Half of Respondents in NBC Poll of Voters Say They Live in Household with a Gun

That's higher than most recent polls, though not by much. From today's NBC News post by Alexandra Marquez:

More than half of American voters—52% [with a sampling error of +/-3% -EV]—say they or someone in their household owns a gun, per the latest NBC News national poll.

That's the highest share of voters who say that they or someone in their household owns a gun in the history of the NBC News poll, on a question dating back to 1999.

In 2019, 46% of Americans said that they or someone in their household owned a gun, per an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. And in February 2013, that share was 42%….

In August 2019, 53% of white voters said that they or someone in their household owned a gun, and 24% of Black voters said the same.

This month, 56% of white voters report that they or someone in their household owns a gun and 41% of Black voters say the same ….

Almost half [of respondents]—48%—say they're more concerned that the government will not do enough to regulate access to firearms, versus 47% who believe the government will go too far in restricting gun rights.

Comments

[Stephen Lathrop]

Let's see that broken down by states. Then compare state-by-state rates of gun deaths and gun injuries.

[Absaroka]

Glad you asked ... here is the data gun homicides and gun ownership ... spoiler, not correlated.

But you want to do the usual obfuscation and talk about 'gun deaths', which includes suicides...

[Roger S]

People in some states need guns more than people in other states. A simple correlation would not be interesting anyway.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Absaroka, what interests me is gun prevalence compared to all shootings, whether fatal or not. Also, the same data compared to the total number of guns in a state.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Here are the FBI's aggravated assault statistics from 2013 (the year that the linked wikipedia article used for its gun ownership rates):

https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/tables/table-22/table_22_aggravated_assault_by_state_types_of_weapons_2013.xls

I went ahead and graphed the percentage of aggravated assaults with a firearm and aggravated assaults per capita, and obtained R squared values of .0066 and a value Excel rounded to .00001, respectively.

So not very compelling statistical evidence, in my opinion.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Not the data I am looking for. I want gunshot survivals, plus homicides, with and without gun suicides.

[Old Smokin' Egg]

If we're doing state-by-state comparison, why would we need gunshot survivals? Wouldn't gun homicides be a reasonable proxy for malicious shootings in general?

Indeed, I'd expect gunshot survival rates to be lower in rural areas, where gun ownership is presumably higher. If I stop a bullet in a large city, an ambulance can quickly get to me and then transport me to a major hospital, which is likely to have a dedicated trauma team. If I suffer the same type of gunshot wound in, say, Mullen, Nebraska, it'd probably take an hour or more to get me to a hospital, and that hospital probably wouldn't have a major trauma center.

The one thing that homicides don't take into account, and for which Lathrop might reasonably ask, would be accidental shootings. It's possible that the rate of those would be proportional to the rate of gun ownership. But that might also not be the case: it could be that rural gun owners, many of whom have taken hunter-safety courses or learned gun safety from parents, would be better at complying with safety practices than urbanites who haven't been taught safe gun handling.

[Drewski]

Can't speak to the current state of things but as of like twenty years ago, rural gun owners had far higher accidental shooting rates even after discounting hunting accidents. This is likely because they spend more time carrying and handling guns, perhaps exacerbated by the high rates of alcoholism in rural areas.

[Old Smokin' Egg]

Source for "high rates of alcoholism in rural areas"? At least per this 2016 study, "[R]ates of alcohol use are higher for urban versus rural residents and that rates of AUD [alcohol use disorder] tend to be similar across rural and urban environments."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4872615/

And "rural gun owners had far higher accidental shooting rates" is ambiguous. Is the denominator for this rate the number of rural gun owners, or the total rural population?

[Bruce Hayden]

Not sre about your alcoholism point, but in y experience, rural America is the best armed. We have a house in rural MT, with apparently the highest per household gun ownership rate in the country, at least in one survey. In our subdivision of 10 houses, I am fairly certain that at least 9 have guns. Never really able to nail it down, of course, because for many, it’s just another tool laying around the house, like a chain saw. And, indeed, they are traded around in a similar manner - and I have seen the two traded for each other. Or a gun and cash for a vehicle, etc. of course, the most frequent firearms there are hunting rifles and shotguns - since, for one thing, there is a lot of subsistence hunting, given the poverty of the county and the abundance of game animals, esp deer and elk.

