ABQJOURNAL OPINION/DIMOND: Rate of Loss, Theft From Gun Shops Is Chilling By Diane Dimond
Under law the ATF can only inspect a gun store once a year and during last year’s swing through the country the ATF could only afford to visit 10,000 of the nation’s 60,000 gun shops.
What they found by talking to those gun shop owners and looking at their ledger books was chilling. Earlier this month the ATF quietly revealed that the owners admitted a substantial part of their inventory was either “missing, lost or stolen.” After adding it all up the ATF concluded that, collectively, those registered gun dealers “lost” 82 firearms every single day! Take the math forward and it’s a startling 30,000 unregistered, untraceable guns in just the 2007 fiscal year.
And, realize, this is what the government found by interviewing just one-sixth of the country’s gun shop owners. The actual figures could be far higher.
The ATF quietly revealed the figures because every time the bureau comes out with such statistics, sources tell me, the National Rifle Association comes out swinging — hard — calling ATF inspectors “jackbooted thugs” and worse. (I would think “thugs” would stop by more than once a year — but I digress.) The ATF findings were noticed, analyzed and then publicized by the Brady Campaign for the Prevention of Gun Violence.
The NRA sneers at the method of disclosure.ABQJOURNAL OPINION/DIMOND: Rate of Loss, Theft From Gun Shops Is Chilling
Just a few days ago, I wrote: “Maybe the real solution is a spell that guarantees the only people ever hurt by guns own them.” (mjh’s blog — Guns Are Further Proof…) That may actually be what’s going on already. (I take no comfort in that.) peace, mjh
ABC News: CDC: 55% of Gun Deaths are Suicides
Surprising Fact: Half of Gun Deaths Are Suicides
Supreme Court ruling underscores surprising fact: More than half of gun deaths are suicides
By MIKE STOBBE AP Medical Writer
Research shows that surprisingly often, gun owners use the weapons on themselves.
Suicides accounted for 55 percent of the nation’s nearly 31,000 firearm deaths in 2005, the most recent year for which statistics are available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
There was nothing unique about that year — gun-related suicides have outnumbered firearm homicides and accidents for 20 of the last 25 years. In 2005, homicides accounted for 40 percent of gun deaths. Accidents accounted for 3 percent. The remaining 2 percent included legal killings, such as when police do the shooting, and cases that involve undetermined intent.
Public-health researchers have concluded that in homes where guns are present, the likelihood that someone in the home will die from suicide or homicide is much greater.