[BITList] NRA in Oz

[x50type]

Mike

There were over 32,163 gun related deaths in the USA in 2011. 236 in 2010 in Oz. 146 in UK, Japan 11 in 2008.
The NRA’s attitude is probably that the US population is 314 million, so 32,163 is insignificant – just the cost of doing business! 

The NRA is the US gun manufacturers advertising agency. US gun manufacturing is an $11 billion per year business.
They have literally millions of dollars available for advertising and ensuring rising sales – AND, why stop at the USA? The world is our oyster!
And why stop at selling to adults? kids love guns –don’t you know?


BUT

The number of children and teens killed by guns in one year would fill 134 classrooms of 20 students each. 

That's just a more dramatic way of stating an already staggering figure – 2,694 in 2010. Most of the report's 73 following pages are devoted to restating it. Sometimes, this done to illustrate the chilling frequency of such deaths: 

• One child or teen died every 3 hours and 15 minutes • Seven children and teens died every day, more than 20 every three days • Fifty-one children and teens died every week 

Other times, the same set of statistics (all from the Centers for Disease Control) is used to drive home the magnitude of the tragedy, relating it to the kinds of violence we think we understand: 

Nearly three times more children and teens were injured by guns in 2010 than the number of US soldiers wounded in action that year in the war in Afghanistan; 82 children under five died from guns in 2010, compared to 55 law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty. 

And then, there's the shameful comparison to other countries: 

US children and teens are 17 times more likely to die from a gun than their peers in 25 other high-income countries combined. 

Put it slightly differently: 

US children and teens made up 43% of all children and teens in these 26 countries but were 93% of all children and teens killed by guns.

To anyone not brain dead these figures are staggering and unacceptable. However, NRA not interested................so make bloody sure they don’t get a toe hold in Oz!

So why are americans in love with guns? the answer is male immaturity, ignorance and paranoia.
So why is there little or no movement for change in view of the above and the weekly mass killings?

The US is separated into 3 voting blocks, east coast, west coast and the center. east and west coast have the majority of the voters, the highest education and the highest pay and are generally not gun-mad BUT the smallest number of Congressmen for their population. Each congressman represents more voters than the center area congressmen but each have the only one vote. Consequently there is a disproportionate high number of politicians representing the gun-toting central areas of the US – and they just love the NRA [and are paid accordingly]. Obviously, this disproportionality is almost impossible to change.

c’est la vie

Colin



Sent: Sunday, September 29, 2013 5:52 PM
To: Colin Taylor 
Subject: NRA in Oz

Colin,

Just been reading an article about a  murderer in 1996 who killed a  
wife and her children plus others in Port Arthur, Oz.  The widower  
helped set up a foundation  to help children who are victims of  
violence and to stop violence.  This man took part recently in a CNN  
documentary about the availability of guns in the wake of the Sandy  
Hook school massacre.  This man is disturbed that there has been a  
relaxation of gun laws in Oz after the P.M. Howard's reforms following  
the above Port Arthur massacre.

He says "I find it very  frightening and believe that some of it is  
being driven by funding from the National Rifle Association in America."

Their influence is spreading !

Mike
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