But the urban/rural distinction is, I think, inaccurate. It appears that there is also an urban/suburban component, as well as a big socioeconomic one. In the violent inner cities, ownership appears much higher (though often hidden due to onerous gun laws) than in much upper middle income areas, where policing is much more adequate and hunting is seen as lower class. I would expect that gun ownership is below 25% in our affluent gated community in PHX. Eyebrows are raised when neighbors see me carrying a handgun, when walking the dog, for the pack of aggressive coyotes in the nature preserve right next to us. (PHX PD has assured me that I can shoot them, if necessary, if either of us are threatened).

Safety appears to be one of the bigger drivers. In our county in NW MT, LEO response may be an hour or more at night. In suburban PHX, its minutes. And in MT, we often have black bears roaming the street late at night, and brown bear, wolves, and mountain lions living in the county. They usually stay further out - but one brown bear was killed when it wandered into one of the smaller towns nearby.

[Bruce Hayden]

I would put the rate of rural accidental shootings up against that in the violent inner cities any day. Kids finding a loaded handgun in their one of their mother’s drawers. Random, or even somewhat directed gunfire by gang members wounding, or even killing innocent bystanders. Etc.

Both have alcohol and drug problems, but, again, the nod very likely goes to the violent inner cities. One big difference is that pulling out a gun while obviously drunk or high is exceedingly rare in rural America. Esp in public. They are reasoned with, and often, if that doesn’t work, they are shot, in justified self defense. Everyone knows that. Guns are very rarely ever flashed in anger. It’s just socially unacceptable (and dangerous to the person doing it).

But, yes, the more often you deal with guns, the more likely you are to have an accident. Exactly the same as driving. Cops predominate in both categories because they do a lot of both. One big difference between urban and rural accidents, is that a much higher percentage of rural youth have had gun safety training.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Not the data I am looking for.

Meaning that it doesn't support your thesis.

[MaverickNH]

Absaroka - it’s a dead-end request Stephen Lathrop makes.
1. Anti-gunner makes inference or assertion
2. Pro-gunner provides data
3. Anti-gunner rejects data or asks more
4. Repeat
5. Anti-gunner declares a win

[Absaroka]

...so here is a discussion of suicides and homicides.

Spoiler: "We hear a lot of banter from the “anti-gun” media that these problems are gun problems, and they’ve concocted this “gun deaths” number in order to lump these into the same problem and gloss over the differences. But if the problem were “guns,” then the hot spots on the suicide map and the hot spots on the homicide map would coincide, and would be related to gun ownership rates. There are only a few places where they overlap. Most of the hot zones for suicide have low homicide rates, and most of the hot zones for homicide have low suicide rates. The difference is stark."

[Scooter]

We also see the Hoplophobes counting 17/18/19 year olds as "Children and Teens" killed or injured by guns in order to boost the numbers. Limit the age to 12 and under and you have a whole new story.

[SomeGuy 2]

Absolutely this. Gangsters killing each other shouldn't even count in the stats, each one offed that way is a positive contribution to society. The problem is that most of them are horrible shots and get other people in the crossfire. I've idly toyed with the idea of the government simply offering them marksmanship training and letting nature take its course.

[Brett Bellmore]

I say that all the time: The dirty secret about homicide statistics is that almost all murderers have prior criminal records, (This is obscured a bit by juvenile records being sealed.) and most murder victims do, too. It's criminals killing criminals.

If they were better shots, we might just leave them be to finish the job.

[Bruce Hayden]

But because they usually are bad shots, innocent bystanders getting shot is far more common in dense urban areas.

[Michael P]

It's good to see that more Black Americans are exercising their right to keep (and bear) arms. Responsible ownership is a civic virtue.

[M L]

Some young people are surprised to learn that as recently as the '80s, it was common at many high schools for every truck in the parking lot to have a shotgun or rifle in the back window. In fact, it was common at some high schools for students to have a firearm in their locker because they were going hunting after school, or because the school actually had a shooting range on site, where students were instructed and trained in the use of firearms and shooting teams participated in competitive events.

