A
study was released earlier this year that seems to have slipped under the
radar. It’s the kind of study the NRA tends to get outraged about
because it clearly shows what most of us know already: Gun nuts are dangerous. Really, REALLY
dangerous:
The new research also indicates that the 310 million firearms estimated to be in private hands in the United States are disproportionately owned by people who are prone to angry, impulsive behavior and have a potentially dangerous habit of keeping their guns close at hand. That’s because people owning six or more guns were more likely to fall into both of these categories than people who owned a single gun.
These
are the people who walk around in public with their penis extensions assault rifles because it
makes them feel like a bully sexually powerful “safe.” These are the
people, almost all of them right wingers, that think they need 10 guns and 10
thousand rounds of ammo to fight off the government. These are the same people
that dream about, and write post after post on Facebook about, how much they
want to murder “defend
themselves against” a black person.
This
overlap of gun ownership and reckless behavior is the key to understanding
what the hell the NRA has been doing since Obama was elected. Why the berserk
overload of tinfoil hat nonsense? Answer: Declining gun ownership.
For decades,
the number of people that own guns has been dropping:
The GSS found that 32 percent of Americans either own a firearm or live with someone who does, tying the record low only seen earlier in 2010, The Associated Press reported. This marks a significant decline since the 1970s and 1980s when about half of all Americans had a gun in their household.
However, a
growing number of firearms are now concentrated in the hands of fewer people
than they were in the 1980s, the survey found.
And
now we know who those people are. They’re disproportionately the people
that are the mostly likely to actually use their guns in a fit
of mindless rage.
What
better way to get the paranoid and angry to buy even more guns than
to feed that fear and rage? This is why the NRA regularly announces
that the liberals are going to ban the sale of all guns any second now!
Better
run out to Walmart and buy 2 or 3 new rifles to add your arsenal or else you’ll
be stuck with only 6 guns instead of 9. How can you possibly defend your family
with only 6 guns?! Don’t you love your children?! REAL men have a lot
of guns!
The
fact that this irresponsible fearmongering has directly contributed to an
increase in right-wing violence is irrelevant to the NRA and the gun industry.
In fact, the more violence the better. Monsters like Wayne LaPierre almost
certainly get a giddy feeling every time there’s a mass shooting.
They know
that a boost in gun sales is coming and they’ll be cashing a fat paycheck. So
what if it’s soaked in the blood of school children or churchgoers? This is
Gunmerica and that’s the price we pay for freedom, right?
The
bottom line is that the people who own the most guns are exactly the people
that shouldn’t have access to them at all. The overwhelming majority of gun
homicides in this country are not committed by the mentally ill, they’re
committed by angry, impulsive people with easy access to guns.
Sure, you can
pretend that they would kill people anyway with a hammer or a knife but we all
know that’s total bullshit. Guns make it easy to kill in the
heat of the moment. It’s much more difficult to stab someone or beat them to
death with a baseball bat on a whim. Denying it doesn’t make it any less true.
It
might be your right to own a gun but it’s also my right not to be shot with it
because you threw a fucking temper tantrum. Whose right is more important? Your
right to feel like a big man or my right to live? If you insist it’s the
former, you’re what’s wrong with this country’s gun culture and shouldn’t be
allowed to own a BB gun much less the real thing.
Author Justin Rosario is a filthy
liberal scum who enjoys making hate filled right wingers cry. Follow him on
twitter @FilthyLbrlScum or on Facebook at Left Wing Nation