The long-running General Social Survey, maintained at the University of Chicago, has been asking about gun ownership since its inception in the 1970s. It has found that the number of people who say they have a gun in their home is at an all-time low – hovering around 30 percent, from a high of 50 percent in the 1970s.

 

Survey data shows self-reported gun ownership peaked at 53 percent in 1973 before seeing a fairly steady decline to 32 percent in 2010, the most recent year available. He cautioned singling any one year out, saying the numbers are better judged in the context of a whole: the 1970s averaged about 50 percent, the 1980s averaged 48 percent, the 1990s at 43 percent and 35 percent in the 2000s.

 

There are several main factors responsible for the overall decrease in firearm ownership: a general decline in hunting, the rise of single-adult households and an overall drop off in crime.

 

Hunting, while still a major part of American life, has seen a decline in part because of urbanization.

 

The household effect is twofold: first, because fewer adults in the house mean fewer potential gun-owners, and second, that women are much less likely to own a firearm. “Millions of women of course do have firearms but their level is significantly lower than man,” Smith said.

 

Men are five times more likely than women to own a gun, and being married nearly doubles a person’s chance, according to surveys by Gallup.

 

Gallup polling from 2007 to 2012 found that gender, region of the country and marital status were some of the biggest predictors of whether an individual owned guns. In the South, 38 percent reported owning a gun, compared to 27 percent in the West or 21 percent in the Eastern U.S.

 

 

I have only met 1 person who is against gun violence, here is what they had to say:

 

It just doesn't add up that law abiding citizens with guns will never do anything wrong with them. It never has and it never will. That is because our laws are loose enough that just about anyone can get a gun in this country. And with so many guns around and so many "law abiding" citizens with loaded guns in public, it is inevitable that something will go wrong. Actually many things go wrong.

 For instance, there are so many incidents of kids getting shot or shooting someone or bringing guns to school, etc. Many of these are accidental shootings when a child finds the gun of a family member (mostly law abiding, by the way) easily accessible and loaded.

 

It seems that some of the stuff that comes from NRA lobbyists and their minions is actually made up. Take, for example, the idea that gun permit training classes in Texas should be shortened because there are now so many people applying for permits to carry loaded guns in public that they just can't keep up with the demand for classes. Bad idea.

The thing is, guns are dangerous. People who own them and carry them have an awesome responsibility to be safe with them. Way too often they are not. That is what this is all about. The bottom line is common sense about guns and gun policy.

We have a problem with gun laws that are not strong enough to keep people who shouldn't have guns from getting them anyway. We also have a problem with laws that assume that people who own and carry guns will be responsible with their guns. That is part of a gun culture that the American public is learning more about after the Sandy Hook school shooting. It all adds up to over 80 Americans a day dying from gunshot wounds from homicides, suicides and accidents. That's a big number- too big. On 12/14, the total was 26 lives lost. That was 26 too many. Both our laws and our culture need examining with an eye on how to make our communities safer. Lives depend on our getting this right. So far we have failed. More guns and more people carrying them in more public places has clearly not made us safer. This is what needs to change and change soon.

 

 

 

Banning guns is not the solution to gun violence

The Second Amendment of the constitution of the United States says that Americans have the right to keep and bear arms, and that right should not be infringed. President Obama proposes that a certain type of guns and assault rifles, should and will be outlawed in the United States and will no longer be available for purchase. Hmm, seems ironic to me. Obama wants to solve the problem at hand here, but banning rifles is not the solution: psychological testing, or any form of mental testing is.

 

The Second Amendment states that the right to bear arms should not be infringed, yet the president is trying to pass a law that would take away the right to bear a certain type of gun; that is, in fact, unconstitutional and against everything our nation stands for.

 

First off, if Obama wants to avoid shootings such as the one at Sandy Hook Elementary, why is he trying to put a ban on assault rifles? All this has done is rally people up, and make them want to go and buy assault rifles before they are taken out of stores. As an effect, the number of rifles bought in the last couple months has skyrocketed higher than ever before. In December of 2012, 900,000 more background checks were administered than in December of 2011. That is a lot of citizens wanting guns.