Yet they didn't shoot each other. Of course, the thought of somebody going on a spree shooting up a school hadn't occurred to anyone yet. People have the causation wrong when they think that guns equals mass shootings. We have to ask the difficult questions of what changed in the culture or otherwise.

By the way, something really cool that's been happening is that some small private schools are bringing back the school shooting teams and the school training in firearms.

[Sarcastr0]

That hasn’t changed in lots of those places. Plenty gonna get this Monday off for the start of hunting season too.

[Absaroka]

"That hasn’t changed in lots of those places."

Could you name a few of the school districts that currently let students keep guns in their lockers for after school use, or have them in vehicles in the parking lot?

My wife was a career teacher, and she was admonished for having a pocket knife. She was a biology teacher and could have a drawer of foot long kitchen knives for dissections, but a 2 inch blade pocket knife was right out.

[Sarcastr0]

I was talking about the trucks bit.

Lockers…yeah, after Columbine that’s gonna be a suspense to find.

My main point is that being casual with guns as low key tools or hobby equipment is still a thing in plenty of places in this country, despite the crisis stance of some around here.

[Absaroka]

"I was talking about the trucks bit."

Great! Can you name such a school district?

Here is what Wyoming has to say:

"(h) Nothing in this section shall authorize a student of a school district to carry a firearm, concealed or otherwise, on or into any facility of a school district."

(the rest of the section is about arming teachers)

Or Wyoming 21-4-306, Grounds for suspension or expulsion:

"(v) Possession, use, transfer, carrying or selling a deadly weapon as defined under W.S. 6-1-104(a)(iv) within any school bus as defined by W.S. 31-7-102(a)(xl) or within the boundaries of real property used by the district primarily for the education of students in grades kindergarten through twelve"

Your examples must be from states that are friendlier to guns than Wyoming?

[Sarcastr0]

Pennsylvania.

Though I’d also note what a law says and how a law is enforced are quite different things.

[Absaroka]

So "Pennsylvania Unconsolidated Statutes 1949 Act 14 Section 1317.2 Possession of Weapons Prohibited" says:

"(a) Except as otherwise provided in this section, a school district or area career and technical school shall expel, for a period of not less than one year, any student who is determined to have brought onto or is in possession of a weapon on any school property, any school-sponsored activity or any public conveyance providing transportation to a school or school-sponsored activity."

I suppose you are looking at:

"(d) The provisions of this section shall not apply to the following: (1) a weapon being used as part of a program approved by a school by an individual who is participating in the program; or (2) a weapon that is unloaded and is possessed by an individual while traversing school property for the purpose of obtaining access to public or private lands used for lawful hunting, if the entry on school premises is authorized by school authorities."

and you believe such permission is often granted, and that leaving a gun in your truck so you can drive somewhere after school meets the 'while traversing' requirement?

I'm A)skeptical that this is common and B)it's not comparable to what was going on in the ancient days M L is discussing. You didn't need permission, and moreover that PA law equally applies to knives ... and I (and a lot of kids) carried pocket knives all the time in school.

[Sarcastr0]

Awesome. I’ve seem guns in multiple trucks at a rural PA high school not one year ago.

ML was talking about behavior. So was I. You are not.
I don’t think the laws as written are necessarily evidence of actual real life behavior, especially in more rural and spread out areas.

[Absaroka]

"I’ve seem guns in multiple trucks at a rural PA high school not one year ago."

Well I'll be danged, can't argue with that. Sure seems like an outlier to me (used to live in WY, have relatives and friends in MT, etc).

[Sarcastr0]

For social behavior, you need a survey, not the formal law. I remember seeing something about school prayer in the 2000s being pretty common in the south if you checked actuality not legality.

What I saw could be an outlier; you and I differ on that but neither has any on-point evidence.

It's an utterly different question, but I would also be interested in when these laws were passed. I would guess most are shortly after Columbine, but could also see them being older.

[Absaroka]

"It’s an utterly different question, but I would also be interested in when these laws were passed. I would guess most are shortly after Columbine, but could also see them being older."

