Remember how soon ago the TRUMP University and TRUMP Foundation were DISSOLVED due to being FRAUDULENT? GUESS WHAT?

I believe Americans own the most guns of any country. When a gun-related massacre occurs gun sales shoot up. Why? Because the gun people believe that any day the bugment gubment will confiscate their guns. They  have no use for the Constitution except for the tiny part that gives them right to arm bears or bare arms. Of course when that was written the guns were muskets or whatever. They were not AK 47 and other assault weapons we have now. Progress don'tcha know? They are willing to start a civil war to keep their guns and many have armories set up in their homes awaiting that day. America is known for its devotion to guns and Bibles which is what pandemic pumpkina** panders to. He had a square teargassed to drive away peaceful protesters so he could walk there pose in front of a church and hold up a BIBLE. Said nothing but he was dog whistling to the devoted guns and bibles americans. They are HIS PEOPLE. Yes THE GUN PEOPLE are terrified all the time of everything and that is why they need their guns. Guns make them feel "safer". Of course more crimes occur where there are more guns but so what? Nothing is perfect. You went to a lot of trouble to do what? Minimize the gun culture and say it isn't that bad? I'm not sure why you did that but I guess you may be at heart a Devil's Advocate. Nothing wrong with that at all. Thank you for your reply and Happy Saturday. This post was edited by RosieG at August 8, 2020 2:06 AM MDT

Yes, I remember Trump's little Holier -Than-Thou gesture.

It's a frightening situation, the way so many Americans are arming themselves, and I can assure you I was not trying to minimise it. Just the opposite, possibly. I was trying to establish the NRA's influence by its size.

I don't know if you knew of or heard of any of Alistair Cooke's work, but he was a British-born American writer, journalist and broadcaster. (Died in 2004) He produced a weekly, 10 or 15-minute Letter To America essay broadcast on the BBC radio for many years. These looked at current political and social affairs in America but from a more day-to-day, social perspective than the ordinary News reporting of high-level events, helping listeners understand your country better.

One, which was re-broadcast last year after another mindless shooting, dealt with that matter of the "right to bear arms". I forget the details but the gist of his explanation was that it arose when the country was still forming itself as an independent nation, as way of being able to raise militias before regular armed services could be developed. Also, a friend who owns some antique guns tells me, the firearms of those days were of shorter ranges and accuracies than modern guns, and until the invention of the revolver and double-barrelled shotgun, were all single-shot.

I wonder how much of the "gun-culture" is due to a romantic image fostered by Hollywood, and an aspect of law-making probably unique to the USA?
Even when the "Spaghetti Western" tried to portray the grime and deprivation of frontier days in a more realistic light than in John Wayne's "kill-them-Injuns" days, they still tended to gloss over killing people as humanely sending several people to the next world by single bullets fired from a poorly-aimed revolver in quick succession.
The law aspect came to me in a series on the radio last week, examining the subtle doubt-setting methods used by the tobacco and oil industries in the last 50 or so years. Among its findings were that they exploited American nervousness of restricting existing rights, because that seems "socialist". It particularly applied directly to smoking of course,  less clearly to fossil-fuel use; but would tightening American gun laws be seen in the same way? Interestingly, one of those polls I based the above figures on, asked political party support, and found no particular difference in gun ownership there.


I looked at the NRA because I wondered if it and its supporters make it look as far larger than I discovered and showed it really is. I was not trying to minimise it at all. I already knew it has a lot of political influence, opposes any attempts at tighter gun control and has a reputation for treating mass-shootings with indifference. 

What I did not know was its size, and finding that also led me to discover it has an arm devoted to political lobbying to the extent of funding politicians' campaigns.

Now, what I found was a gun-club representing less than 3% of the nation's adults, yet with publicity and political power you might associate with 30% and more.

That is level of club membership. I had not thought to ask level of gun ownership. Or, how representative of gun-owners, is the NRA.

Estimates are of around 45% of adult Americans owning guns or living in a gun-owning family, with many people owning two or more.

So roughly 100  Million people own or have owned a gun, or live / have lived with a gun-owner.

There are around 393 Million guns in private ownership in the USA (source: Small Arms Survey, via Wikipedia). That source also states this is 45%  - nearly half - of the entire world's arsenal of guns in private ownership! 

I look at those figure with some scepticism because they are probably rounded off, but the average of 4 guns per adult gun-owner seems too high, even though there are plenty who own 5 or more. The Small Arms Survey might have worked on gun sales, but that would not allow for guns that have been scrapped, confiscated or lost.  

On the other hand, from those various surveys at least, including by reputable companies like Gallup, rather more than half of the American population does not own guns. I also know that there are a lot of Americans who would far rather no-one owned them, except perhaps for genuine sports-shooting and wild animal control. 

So far from trying to minimise the problem I was trying to put the NRA in context - a very small club with very much power, representing by membership alone only a very small proportion of the nearly half of all adult Americans who have armed themselves.

*

Switzerland has recently repealed its a system that allowed its soldiers, who are or were mainly conscripts, to keep their Army-issued guns and ammunition at home. I think that was probably the only country that had such a system.

*
Britain has tight gun-controls - though some determined criminals manage to obtain guns, not very many do, and the drug gang members here usually resort to stabbing each other.  There is though, no social appetite for owning even licensed guns beyond genuine sporting and agricultural purposes; and there are not that many sports-shooters and farmers by population.