 

But my question is why did Obama do this? If he wants to avoid shootings such as Sandy Hook, why is he emphasizing the ban on assault rifles when he should be looking into more thorough mental testing for those who wish to purchase a gun? I think this is one of the stupidest acts that Obama has done as president, and he is only making the problem worse.

 

It just doesn’t make sense to me why there is a need to outlaw such rifles. Obama wants to prevent incidents such as what happened at Sandy Hook, but how does outlawing assault rifles do so?

 

If we’re really going to take this idea of stopping violence and run with it, I just don’t understand why the president isn’t looking into psychological testing. A psychological test would be able to tell if the person wishing to purchase a gun had a mental disorder such as schizophrenia, which gunman Adam Lanza of the Sandy Hook shooting did have. The guns used at Sandy Hook were not registered to Lanza, so a psychological test would not avoid all problems, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction.

 

Maybe we can avoid bad situations like this in this future, but we have to face the problem at hand. Assault rifles is not our problem, psychotic people with any type of guns is our problem. And until we put the focus on who has guns instead of who has what type of guns, nothing is going to change. If we want to stop future bad events from occurring, Obama needs to get off his high of banning assault rifles and look deeper into psychological testing, making a step to the change we need.

 

 

The Answer to the Energy Crisis may be in the Wind:

Oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens promoting his new cause - using American wind to alleviate the nation's energy crisis and wean itself from dependency on foreign oil.

Pickens' plan calls for investing in enough wind turbines to provide 20% of the nation's energy and reducing oil imports by a third in 10 years.

This initiative requires the immediate extension of federal production tax credits to encourage strategic long-term investments to bring large amounts of wind power from windy areas to population centers."

According to the DOE technical report, achieving a 20% wind contribution to U.S. electricity supply by 20% would:

 

- Reduce carbon dioxide emissions from electricity generation by 25% in 2030;

 

- Reduce natural gas use by 11%, which would in turn lower the pressure on natural gas prices;

 

- Support roughly 500,000 jobs in the U.S., with an average of more than 150,000 workers directly employed by the wind industry;

 

- Increase annual revenues to local communities to more than $1.5 billion by 2030; and

 

- Reduce water consumption associated with electricity generation by 4 trillion gallons by 2030.

 

Wind. It’s clean (wind power generates absolutely no greenhouse gases). It’s renewable. And it involves no production decline curve. Hence, 30 years from now we won’t be worrying about “Peak Wind” theories coming to fruition. It also can’t be hoarded by power hungry cartels. In fact, enough of it exists to satisfy global demand seven times over, according to a Stanford University study. North Dakota alone has enough of it to meet 25% of U.S. demand.

But perhaps most importantly, it’s finally coming of age. Just consider:

From 2000 to 2007, the size of the wind power industry increased fivefold.

Last year, records were shattered with $36 billion in total global wind investments with the United States leading the way with $9 billion.

In the next 10 years, the wind industry is expected to quadruple in size.

 

Hands down, wind is the fastest growing source of power. Wind power makes economic sense. If the price of oil drops to $50 a barrel (it won’t), the economics still work; even without government subsidies. You see, wind can be used to generate electricity for 6 to 8.5 cents per kilowatt-hour.

For comparison’s sake, the cost of nuclear power runs about 15 cents per kilowatt-hour. Coal now costs north of 10 cents (without factoring in carbon capture and storage). And gas-fired power costs approximately 12 cents. Keep in mind, too, that just a few years ago, wind costs rested north of 15 to 20 cents. But today, costs are low enough in some markets to compete with conventional power generation methods. And future advancements will make wind power even cheaper.