FWIW the first version of the federal Gun Free School Zones Act was 1990.

For one snapshot in Virginia in the 1970s:
-you'd see rifles in those pickup truck rear window racks in the parking lot. Not a lot, but not remarkable either
-one guy did a 'Small Arms of WWII' presentation in our history class and brought in a Garand, Mauser, ..., and he mentioned he'd asked first and been told no problem, but apparently he felt he should ask
-I think the rifle team shut down in the late 60's; AFAIK lack of interest rather than politics. There was still a range in the basement.
-I remember waving to an officer as I crossed in front of his patrol car as I carried an uncased rifle onto the grounds of an elementary school. He waved back; a regular Norman Rockwell moment (It was the day after Xmas; I was ??14??). 1970ish??

[Sarcastr0]

My in-laws live in PA. There's a shooting range some distance away. They enjoy guessing what gun made what bang.

I am not good at this game.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Sarcastr0, that has been true during most of U.S. history. History and tradition, but not in Bruen.

[jimc5499]

1980 in PA I took my rifle to school. I took it on the bus, stored it in my locker and took it out for shop class where I drilled and tapped holes for a scope mount using the milling machine. At the time the bolt was out of the rifle but, still in my possession. No one even looked, no questions were asked except for my Homeroom teacher who asked if I'd do his if he brought it in. I did.

[Kazinski]

When I lived in Arkansas in the late 80's the first day of deer season was a holiday, at least for High School.

Probably it was the Teachers Union that insisted, things were different then.

[Brett Bellmore]

Same here for Michigan. Wouldn't be any point in having school on opening day, the school would be half empty.

[John F. Carr]

Columbine wasn't the first school shooting. It caught the country's attention more than most.

The "I don't like Mondays" shooting was in 1979 and the shooter is still in prison, having served 43 years of a 25 to life sentence.

[Sarcastr0]

Before my time but this is the first I heard of that one.

[John F. Carr]

To show how information spread in those days, I learned about the shooting from the Boomtown Rats song instead of from the news as it happened.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Speaking of which, "hey man, nice shot."

I do remember Brenda (not the one who worked at Red Lobster but I didn't remember) from back in the day. Before Nashville, young women doing mass shootings were almost unheard of... The song came out six months later.

[M L]

It has changed, in all of those places. That's beside the point though.

[Flight-ER-Doc]

How many of the 'Nos' are lying? I sure as hell would not admit such data to a random person.

[Magister]

One could also ask how many "Yes" respondents are lying. Admitting to a random person that you don't have a gun would seem riskier than admitting that you do have a gun; the latter might make your house a target of someone who wants to steal a gun, but the former could make your house a target for home invasion for other purposes. But I suppose that people who worry about either scenario are more likely to have purchased a gun to assuage their anxiety.

The trend over time is still interesting, as it seems unlikely that the rate of lying would change that much.

[Brett Bellmore]

The motives for lying on a poll like this are various.

Gun owners lying because they worry the pollster is fake, and just scouting houses to burglarize during the day to steal guns.
Non-gun owners lying because they worry the pollster is fake, and just scouting houses that can be safely burglarized even if the homeowner is present.
Gun owners lying because they worry the pollster, though real, might leak data to some government database used to put together a registration list.

In principle, anyway, the lying could net out either way. In practice?

I believe the experience has been that events such as deaths leading to probate, or interactions with police leading to houses being searched, reveal a rather higher level of gun ownership than polls. In fact, this is the driving force behind a lot of poorly designed studies claiming gun ownership is risky: Comparing poll results for an area to levels of gun ownership revealed by police searches after a crime!

[Flight-ER-Doc]

True enough. So no such survey, conducted by anyone, with any question set, is reliable.

The telling thing is that NBC (nothing but communists) admit more than half....

They are scared...

[Rossami]

That's always an important question - and in this case, my immediate question was whether ownership rates actually went up or something changed to make owners feel incrementally safer saying yes. The poll as conducted refutes neither hypothesis.

[Dr. Ed 2]

And how many households have a guided missile with gallons of high explosive parked in the driveway?

