Gun Control Myth O' The Week

We Have 30,000 Gun Murders Per Year

  We don't have 30,000 gun murders per year. What America has is 30,000 gun deaths. Some will not find that distinction very important, but the difference will become evident.

  Bear in mind that these numbers are rounded and fluctuate a little from year to year. There's not that great of a change however.

  About 16,000 of our 30,000 yearly handgun deaths are suicides. These tragic but one can hardly claim that a gun is needed to commit suicide.
 
  Roughly 14,000 deaths remain, and these are largely murders. I'll leave out the small percentage of gun deaths that include self defense and law enforcement shootings.

  Let's break down the remaining 14,000.

  A little over half of these gun deaths are criminals killing other criminals. Perhaps I'm heartless, but I see this as a win for society. Others may believe that these murdered criminals may have gone to cure AIDS, help little old ladies across the street, and set up charities for the homeless. I however suspect that they would have continued their crime careers. Most would have continued to prey upon law abiding citizens. These 7,500 deaths are nothing to mourn in my opinion. I suppose if I raised a murdering POS felon, I'd think differently.
 
We're now down to the remaining 7,500 gun deaths. This category includes the murders of innocent men, women, and children. These are the tragedies. There's no getting around that fact.
  It is however worth remembering that this is 7,500 out of over 311 million citizens. To put this in perspective, we lose at least 32,000 people per year to motor vehicle accidents and medical errors kill over 44,000 - 98,000 people.