Look no further than Denmark. It already generates 20% of its electricity from wind. And Spain, Portugal and Germany boast similarly impressive penetration rates of roughly 12%, 10% and 7%, respectively. The timing couldn’t be more perfect, either. While wind energy costs are dropping, costs for competing technologies – coal, nuclear and gas – are headed in the opposite direction.

 

Wind is the cost effective way our nation can start solving its oil addiction. And unlike many of the other far-fetched solutions to our energy needs … Wind is realistically attainable.

 

We can both save the economy by establishing policies that prevent other countries from doing to us what they would never let us do to them. Specifically,

•We must halt the sale of key assets to foreign entities.

•We must also close opportunities for foreign corporations to compete unfairly against our home industries.

•We should move immediately to curb our out-of-control spending on unnecessary programs and initiatives that are being financed by foreign debt.

•We should institute policies to cut back our consumption, and particularly consumption of imported products.

•We should look to the way other nations have established industrial superiority over us and try to copy their best policies.

•We should not allow individuals and companies to profit by selling out the United States.

 

No plan to revive our economic and industrial self-sufficiency will be pain-free. Because our industrial decline has already gone so far – it has been proceeding rapidly for more than 30 years already – restoring our industry to world-leading standards of competitiveness will require serious restrictions on trade and investment flows. Despite indisputable evidence that current policies have proved grossly inadequate or even counterproductive in the past, our leaders remain committed to a business-as-usual strategy that is doomed to failure.

 Our industries, assets, resources, and companies need to be protected from foreign countries and corporations seeking to gain control of key industrial processes and technologies. This would include preventing the sale of strategic US domestic companies to foreign companies and eliminating offshore outsourcing except in extreme circumstances.

 

Our trade treaties should protect our country from predatory foreign countries and companies seeking to weaken or destroy American industry. To that end, tariffs should be erected where needed and where practical. Experience has shown that it is futile to expect other countries to adopt our policies on, for instance, fair and free competition.

What we can do is control the impact of their policies on our economy. The most obvious tool we have is tariffs on their exports. No doubt our tariffs would set off retaliation abroad. We would also have to accept that demand for US debt would decrease. But in the long run, these negatives would be much more than offset by positive effects as American entrepreneurs and industrial executives enjoyed a massive incentive to renew our industrial base

In addition to establishing protection for our industry and country, we should properly align our companies with the national interest by changing the incentive system within which they operate. The tax structure should be changed to encourage industrial revival, particularly in industries which have been hit worst by unfair foreign competition. One simple but highly effective measure would be to shorten the depreciation schedules on capital investment and research spending. Meanwhile capital gains taxes should be increased to discourage short-term thinking and reduce the incentive for entrepreneurs to cash out.

 

 

 

You might not believe it, but you can do many things as an individual to save the environment. Although doing something BIG might not happen, for example, discovering a new and abundant renewable resource that is both cost-friendly, and well, easily accessible and applicable, you can do little things that will have a greater impact on our environment as a whole.

 

 Here are a few ideas:

 

 

 -Plant trees and other vegetation to reduce the amount of CO2 in the air and produce more oxygen

 

 -Ride your bike short distances instead of taking the car so as to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases produced from a car (or take some sort of means of public transportation like a bus or subway to school which is very efficient) You can even car pool!

 

 -Plan a community clean-up day and pick up the trash and litter careless Neanderthals leave on the roadside and parks and the such that produces large waste buildup

 

 - Keep barbecuing, grilling, and bonfires outside to a minimum to not create so much air pollution with the smoke

 

 - Turn off the lights and other electrical appliances when not in use so you don't waste our very precious and mainly NON renewable resources that are terrifyingly dwindling

 

 - Use proper ventilation in the home to not waste any energy on air conditioning or heating to keep a nice temperature in the home without any heat or coolness escaping thus causing the need for an air conditioner or heater to go up. AND DON'T OVERHEAT OR OVER-COOL the house.

 

 - Watch out for PHANTOM LOADS! (Look it up!)