You are just as dead if an abusive spouse runs over you, likely more so because the injuries are harder to treat. When you have massive internal injuries from crushing, with secondary injuries from random broken ribs slicing stuff loose, there isn't that much that can be done.

I'm not saying that GSW are pretty, but when you compare that to a 7" wide roller with multiple tons of weight behind it....

[Magister]

Gasoline can be explosive but is not a "high explosive". A motor vehicle is not a "guided missile" in that it is not a missile and is guided in almost all cases by an operator riding in it.

Objects usable as deadly weapons abound in every household; almost none have as their primary purpose to inflict injury. Mass killings by vehicles that people have in their driveways are uncommon with fewer deaths and a shorter history than mass shootings, but we can all rest easy that concealed carry of vehicles weighing tons remains impossible throughout the United States.

[Brett Bellmore]

It's worth remembering that "purpose" is an attribute of humans, not inanimate objects.

[Magister]

You can use a car to kill people, but that's not how it's commonly used. You can use a tank to kill people, and that is how it's commonly used. If people commonly owned tanks for transportation, that would change our attitude toward people who have a tank in their driveway. Power tools vary in how dangerous and how useful they are, and that is partially intrinsic to their design.

Guns have various legitimate uses, but have fewer such uses and are more dangerous than automobiles. The gun I have in my house is stored in a secure manner (which makes it less useful for some unlikely scenarios) because it's dangerous and I don't use it to repair plumbing, open cans or slice watermelons; the car on my driveway is locked and I have the key with me because I don't want it or things in it stolen, and not because it's such a dangerous object.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

You can use a car to kill people, but that’s not how it’s commonly used.

Relative to their numbers in the U.S., firearms aren't "commonly" used to kill people either. The NHTSA estimates that 42,795 people were killed in motor vehicle incidents in 2022, almost none of which were suicides. Per the CDC 48,117 people died of GSWs, but 26,993 of those (56%) were suicides. Now consider that there are an estimated ~278 million registered motor vehicles (both private and commercial) and ~393 million privately owned firearms in the U.S.

Arguments based on an object's "primary purpose" are meaningless. This is partly because it is an exercise in simple-minded semantics. "Purpose" is not an intrinsic attribute of an object, it is a function of what use(s) the owner/user seeks to put it to and how they employ it. There is very little potential danger from a chainsaw that just sits on a shelf. If one uses the chainsaw to buck a fallen limb into firewood using proper safety procedures and protection equipment it is a bit more dangerous (to the user and/or any nearby bystanders). If one performs the same task without employing such procedures/equipment then the danger increases significantly. And if one chooses to use it as a weapon then the danger to others (and the user as well) increases by an even larger amount. At no point along the way does "the intended purpose" of a chainsaw become a notable factor in the relative levels of danger from its use. What matters is the what the user is trying to accomplish and how that user goes about it.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Guns have various legitimate uses, but have fewer such uses and are more dangerous than automobiles.

This statement, as worded, is also completely meaningless. How exactly are you quantifying "legitimate uses"? Let's try it this way...

Legitimate uses for firearms:
1) Self-defense.
2) Hunting.
3) Target shooting.
4) Being part of an enthusiast's collection.

Legitimate uses for motor vehicles:
1) Transportation.
2) Sport racing.
3) Being part of an enthusiast's collection.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

You could also mention that self-defense use is generally a last resort before imminent injury or death ("when seconds count, the police are only minutes away"), which arguably justifies tolerating a higher level of risk than any other kind of object or potential use.

I don't own a gun where I live now, and couldn't get one even if I did need one, but I don't feel any such need. I'm just fortunate not to live in one of the world's shitholes, where owning or carrying a gun is necessary. I feel sorry for people who do, but I don't judge them.

[Bruce Hayden]

It’s not just the urban shitholes. In our county in NW MT, we have most of N America’s larger mammalian predators: black and brown bears, wolves and coyotes, and mountain lions. Only the black bears and coyotes usually come in close (we often have the bears roaming our subdivision very late at night).

[Carl_N_Brown]

A lot of the Self-Defense Use of Guns surveys ask respondents about use against human threats. Most explicitly include neither self defense against dangerous animals nor defense of pets or livestock against predators.