The nearest we ever had was a Mediaeval law that every man should be able to shoot an arrow accurately. It was not "up-dated" when the bow and arrow was replaced by the muzzle-loaded, flintlock musket. Although Britons theoretically "have a right to bear arms", under strict control, most have no wish to do so. Indeed some think our controls not strict enough, but the criminal types would still find ways round them.

Most criminal shootings in Britain are of gang-on-gang, but a young woman was killed recently by a drive-by shooting that missed its intended target. I think the suspected murderers were caught quite soon afterwards but I can't remember what has happened since. Mass, indiscriminate shootings with no clear motive such as political terrorism, are very rare in the UK and Europe generally. I think there have been about 4 in the last 50 years in Britain; 1 in a primary-school, the others in streets. The terrorists use bombs, knives or vehicles as weapons.   

'

Incidentally I have just verified the NRA Subscription. It is $45/year - I wondered if I had misread it as it seems so low yet claims to include insurance etc. It also has to cover publicity, headquarters and staff costs, etc. It might use investments too, of course. 

I know a direct conversion is unsafe because it does not allow for international differences in pay and living costs for equivalent people, but that is about £9 a year, which would be remarkably low for any, especially national, club in Britain. 

Though $45 X 5.5M = $247.5 Million... With member numbers like that, the NRA does not need to charge very much to be able to mount high-powered campaigns and make itself look the massive guarantor of arms freedom it wants us all to think it is.

It's not size, but $$$, that matters here.

Methinks I scratched a nerve my friend. This is a massively HELPFUL and thoughtful and informative reply. THE NRA is a perfect example of the tail wagging the dog. The influence it has wielded for decades on our politics is undeniable. They have a rating system which rates how pro gun a politician is. That rating is enormously important to Republicans and sadly even to some Democrats though far fewer. Guns kill living things. American gun people live in terror every day so they arm themselves exceedingly large. We non-guns are not terrified. We feel guns exacerbate the problem. They do not mitigate at all. Why Republicans are so terrified of everything all time I do not know. I'm thankful every day that I am not one. I despise guns. I am not fond of those who NEED them to feel safe. I realize that people use them to kill what becomes food for them. That is a separate issue. I DESPISE the great white hunters who go out to murder animals so they can stuff a head and put it on a wall and brag about the kill. Anyway thank you for investing so much time on this issue. It matters a lot to me that you are meticulous in what you say and spend the time it takes to verify and support what you believe. :):):) This post was edited by RosieG at August 8, 2020 3:26 PM MDT

Thank you very much!

There was a murder by shooting in England, mentioned on the News this evening. The main suspect is dead though, killed in a motorcycle accident. The motive is unknown.  

That influence of the NRA is what sprang out at me, when I realised its membership is only a small proportion of the gun-owners in America.

What you said about the fear and a sort of arms-race is very alarming, and you can't help wondering if it won't all go up in armed insurrection or at least violent para-military fighting, one day. If so, over what? Possibly a long chain of small events until something is the last straw? And once one lot shoots another, where does it end?

I've  no time for the "great white hunter" types either.

Some years ago I read an article by a Scots Highlands ghillie (gamekeeper) managing deer over a huge area of open countryside. These animals are basically wild, but are culled, and then butchered for venison. One of his tasks was helping visiting, licensed hunters, and he said the problem is they have very little real tracking and marksmanship skill, so it's up the ghillies and local hunters to go after injured deer to kill them humanely. One could very reasonably say it would be better to leave all the shooting to the keepers, who do everything they can to kill the deer outright, and won't leave it lying injured.  The rich visitors from the cities might be paying his wages but he clearly didn't have much respect for them!

Now, those are selected deer culled for management reasons, and as meat. And they are shot  by people who do try to kill them outright. Merely blasting away at the wildlife - no. No excuse for that. Some of the worst offenders are Maltese, French and Spanish who ambush flocks of birds migrating between Africa and Europe. They can't do anything with the dead birds. The "sport" is merely of hurling shot-gun pellets at flocks to bring down as many as possible. I came across one of the sites for this, on the Franco-Spanish border ridge in the Pyrenees. Stretching away from the road over the col was a line of small wooden pens, maybe six feet square, a short distance apart, with their floors ankle-deep in spent shot-gun cartridges.

Well m'dear it's because the ghillies are HUMANE. The big white hunters are not. The ghillies want to lessen suffering and pain and do engage in TORTURE which is all the big white hunters ever do. Torture game to trophyize something..anything. That is was once a LIVING BREATHING BEING means not a thing to them. They never developed beyond the stage of infancy. I WANT being the operative MO. I WANT. I WANT. I WANT. As simple as they are and are meaningless and bereft of anything human. I think it's genetic but I fear it is becoming contageous as well. It is creeping up on us day by day in every way everywhere. How do we STOP IT? I have no idea. Thank you for your thought and informative reply Durdle. I wonder if we would be shocked or pleased to learn how many "homo saps" out there view it as we do? Lots or not? Maybe better we don't know. Too depressing as it is. Thank you for your reply. I wonder if these folks compage their kills in terms of BIG?  The BIGGER the target the BIGGER their bragging rights? SIGH.