Yahoo News tries it and, thanks to Divemedic, comes a cropper.
In this editorial piece disguised as news and statistics, Yahoo tells us that there are only about only 16.7% of Americans actually own firearms.
the top twenty percent of all gun owners actually owned 55% of the guns. In terms of absolute figures, ten million people owned 105 million guns – for an average of ten guns per person, and the remaining 87 million guns were owned by 34 million people – for an average of 2.6 guns per person. The population of the U.S. was 263 million in 1994 – indicating that only 16.7% of Americans had actually owned a weapon.
So their claim is that 44 million people own all of the guns. That is complete and total bullshit, and I can prove it. Let’s use concealed weapons permits as an estimate of the number of gun owners. Florida alone has approximately 2.6 million active concealed weapons permits. With 12% of all Florida residents having a concealed weapons permit, this would mean that three in four gun owners have a CWP. That would be a very high percentage, indeed.
How many people in Florida have weapons but no CWP? That is impossible to know, but what we do know is that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement conducts 1.5 million instant background checks for firearm purchases per year. The anti-gunners are claiming that all of these firearms are being sold to the same people over and over.
I just don’t see it. It is far more likely that, when called by some random “survey taker” that the person answering the phone either says, “Guns? We don’t have any guns here,” when asked, or they simply refuse to take the survey. I just don’t think that surveys are a reliable means of “research” on any topic like firearms. I might as well take a survey of high school boys, asking them about their number of sexual partners. I’m equally as likely to get an accurate count in either case.
Yep. Then again, though, it’s not as if the Enemedia “people” are really trying for accuracy here, either. The point, the REAL point that we’re all not supposed to know about or notice, is to propagandize; to demoralize Our Side and enhearten their own; and to mislead and obfuscate generally. That, after all, is what propaganda is for, its raison d’être. There IS a factual bottom line here, which DM helpfully spells out for us.
If even one percent of the gun owning public decides to respond in kind to being called an enemy of the people, there will be somewhere around 1.8 million people who are armed, pissed off, and know how to shoot. Many of them spend their weekends hitting small targets at thousands of yards, because they think it’s fun. They will not be lined up in neat ranks out in a field somewhere, just waiting for you to nuke or drone strike them.
The US police cannot even begin to control the gang problem in our inner cities, and the membership of those gangs is only around 800,000 or so and the gang members aren’t actively hunting cops, no matter what the cops try to claim. This is a fight that cannot be won, but they don’t care because liberals are not the ones who will be getting killed. Or so they think. That is dangerous thinking indeed. The people of each side who are the least stable will be the ones who decide when the violence begins and how far it goes.
Pretty much, yep, and t’was ever thus. This all reminds me of a couple of things right off the bat: Number one, the wise old Heinlein quote from SGT Zim in Starship Troopers (Chapter 5) that posits “There are no dangerous weapons; there are only dangerous men.” Number two: “Can you count, suckahs? The future is OURS, if YOU can count!”
I can dig it, Cyrus.
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Look up the number of hunting licenses in a given state, as a percentage of the population.
16.7% gun owners on average is, as we all know, flatly recockulous.
It’s probably between 50 and 90% of the country, depending on the state.
What is most important to me, is the number of gun owners on “my side”. I can guarantee you that the number on my side is far higher than 16.7%, and probably is greater than 50%. And since greater than half the males above age 20 are on my side, I like our chances should the final solution to marxism need be employed.
Hit targets at “thousands of yards”? Where are they practicing? I was looking for a long-distance shooting range some years ago and came up dry.
There are a few, but the only one “thousands of yards” I know of is a friends in Virginia. He has an exact mile long range. Ne bought the property just for that reason. I shot with him once a few years ago, but only the 1000 foot length. I think I hit the target one out of 5 shots at that distance.