My woods walking gun has a shotshell (snake shot) as first round. When I ATVed ammo choice was based on effectiveness against coyote or bear.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

I don’t own a gun where I live now, and couldn’t get one even if I did need one, but I don’t feel any such need. I’m just fortunate not to live in one of the world’s shitholes, where owning or carrying a gun is necessary. I feel sorry for people who do, but I don’t judge them.

I don’t own a gun where I live now, and couldn’t get one even if I did need one, but I don’t feel any such need. I’m just fortunate not to live in one of the world’s shitholes, where owning or carrying a gun is necessary. I feel sorry for people who do, but I don’t judge them.

You think that the ability to defend one’s self is only of value in “one of the world’s shitholes”?

[Carl_N_Brown]

5. Military marksmanship training preparation for volunteer or draft service in times of national emergency.

The reason the National Rifle Associations were founded in 1858 in England and in 1871 in the United States.

[Magister]

You neglected using cars for storage (they lock and you can put things in them, or have them available at locations remote from a home or a workplace); and "transportation" covers a lot of fairly independent activities: if you're willing to list shooting/threatening to shoot people, shooting animals and shooting targets separately, then we should list transporting people, cargo and sightseeing, both as personal activities and work activities. You can also live in a vehicle, in some cases legitimately. Going to a drive-in movie? Shelter from inclement weather? A portable generator? Using the headlights as an immensely heavy flashlight? The heaviest boombox you're likely to encounter? Practicing for eventual employment as a driver or mechanic can be listed if Carl_N_Brown's 5th category is added.

Self-defense with guns? Rare, if important - I have a gun only for that purpose, but have never had to use it thusly.
Hunting? Seasons are generally limited, so not an everyday use for most.
Target shooting? A hobby, like collecting, or practice for the other two targets - people and animals.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Self-defense with guns? Rare

Rare? The much-cited 2021 CDC-commissioned study on firearms found that instances of defensive gun use occur somewhere between 60,000 and 2.5 million times per year in the U.S. If one takes the average of those two extremes one is still at just over 1.25 million uses of firearms for self defense per year, or an average of over 3,420 every single day...and it could be as high as twice that frequently.

I have a gun only for that purpose, but have never had to use it thusly

You think that means...anything?

Hunting? Seasons are generally limited, so not an everyday use for most.

What does "everyday use" have to do with it? Most things I own don't get used "every day" (including my vehicle). But it's funny that you argued that after countering with these uses for a motor vehicle:

- using cars for storage
- A portable generator
- You can also live in a vehicle
- Going to a drive-in movie
- Shelter from inclement weather
- Using the headlights as an immensely heavy flashlight
- The heaviest boombox you’re likely to encounter
- Practicing for eventual employment as a driver or mechanic

When your argument depends on idiotic inconsistency like that it's time to seriously reconsider your position, your sense of integrity...or both.

Target shooting? A hobby, like collecting, or practice for the other two targets – people and animals.

Sorry, but I can't decipher this bit of gibberish.

[Magister]

Averaging in Kleck's nonsensical 2.5 million is not very bright.

American drivers rack up trillions of miles of driving per year. Two trillion miles of driving, even at extreme speeds, is still 10s of billions of hours spent driving. Even taking the absurd estimate of 2.5 million defensive gun uses, they would have to average over a month to match that number of hours. And yet fewer traffic deaths than gun deaths, even discounting suicides in the latter.

The purpose of an object is what people buy it for; people buy a car because of all the uses that can be made of it, which don't even all entail driving it. People buy guns to collect them and to shoot them.

[Rossami]

Fair quibble on the definition of "high explosive".
Wrong on the definition of "guided". A guided missile is one which is guided regardless of how. Wire-guided, computer-guided, pigeon-guided or kamikaze, all count as guided munitions. The contrast is to unguided - that is, fired with no ability to adjust the ballistic course afterward - not to where the operator sits.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Technically, gasoline (or more accurately, a gasoline vapor + air mixture) is not an "explosive" at all, as the flame speed of such a mixture's combustion is well below Mach I (the threshold for an "explosive" deflagration).

