GL: alarmed at firearms comments

[Rich Gano]

This topic was banned on the Trawler list some time back because certain
people could not rationally discuss the issue - it became a shouting match.
I am amazed it has gone on as long on this list as it has - maybe we are
"growing up" because this time it is close to civil by comparison.  Mike is
to be congratulated for having faith in us to "get done" with this thread
because it will peter out - not that I am helping :), but I thought I had
something sensible to offer.  It's sad to see folks quitting the list in a
huff over what will be a fairly short-term event, but maybe they were just
tired of reading others' opinions anyway - it happens.

Now, to our British cousin's questions: reading my "Southern reputation" and
some of today's other excellent comments will give you a good answer, and I
have a couple of follow-up comments.

"Do we need to reappraise our personal safety measures in some areas we
will be going through?"

Absolutely not.

"Do we need to be wary of side trips up lonely rivers?"

Absolutely not.

"I heard a comment recently that as many as 100, 000 US citizens have
been killed by firearms in the last 5 years, not sure if its true.
Hence our concern."

I hope anybody reading what follows will consider that I think I am trying
to be completely dispassionate in the information presented below - it is
hopefully just gun-neutral numbers without any agenda beyond giving
perspective.

The Center for Disease Control site I visited notes that 81.01 people died a
day in American (I am sure they are not all Americans) from gun-inflicted
wounds in 2004, 82.56/day in 2003, 82.85/day in 2002, and 81.02/day in 2001.
I don't know if it is up or down since that 2004 number (it really doesn't
matter for this discussion does it?), but at a constant rate of 80/day that
equates to 146,000 over a five-year period.

Older (older than the 18-24 year old primary shooter/shootee cohort)
people's gun deaths are most likely to be suicides.  Suicides typically make
up 56.5% of all gun deaths according to the Bureau Of Justice Statistics,
and drug-related activities and suicides account for more than 2 out of
every 3 gun deaths in the USA.  I guess the 30 percent left include police
shootings and other murders (I'd guess mostly domestic violence) and, to a
lesser degree, accidents.  So, if you are older than 24 and not going to
kill yourself or get involved in drug use and dealing or not making your
domestic partner very unhappy, you are pretty safe from gun violence here.

Like many countries I have visited, here it's a matter of who you are and
where you go.  I have yet to hear of a person on a pleasure trawler being
killed by a gun-wielding felon.  I think of America as a safe place because
of who I am and where I go, and I don't feel any more inconvenienced or
hampered in anyway by my choices than somebody living in a big city - maybe
less so.

Rich Gano
CALYPSO (GB-42 #295)
Southport, FL