Reading this on philobiblion today really made me think. Though we’ve refused to have any contact w/guns in our family (not even of the water-squirting variety), I think I need to be doing more to get the word out about gun control. Here’s a beginning:
A child is killed by a gun every three hours in America. According to the latest statistics, nearly 1,000 children under 19 are shot dead every year. Another 800 use guns to commit suicide, and more than 160 die in firearm accidents.
Forty per cent of American households own guns, but those guns are 22 times more likely to be involved in an accidental shooting, or 11 times more likely to be used in a suicide, than in self-defence. On average, more than 80 Americans are killed by gunfire every day.