Poll: Gun Violence

[Ernie]

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, one-in-five Americans have had a family member killed by gun violence, and one-in-six have witnessed a gun injury. These statistics surprised me. Thought I would see how this compares with folks on MN where we have a lot of people from peace churches.

https://www.kff.org/other/press-release ... nced-each/

Please keep partisan comments/debates out of this thread - avoid comments that reflect negatively on either right-leaning or left leaning political persuasions. Please keep this thread focused on the topic.

[QuietlyListening]

My brother in law committed suicide with a gun, my sister in law's brother committed suicide with a gun.

[Soloist]

I actually don’t have any ammunition for my shotgun or my 2 22s. They are locked and hidden in a spot very unlikely to be found by anyone.
When we moved, we disassembled the weapons and put the parts in different areas, the same when we took a vacation years ago. I used to teach my wife self defense and argued for her to use the shotgun at center mass.
If racking a round didn’t scare them, 2 rounds of bird shot followed by buck shot would.
While this was more of a minimal harm approach to self defense, I’m a lot less fearful now that we don’t practice self defense.
I personally have heard of a young man in a “sudo” Anabaptist church who shot himself, the car, his sister and I believe a cow? All in the name of “quick draw”
Past that… I haven't seen issues among the plain people.

[joshuabgood]

I have a single shot 12 gauge shot gun that I got when I was 12-13 for hunting - sometimes I shoot skeets with my relatives. I never got into hunting. I currently have it in a closet and don't have any ammo for it.

I typically would preface a few of these options with "I idealize". For instance I would idealize never using it on a human being...though I hesitate to make to strong a statement not being in a situation where it seemed like the only hope to protect some one I loved.

[steve-in-kville]

4, 5, 6 all kind sort of blur together for me. All my older boys own or have access to a variety of weapons due to us living in the country and pest control can be a year 'round thing.

We I have some time later, I will embellish on this.

[Josh]

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, one-in-five Americans have had a family member killed by gun violence, and one-in-six have witnessed a gun injury. These statistics surprised me. Thought I would see how this compares with folks on MN where we have a lot of people from peace churches.

https://www.kff.org/other/press-release ... nced-each/

Please keep partisan comments/debates out of this thread - avoid comments that reflect negatively on either right-leaning or left leaning political persuasions. Please keep this thread focused on the topic.

The 1 in 6 is a rather absurd statistic. I am not from a plain background and don’t know anyone injured by a firearm. Amongst my relatives the only people I can think of offhand who are are those who served in Vietnam or WWII (now deceased).

My sister did know someone who was shot but she grew up very rough before she was adopted into my family. And that was just 1 person. She also served in the Guard. Growing up her and her friends/family did shoot BB guns at each other for fun but I don’t think that counts (perhaps in the survey it does).

The 1 in 5 is even more absurd. I know thousands of people and can’t think personally of anyone that has been murdered or accidentally killed by a gun. I can think of local incidents where someone committed suicide but they weren’t people I knew personally. I sincerely doubt that 20% of Americans know someone who has been shot and killed.

Again, I question this study:

Amid a push for health professionals to treat gun safety as a public health issue, one in seven (14%) adults say that a health care provider has ever asked them if there were guns in their home, and 5% say that they talked about gun safety.

Among parents, a quarter (26%) say a pediatrician has ever asked them about guns in the home, and 8% say they talked about gun safety.

This press release seems to be promoting a political agenda which makes me suspect it. If I go to my child’s doctor I don’t want to have a discussion about politics or guns. Doctors are not gun experts. If I want to discuss gun safety, I will talk with a friend who is a gun expert. Responsible gun owners I know encourage proper storage of firearms and ammunition.

Doctors should perhaps stick to the leading causes of death which right now in America is obesity related illness, which is afflicting half of 5-11 year olds.

[temporal1]

i chose 3, nothing more.
(i can’t imagine) using any deadly force against another, even in extreme anger/passion, even under attack.

however, i’ve lived long enough to understand, we don’t always know ourselves ahead of time.

one incident left a permanent mark for me.
from behind, i was randomly attacked and mugged once, i remember the initial attack, which immediately rendered me helpless, i felt like a child or doll, the perp must have known what he was doing, he was silent, fast and efficient. i felt like “nothing” in his arms.

i don’t believe i “blacked out,” but my brain must have frozen, i’ve never had recall of what happened, from initial attack to realizing i was RUNNING away. Decades ago. i was hurt, shocked, but no hospitalization. Full physical recovery. i was “afraid of my shadow” for 10 years, then became angry with myself for being afraid .. i’m still afraid, but i deny it and become disgruntled with myself about it.

in retrospect,
i realized, at no time in this experience did i once feel the urge to lash out or harm the perp. nothing like that.
i SERIOUSLY wanted “out of there!” that’s not the same. i’m sorry he was never caught (for THIS incident). that’s not the same. i’m sad he was, and may be, free to harm others.

this experience tells me i’m unlikely to use deadly force, even when attacked.
i have peace with this. esp because i do experience anger, and other negative emotions that shame me.
it helps me to think, even pushed-hard, i would not resort to harm another. escape? yes. disable? if possible. not harm.

still, i would not say “never.”

‘cause, i don’t think humans have the capability of understanding never, or always, etc. We think. We hope. We don’t know.
superlatives, absolutes, are God’s domain. we humans are too-too small.

[Ken]

I got rid of all my firearms after I got married and my wife didn't want them in the house with children.

I'm not particularly opposed to firearms. I grew up with them. But I think they should be much more tightly regulated.

Firearm violence has not touched my immediate family or extended family (to my knowledge). But I do have a very close friend who's brother turned into a dangerous druggie. One day in a rage he crashed into their mother's house demanding money and when she didn't have any he shot and killed their mother. He was convicted for this years ago and now my friend has to go testify every time he comes up for parole to make sure he stays in prison as she is terrified of him and doesn't want him ever to get out.

I have seen the results of politically-inspired death squad violence in Guatemala. Dead bodies left in ditches. But they weren't people I knew and not shootings that I personally witnessed. But if you open the door up to political violence as in question 9, that is where things end up. With people shot by death squads for their political positions and their bodies left to rot in ditches.

[Neto]

My cousin was shot to death a few years ago, when someone shot up the building where he and another cousin were hosting a birthday party.
An uncle (I knew him as an 'uncle', but he was actually married to my Dad's first cousin) was killed in a terrorist bombing (OKC).

[ohio jones]

Years ago, one of my friends was killed while deer hunting by a poacher with a high powered rifle. The person responsible was identified after the statute of limitations had expired, so no charges were filed.