 

 - Watch out for those household aerosols (cleaning products and paints)! They contain VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds) which can adversely affect your health by irritating asthma, and give you an increased risk of having respiratory problems.

 

 -Recycle! It's quite simple, really!

 

 -Have a compost bin! Saves trash and helps your garden!

 

 -Stay away from harmful pesticides that can seep into your ground and cause groundwater contamination!

 

 -Use organic fertilizers! Artificial fertilizers may contain chemicals that are harmful to both the environment AND YOU! They can even pollute the water, so watch out for those ferocious fertilizers!

 

 -Use energy saving light bulbs!

 

 - Watch your personal hygiene! Surprising, huh? But keeping your hands clean can help you from getting infected by diseases or from you spreading them to others!

Republicans and Democrats seem to be living on different planets when it comes to how to meet U.S. energy needs.

 

Republicans overwhelmingly push for more oil drilling. Democrats back conservation and new energy sources such as wind and solar power.

 

A survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows that the polarized positions on energy that have divided Congress and emerged in the presidential campaign also run deep among the public.

While majorities in both parties say energy is an important issue, the poll shows that partisan identification is closely tied to people’s perceptions of the causes of the country’s energy problems and possible solutions. No other demographic factor — not race, age, gender or income level — is as consistently associated with opinions on energy as political party identification.

 

 For example:

—Three of four Democrats surveyed report that a major reason for the county’s energy problems is that industry does not do enough to support clean energy. By comparison 43 percent of the Republicans questioned believe that.

 

—Three of four Republicans in the poll cite government limits on drilling as a major reason for energy problems, compared with 34 percent of Democrats.

 

Also, 85 percent say it is a serious problem that the United States needs to buy energy from other countries, but there’s disagreement about why. Among Republicans in the poll, 65 percent say the U.S. does not produce enough domestic energy to meet demand. Yet just over half the Democrats say people use too much energy.

 

In my opinion, wind energy is the best option because, wind power is completely clean and consistently renewable. Wind will never cease to exist. Certain environments, or parts of the country are much better than others to harness wind power, but just about anywhere that experiences generally sustained winds, especially in mountain passes and canyons, can produce wind power.

Wind creates no emissions that can be harmful to the air that contributes to global warming. These harmful emissions also cause smog around many metropolitan cities, most notably Los Angeles with its constant orange haze that locks it in a perpetual fog. Wind power also renews daily; when one day ends, you don’t have to calculate how much wind you have used. There will always be enough tomorrow.

 

 Of course, some days will present days that create more wind that others, and some days may not create any wind whatsoever, but that has nothing to do with the total supply of wind. The force that is trapped by wind turbines those large modern-style windmills- on what are known as wind farms, is transmitted along power lines to a building that maintains that energy for distribution. During the course of any given day, wind power doesn’t provide the electricity for any towns or cities completely, but rather supplements the usual forms of electricity.

So, in effect, wind power is important to many people for the fact that it can save money, rather than the benefits it can offer to the global climate. Perhaps the greatest benefit that wind power can provide for people is that wind won’t cost more based on supply and demand, as is the case with oil or coal. Since it is a replenishing capacity of power, then any rise in the cost of using wind power would have to be justified for the rate of inflation, not because it is becoming scarce.

 

 Wind power is important for anyone who cares about the environment, or who wants to save money over the long-term.

9/11

On the morning of September 11, 2001, 19 terrorists, hijacked 4 commercial jetliners and turned them toward targets chosen for destruction. Two of the planes, loaded with fuel and passengers, were flown at full speed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in the financial district of New York City. The buildings burst into flame and then collapsed, killing thousands. A third terrorist crew crashed their plane into the Pentagon, headquarters of the U.S. military in Arlington, Virginia.

The hijackers of the fourth airliner apparently intended to hit another target in the Washington, DC area, but passengers on the plane realized what was happening and fought back. This airplane crashed in a field in rural Pennsylvania.

