Montana and Guns
I was in a grocery store parking lot in Havre (pronounced have-er), when I was approached by a man who used to live in Patchogue and born in Brooklyn. He now works in Montana for the railroad. He mentioned that there were very few taxes on anything and then went on to say that they had almost no gun control laws and they had very few problems with guns. That is the problem with statistics. I did a little research and found that Montana did, in fact, have the lowest level of murders by gun on a per capita basis in the nation according to the FBI. This makes sense because I just took like 4 days to drive across the state and they have less than a million people in the whole state. People don't have enough contact with other people to get angry enough to murder them.
Interestingly, another on-line source reported that Montana ranked 6th in the nation for total gun deaths per hundred thousand citizens. Apparently, there are a lot of accidents involving guns (it's hard to prove murder in a hunting "accident" and ballistics aren't of much use with a shotgun). Also, a lot of Montanans commit suicide each year. Seven of the states with the strictest gun laws in the nation were in the list of the 10 states with the lowest per capita rates of gun deaths in the country.
In 2010 and 2011, there were a total of about 64,000 gun related deaths in the US. This is such a shameful statistic, which dwarfs every other industrialized nation in the world. So, in those two years, thousands more US citizens died from gunshost than US soldiers died in the Vietnam War. I am sure I would feel differently about guns if I didn't live in suburbia, and lived far from help from the authorities. Apparently, some gun owners are looking to protect themselves from the authorities (as if they have a real chance). I am not going to get into a 2nd amendment argument. However, we need to make gun owners legally responsible for damage inflicted by their guns, the same as car owners, based on the doctrine of dangerous instrumentality. Then gun owners will store them properly and safely or be subject to liability to victims injured or killed by their gun. I would also require biometric devices on all new guns that would only allow the gun to be fired by an authorized user. This wouldn't help with the 100s of millions of guns already in the hands of the American public, but would offer a person worried about self defense a way of owning a gun that would insure that only he or she could fire the weapon - not their young child, not a mentally ill person, not a troubled teen contemplating suicide, not a thief, and certainly not the criminal that got the drop on them. This could save many thousands of innocent lives every year. And shield the gun owner from potential liability. It probably would have avoided Sandy Hook. It's a start.
Sadly, Montana also is at the top of the list in terms of automobile deaths in the country, again on a per capita basis. The American Legion puts little white crosses beside highways where the deaths occurred. (It seems that everyone gets a cross, irrespective of their religious affiliation.) There seemed to be a lot along our route; sometimes 5 or 6 in one place. Montana repealed its "reasonable and prudent" speed limit some time ago. However, a surprising number of two lane roads, with minimal shoulders and questionable maintenance, now sport 70 mph speed limits. I am pretty sure it would not have been reasonable and prudent to do 70 on them before the imposition of a speed limit.
Interestingly, another on-line source reported that Montana ranked 6th in the nation for total gun deaths per hundred thousand citizens. Apparently, there are a lot of accidents involving guns (it's hard to prove murder in a hunting "accident" and ballistics aren't of much use with a shotgun). Also, a lot of Montanans commit suicide each year. Seven of the states with the strictest gun laws in the nation were in the list of the 10 states with the lowest per capita rates of gun deaths in the country.
In 2010 and 2011, there were a total of about 64,000 gun related deaths in the US. This is such a shameful statistic, which dwarfs every other industrialized nation in the world. So, in those two years, thousands more US citizens died from gunshost than US soldiers died in the Vietnam War. I am sure I would feel differently about guns if I didn't live in suburbia, and lived far from help from the authorities. Apparently, some gun owners are looking to protect themselves from the authorities (as if they have a real chance). I am not going to get into a 2nd amendment argument. However, we need to make gun owners legally responsible for damage inflicted by their guns, the same as car owners, based on the doctrine of dangerous instrumentality. Then gun owners will store them properly and safely or be subject to liability to victims injured or killed by their gun. I would also require biometric devices on all new guns that would only allow the gun to be fired by an authorized user. This wouldn't help with the 100s of millions of guns already in the hands of the American public, but would offer a person worried about self defense a way of owning a gun that would insure that only he or she could fire the weapon - not their young child, not a mentally ill person, not a troubled teen contemplating suicide, not a thief, and certainly not the criminal that got the drop on them. This could save many thousands of innocent lives every year. And shield the gun owner from potential liability. It probably would have avoided Sandy Hook. It's a start.
Sadly, Montana also is at the top of the list in terms of automobile deaths in the country, again on a per capita basis. The American Legion puts little white crosses beside highways where the deaths occurred. (It seems that everyone gets a cross, irrespective of their religious affiliation.) There seemed to be a lot along our route; sometimes 5 or 6 in one place. Montana repealed its "reasonable and prudent" speed limit some time ago. However, a surprising number of two lane roads, with minimal shoulders and questionable maintenance, now sport 70 mph speed limits. I am pretty sure it would not have been reasonable and prudent to do 70 on them before the imposition of a speed limit.
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