It’s time to stop thinking. About what might happen with or without new gun control measures.

The 24 hours news digital sphincter spasm continues to slather us all with lots and lots of thoughtless thinking and careless conjecture. Think what might happen if… I think… Most Americans think… I think I’ll have another beer… What is the NRA thinking… The United Nations thinks… I think Dancing with the Stars is on tonight… Most of our representatives in Washington think… No wait, I think we ought to scratch that last one. Most of our representatives do not think much past the next “So You Think You Can Smile!” audition.

Why are we still thinking about things?

I think there’s no place for guns in schools!

• We know that Utah allows guns in schools.
• We know that Utah is still waiting on its first mass school shooting.
• We know that over 200 colleges and universities already allow lawful concealed carry on campus.
• We know that none of those institutions have suffered catastrophic attacks like the ones in Newtown, Columbine, or Virginia Tech.
• We know that all mass shooting incidents in the past 50 years, except one, have happened in areas where guns are not allowed.

I think it’s a bad idea to arm teachers!

• We know we don’t want to force all teachers to be armed. We simply want those who choose to defend themselves and their students not to lose that fundamental right when they enter school property.
• We know that Israel has had some percentage of armed teachers since 1974.
• We know that most Israeli schools have armed security.
• We know that is has kept their students safer in perhaps one of the most dangerous neighborhoods on planet earth.
• We know that attacks on Israeli schools have been attempted by trained terrorists, not cowards that almost always end their own life as soon as they are challenged.
• We know that challenging these cowards immediately almost always stops them immediately.

I think we shouldn’t have to live in a world where people have to have guns.

• We know that we do in fact live in a world like that.
• We know that there are sick and evil people out there.
• We know because we hear about them on the news every single day.
• We know they continue to do evil things regardless of laws.
• We know that the very definition of “criminal” is one who breaks laws.
• We know that burying our heads in the sand and hoping things will be better because they should be will not save one single life.

I think that some sort of gun ban is a good idea.

• We know the last one didn’t lower crime at all.
• We know that crime didn’t increase when it expired.
• We know that there is not one example of gun control policy lowering violent crime.
• We know that the most recent countries to implement drastic gun control have suffered serious increases in violent crime.
• We know that women are 2 times more likely to be raped in the UK than in the US.
• We know that women in Australia are 3 times more likely to be raped than women in the US.
• We know that total murders in the UK have increased since the gun ban took effect in January 1997.
• We know that in only 1 year have there been fewer murders in the UK after the handgun ban than before the handgun ban.
• We know that the UK has a violent crime rate 3.5 times greater than that of the US.
• We know that folks in the UK are having serious discussion about banning kitchen knives because the guns bans have not reduced crime.
• We know that banning kitchen knives will make English food even worse.
• We know that one definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again, but hoping for a different result.

I think magazines ought to be limited to 5 rounds.

• We know that law enforcement officers, military personnel, and citizen survivors of gunfights have found that hyped-up bad guys don’t necessarily feel compelled to stop doing what they’re doing after 5 shots have been fired towards them.
• We know bad guys doing bad things don’t travel alone.
• We know more and more bad guys are wearing body armor to protect themselves against unarmed or lightly armed victims.
• I know that if my home is invaded in the middle of the night that I will want a 2,530,371 round magazine handy. And a couple of spares.
• We know that our soldiers have complained that actual Assault Rifles don’t have enough power to reliably stop enemy combatants.
• We know that limiting magazines to some arbitrary capacity based on perceived need is about the stupidest suggestion ever.

I think we need to address gun violence!

• We know we need to address violence. Not gun violence. Violence.
• We know we are not somehow better off or morally superior if we are killed with a knife, bat, or fist as compared to a gun.
• We know we are equally dead no matter what the cause.
• We know that the term “gun violence” is a deliberate attempt to misrepresent and mislead from the very real, and hard to solve, issues of societal evil.
• We know that violence is a difficult thing to solve so people tend to want to take shortcuts in order to consider things “fixed.”

I think you’re crazy if you think more guns is the answer to violence!

• We know that record numbers of Americans are buying guns for protection.
• We know that there are almost 300 million guns in the United States.
• We know that violent crime, measured by the FBI as incidents per 100,000 people, has fallen 50% in the past 20 years.
• We know that murder, measured by the FBI as incidents per 100,000 people, has fallen 54% over the past 20 years.
• We know that these massive and steady decreases in crime have happened while more and more Americans are buying guns.
• We know that simply blaming guns is deliberate shirking from the harder problem of addressing the real causes of crime.

I don’t think anyone needs a high-powered Assault Weapon!

• We know that there is no such thing as an assault weapon.
• We know that if you ask an “assault weapon ban” proponent what an “assault weapon” is, that they will not be able to tell you.
• We know, again according to the FBI, that many times more murders are committed with simple beatings than rifles of any kind.
• We know that banning mythical “assault weapons” will not stop murders by beating.
• We know that banning mythical “assault weapons” will not save lives. The largest mass murders ever had nothing to do with mythical “assault weapons.” People do bad things with or without mythical “assault weapons.”

I think armed citizens are going to act like vigilantes and cause even more harm!

• We know that lawfully armed citizens are among the most law-abiding groups of people measurable.
• We know that the crime rate for concealed carry permit holders is 14 times less than that of the general population.
• We know that lawfully armed citizens are 5 times less likely to commit a violent crime than the average citizen.

I think I have an irrational fear of guns and want a simple and immediate fix to the problems of violence.

• We know. We want to continue to reduce violence also.
• We know there is no simple fix.
• We know that we don’t fear guns. They’re just tools that protect someone from crime and/or violence between 1 and 2.5 million times per year – just in the US.
• We know that we kind of like the direction of the crime trend over the past 20 years and want to continue that. We just want to be smart about how we do it.

It’s time to stop thinking about what might happen.

It’s time to know what does happen. 

P.S. I know I’m going to vomit if I hear one more talking head tell me what they think without considering what we already know.