The 19 men who carried out the hijackings came from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and other Arab states. They were affiliated with the al-Qaeda network, a radical Islamic group led by Saudi exile Osama bin Laden and dedicated to waging a holy war against the United States. The targets they chose to destroy perfectly symbolized U.S. financial, political, and military power.

Years in the making, the attacks in New York and Washington constituted the first major foreign assault on the continental United States since 1814, when the British army invaded Washington, DC, and burned the White House. More people were killed on U.S. soil on September 11, 2001 than on any day since the American Civil War. The attack killed nearly 3,000 people, and unified the American public as never before. Nations all across the globe sent their sincere condolences and vowed to stop the flow of terrorism.

 

 

After 9/11/2001, there has been an ongoing effort to minimize the attack, to pretend that it just wasn't that bad, and to argue that the U.S. overreacted. The contention that the U.S. overreacted to a devastating surprise attack on its greatest city is both idiotic and historically ignorant. Far from overreacting, the U.S. unleashed a limited, measured war in Afghanistan. It even identified elements within Afghanistan that it could work with, rather than holding the entire country collectively responsible for hosting Al Qaeda -- which would have been standard procedure in earlier eras. Even with the desire for vengeance fresh, and with America largely united behind the president, we did not exert anywhere near the full power of the U.S. military. Instead we took great pains to protect the innocent and minimize collateral damage.

No, we did not overreact, but that’s just my opinion.

I brought this topic to the attention of my friend Melanie, she had a different point of view. This is what she had to say, “Yes. I would say borrowing nearly a trillion dollars to wage two wars because of 9/11 is over-reacting and ruining our economy in the process is over-reacting. I would say limiting freedoms is over-reacting. I would say demonizing a faith is over-reacting. I would say weakening our alliances is over-reacting. Al-Qaeda had one major goal and it was not the conquest of the United States... it was that our economy would be ruined by perpetual war.

She believes that we are overreacting.

 

Are we safer after 9/11? "Yes and no".

“Not really,” said Harvey Kushner, a professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at Long Island University. “Certain protocols haven’t been put in place that would make us safer,” he continued. “A variety of different venues in which people travel, such as trains and buses and roads, as well as power grids, are still vulnerable.”

He added: “We should be thankful we haven’t had another attack on American soil. We have had a number of incidents. But that doesn’t mean we’re still not in the cross hairs of significant people who want to do us harm.”

 

Not everyone agrees on the state of our safety today.

 

Vast improvements have been made to security since 9/11, said Frank DiMarino, dean of Kaplan University’s School of Criminal Justice and Fire Science. Many of the nation’s law enforcement agencies have changed their focus to fight terrorism, he added. He noted the creation of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as well as the creation of the Fusion Centers.

DiMarino added: “There will always be threats and vulnerabilities in public transportation, including commercial air travel, ports, cities and other venues where there are large groups of people.”

John Dougherty, Bucks County’s emergency management coordinator, said, “We are better prepared than when we were (before 9/11).”

He stressed the increased communication among local, state and federal agencies. He also explained that, while emergency management agencies were around long before 9/11, their role has become much more crucial since the terrorist attacks 10 years ago.

“More agencies joined the task force to help plan and prevent something,” Dougherty said. “There’s been more of a partnership and a better dialogue, which I think has helped us greatly.” Kushner, the Long Island University professor, warned that the American public has returned to a level of complacency since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But, he added, al-Qaida and other terrorist groups have been weakened since 9/11 and are less organized than they once were.

 

 As far as who is winning the war on terror”, Americans' views on who is winning the war on terrorism are almost identical now to where they were in October 2001. Americans are roughly evenly split, 46% to 42%, between the view that the U.S. and its allies are winning the war on terrorism and the view that neither the U.S. nor the terrorists are winning. Despite the similarity between views now and 10 years ago, there has been a great deal of change in the intervening time, including points in 2002 and 2003 when two-thirds of the public felt that the U.S. was winning.