President Obama ignores global gun violence to fuel gun control talks

President Obama said Tuesday that that the ”biggest frustration” of his presidency so far is the fact that the country hasn’t taken steps to keep guns out of the hands of mass shooters. The President  has been vocal the past couple of days in the wake of the Oregon shooting and the new press secretary says he is always looking for a “unilateral” way to install some gun control.

“We’re the only developed country on Earth where this happens,” Obama said during a question-and-answer session organized through Tumblr. “And it happens now once a week. And it’s a one-day story. There’s no place else like this.”

Sadly Mr. President that is false and this has been a global trend for a very long time.

This was how a NY Times article began: “The assassination of the right-wing Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn and a series of mass shootings — at a German school and at normally tranquil local legislatures in Switzerland and France — have shaken the European notion that such incidents happen only in America, and hint at a gnawing sense that Europe’s established institutions are unable to address grievances as they once did…” (Emphasis added)

The story is from 2002 and chronicles:

• Erfurt, Germany:an expelled student killed 13 teachers, 2 students, a policeman and himself
• Nanterre, France: a psychiatric patient shot dead eight city councilors with no warning or explanation
• Zug, Switzerland: A 57-year-old man angry over a dispute with a bus driver threw a grenade and fired an rifle at the regional legislature, killing 14.
• Hungary: two gunmen killed seven people in a bank robbery.

There are all kinds of stats and data, the most recent is the Everytown USA gun ban group circulating that there have 74 school shootings since Newtown. The View quoted this “report” as did many papers. What is omitted from the statement, noted in the fine print, is that the figure includes “accidental discharge of firearms” and “suicides.”

The Telegraph shocked readers in 2009 with their article “UK is violent crime capital of Europe” – a title Piers Morgan may have not seen based on his defense of Mother England.

In fact the 2011 stats (let’s just use Wikipedia) to see that firearm deaths linked to suicide is nearly double that of homicide. Looking at this data, maybe America should adopt the mandatory firearm ownership policy of Switzerland which has way better stats that the US.

In 2012, The Daily Mail reported how the gun violence in the UK rose by 35 percent.

• Criminals used handguns in 46% more offences
• Firearms were used in 9,974 recorded crimes in the 12 months to last April, up from 7,362
• It was the fourth consecutive year to see a rise and there were more than 2,200 more gun crimes last year than the previous peak in 1993
• Figures showed the number of crimes involving handguns had more than doubled since the post-Dunblane massacre ban on the weapons, from 2,636 in 1997-1998 to 5,871.

Wait, the gun ban is to blame for more violence?

After Sandy Hook, the President signed over 20 executive orders increasing gun control and the violence is getting worse?

Mr. President, attack the NRA, gun owners, shooters with mental illness, but please stop pretending this is an American problem or that your efforts have helped in anyway.

They may have actually not hurt the situation.

Some other interesting stories:

• There is more gun violence in PG-13 films than in Rated-R movies
• According to the FBI more than two-thirds of homicides involve a firearm. 6,220 of those homicides by firearm (72%) are known to have involved a handgun NOT a rifle, AR-15 or a hunting rifle
• “There is no pattern, there is no increase,” says criminologist James Allen Fox of Boston’s Northeastern University, who has been studying the subject since the 1980s, spurred by a rash of mass shootings in post offices.
• Ten Myths about Gun Control by Duke University