[Magister]

I don't think something that stays on the ground can be a missile, or something that can hit multiple targets in succession, but fair point on "guided". Otherwise, today is the day of the year that will see the most guided missiles in motion, with millions driving but only hundreds of traffic deaths.

[Carl_N_Brown]

Kamikaze planes were a form of guided missile in WWII.
Pilots on all sides were known to crash damaged aircraft into enemy targets (they were gonna die anyway).
Oct 1944 Japanese pilots were trained to crash perfectly functioning aircraft into enemy targets.

[Carl_N_Brown]

Check the death toll from the Nice, France Bastille Day Massacre by a terrorist who drove a semi-truck through a crowd of pedestrians. 86 dead, 434 injured. US terror attacks driving a vehicle into a crowd have killed half-a-dozen here, a dozen there. Precautions to provide security to deny bad actors opportunity to act and efforts to identify those who have expressed motive and intent before they have a chance to act can do more more than a focus on one means or another. Motive-Opportunity-Means.

[jimc5499]

Define "guided missile"? Explosives are easy. I know you mean a car or truck, but, there are other options.

[BrotherMovesOn]

Get help.

[Dilan Esper]

Everybody run! The homecoming queen's got a gun!

[John F. Carr]

I remember watching the video, probably on MTV when it showed music videos. My father walked by and said it was a stupid song. It was, but it was meant to be.

[jimc5499]

"Debbie was smiling, waving her gun. Picking off cheerleaders one by one."

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Can't imagine that (kind of) song being released now...

[Intelligent Mr Toad]

The government is fighting to make sure that American armed violent criminals will be the best-equipped armed violent criminals in the world.

[iowantwo]

Easy. Just give me the number deaths during violent crimes
Now filter for guns.

Last I checked, fists and feet deaths, far outnumber guns.

All of this is meaningless. First, the stats are correlated by the same people that told you masked prevented the spread of a respiratory, viruses, and a shot that neither prevents contracting a virus, nor stops you from spreading a virus, is actually a vaccine.

We must start with the known fact, that govt agencies lie in furthering their power of their personal little fiefdoms.

[Absaroka]

"Last I checked, fists and feet deaths, far outnumber guns."

I'm sure that was true before gunpowder was invented, but it hasn't been true for a long time.

FBI data for 2019:

Total Firearms: 10,258
Personal weapons (hands, fists, feet, etc.): 600

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

He may be repeating a similar comparison between between FBI stats on homicides via body parts used as weapons vs. "long guns" (rifles and shotguns) specifically, but without noticing or including that qualifier. (It's also worth noting that the overall homicide-by-firearm stats include quite a few where the type of gun is unknown.)

[Absaroka]

In that vein, this page claims that the annual number of people killed by AR-15's is less than half the rate of autoerotic deaths (and also bees and lawnmowers, inter alia). I only spent a couple of minutes sanity checking that, so YMMV.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

In that vein, this page claims that the annual number of people killed by AR-15’s is less than half the rate of autoerotic deaths

Well, there's one of those stats that it never occurred to me to look for.

(and also bees and lawnmowers, inter alia).

My lawnmower for the past couple of years has been a 25 HP subcompact tractor, so I've become well acquainted with the potential for danger posed by even the smaller versions of that type of machinery.

I only spent a couple of minutes sanity checking that, so YMMV.

This might be a good time to think about clearing out your browsing history.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

.

Last I checked, fists and feet deaths, far outnumber guns.

Could you offer more information about medieval life? Some readers would find it fascinating.

[Carl_N_Brown]

I believe that is the FBI table of murders by weapon used. Rifles are less likely to used for murder than "personal weapons" otherwise "unarmed" assailants using hands, feet, arms, legs, etc.

[PMBug]

I wonder what percentage of gun owners get contacted to participate in a poll asking them if they possess a gun at the home and decide, "heck yeah I want to participate in this poll! People need to know!"

[Carl_N_Brown]

Gallop explained their range of findings on households reporting gun ownership (30 to 50+) by noting the heat of the gun politics atmosphere: the louder the calls for gun control, the less likely the survey respondent would be to admitting to owning a gun.