Over the past 3 years, we have seen some people that, for a myriad of reasons that most of us could never explain, have decided to take other people's lives with no apparent motivation. That's what happened on May 24, 2014, in Isla Vista, Calif., a town neighbor to Santa Barbara and that is home for hundreds of students that attend University of California Santa Barbara. Elliot Rodger, 22, who was attending UCSB, was pretty much dissatisfied with the life he was taking and with the fact that he was also having some bad luck in finding women. Frustrated, Rodgers decided to write a 141-page-long letter that turned out to be a manifesto about his troubled life and that a "killing spree" would be happening.
And the spree really happened: at the apartment complex that Rodgers was living at, 3 people have been stabbed (I repeat: stabbed) and killed. After those 3 casualties, Rodgers decided to go for a ride with assault weapons, and killed 3 more people, until he was killed by police officers. One of the victims, Christopher Michaels-Martinez, Richard, blamed the National Rifle Association, and the politicians for the death of his son. And that fueled the debate about gun control, especially when it comes to people with mental illnesses.
When it comes to gun control, and all the claims that it reduces violence, all I can do is disagree with those claims. Every time people compare the U.S. murder rates with the ones of countries like Great Britain, Canada, and Australia, which have much lower rates, they don't realize the fact that these countries have a much smaller population compared to America. In fact, if you combine the population of these 3 countries, you only get 90 million people, which counts for only 28.5% of America's population! Let's compare with a country similar in size: Brazil. The second largest country in the Americas, has about 202 million people, and adopted a strict gun control in 2003. According to the latest Global Homicide Survey, published by the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime (UNODC), the U.S. had, in 2012, about 14,827 murders, with a ratio of 4.7 violent deaths per each 100,000 people. On the other hand, Brazil had whopping 50,108 murders, with a staggering ratio of 25.7 violent deaths per each 100,000 people. These numbers are comparable to a civil war, and the amount of dead humans is greater than all deaths reported in the war in Iraq, that went from 2003 to 2011. Needless to say that gun controls will not stop the increase of armed militia organizations, as well as it will dramatically increase the smuggling of guns, especially from countries like Mexico and China, which feed the black market of weapons on Earth.
This is what will happen in America if gun control was ever to happen. For a country of its size, and for the political regime it currently adopts, the number of murders in the U.S. is relatively low and below the world average of 6 per every 100,000. The same gun control advocates would certainly get weapons to defend their families and properties, as well as getting armed security officers to defend their lives! The alleged statements defended by anti-gun individuals are simply hypocrisy, since they would buy guns to exercise their defense, instead of turning their guns in. These arguments are pointless and very unreasonable, with no credible evidence that reducing guns would save lives. We need to save our right to bear arms and the right of defending our loved ones and our properties now. Otherwise, we would go back to the stone ages.
This is my thought for the day, for all those like me, who are here thinking out loud.
