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From The Washington Post:
The survey's findings support other research showing that as overall rates of gun ownership has declined, the number of firearms in circulation has skyrocketed. The implication is that there are more guns in fewer hands than ever before. The top 3 percent of American adults own, on average, 17 guns apiece, according to the survey's estimates.
Interesting. Lawyers, guns, and money! Which of these has the smallest percentage and largest absolute amount? Of course, the other major shift the survey reveals is in the rationale for owning firearms: currently, a majority of owners cite personal protection as their motivation, prior to the 1990's the majority owned guns for sport.
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Three Percent own Half of America’s Guns
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It's raisins that make Post Raisin Bran so raisiny ...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Tuesday September 20 2016, @02:50PM
If we were to talk about computers (excluding mobile phones, smart TVs and other embedded widgets), it might be the same. I just cleaned out my closets last week - I'm sure many of you will understand that it is *hard* to throw away perfectly good (but old) hardware. Before I threw four away, we had 16 computers in the house. Now it's down to 12, and I'm probably forgetting one or two.
You have the nerds in any field. We collect stuff, even stuff we don't need. This is true of computers, it's true of cooking gadgets, and - no surprise - it's true of guns.
People like to collect stuff, news at 11:00.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 4, Funny) by MrGuy on Tuesday September 20 2016, @03:34PM
For example, 2% of my extended family owns 90% of the family's guitars.
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday September 20 2016, @08:02PM
%1 of my family owns %100 percent of my family's telescopes. (it's me)
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2, Funny) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday September 20 2016, @08:03PM
Please do not ask why I put the % in front of the numbers.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 21 2016, @12:52PM
OK, then let me ask you instead: Why did you put both a percent sign and the word "percent" to the number 100? Did you mean a hundred percent of a percent, or what? ;-)
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Wednesday September 21 2016, @07:50PM
Ok, that is a totally valid question.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday September 21 2016, @12:40AM
%1 of my family owns %100 percent of my family's telescopes
I'm pretty sure I read on the Internet that Obama's coming for the telescopes too.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Bogsnoticus on Wednesday September 21 2016, @03:44AM
Thats the advantage of telescope ownership over gun ownership. You can see them coming a mile away.
Genius by birth. Evil by choice.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday September 21 2016, @04:09AM
Ran out of mods points, +1 funny.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 21 2016, @01:00PM
If you outlaw telescopes only perverts will have telescopes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 21 2016, @06:38PM
Y'all must have HUGE families then....
In my family of four (including 2 cats,) 25% of my family owns 100% of the guns, 100% of the guitars, and 100% of the telescopes.
Which is why I get 0% of the sex.
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Wednesday September 21 2016, @07:51PM
Trust me, having more telescopes will not get you more sex.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 5, Insightful) by VLM on Tuesday September 20 2016, @03:47PM
Why its interesting is if you assume computers cause autism, then having the government take away the right to own computers for a mere 3% of the population would magically cure half the autism.
Unfortunately that's how low functioning people think about guns. Why, that piece of steel in a certain shape magically all by itself with no one else to blame shoot someone. Therefore the problem is the piece of steel, and if you believe in magical thinking we could eliminate half of all violent crime at a cost of merely taking away the rights of 3% of the population.
The reality of course is 17 guns takes a stack of cash and people who can obtain stacks of cash legally are exactly the same population least likely to commit crimes or unsafely store or unsafely operate their weapons. Also aside from mere ownership, a dude with 17 guns probably participates in nearly 17 gun sports, all of which are fairly expensive. So you got the deer rifle (or two) and the competitive 22 target pistol (or two) and the competitive 45 target pistol (or two) and the duck shotgun (or two) maybe a dedicated skeet target shotgun (or two) it can be an very expensive year around hobby and the very expensive part means the odds of casual criminality in that set are are incredibly low. So some kind of confiscation scheme would if anything increase crime rates what with the victims all known to be disarmed.
Another thing that happens a lot is this is "my son's 22" but its not like I'd let him keep it in an unlocked box under his bed or something, so the house has one gun safe regardless of who officially or unofficially owns what. So that's how a guy with a wife and two kids ends up owning four 22s that are gunsmith adjusted to perfectly fit four closely related people.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @04:21PM
Guns for the rich !!
Because they don't already have enough of an advantage over poor people.
(Score: 2, Touché) by slap on Tuesday September 20 2016, @05:51PM
I can see it now. We have "Obama Phones" for the poor. Why not "Obama Guns", too?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by edIII on Tuesday September 20 2016, @10:19PM
Almost here. The fears about 3D maker guns are real. I'm not too worried about the state trying to take away my guns when technology is making it possible for me to construct my own weapons. Good luck trying to remove those when it will be more like demolishing an entire wall setup to recreate that scene from Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark :)
In the future getting rid of guns will simply be impossible unless we also highly, highly, restrict all technology that makes it easy to produce complex parts at home. I doubt that will happen, and only one person needs to construct a gun "factory" to arm hundreds of people. 1000 poor people come together, and weapons are no longer impossible to make.
Trump actually gets that, which is why he wants to destroy due process and freedom of expression. He wishes to make it illegal to possess or distribute knowledge of how to make things. We let him get his way, and chemistry itself is going to become a national security protected field where you will require a top secret clearance of some type before you can gain access to what used to be high school chemistry knowledge.
Possessing the Anarchist's Cookbook will be a crime in this new Fahrenheit 451 future :)
Guns? Frozen Grapefruit Launcher. I could take out entire squad cars of police officers with $30 bucks of fruit from Costco, a couple of muffler pipes, and some time with a few welding tools. The trick... you accelerate any matter fast enough and it can destroy pretty much any other piece of matter. Generally speaking ;)
It's all stupid anyways. Violence will start to disappear proportional to the increase in our collective prosperity. "Obama guns" should only worry you because that group of people are the most disenfranchised, disillusioned, and desperate people in America. Don't ban guns; Pay Living Wages.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Wednesday September 21 2016, @01:00AM
Possessing the Anarchist's Cookbook will be a crime in this new Fahrenheit 451 future :)
Something called Inspire Magazine will also be forbidden, if California's Democratic senator has her way. The Anarchist's Cookbook is doubleplus crimethink, she's been saying since at least 1996.
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Take-Anarchist-s-Cookbook-off-Internet-6175898.php [sfgate.com]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/02/dianne-feinstein-says-the-anarchists-cookbook-should-be-removed-from-the-internet/ [washingtonpost.com]
(Score: 2) by edIII on Wednesday September 21 2016, @07:00AM
Thanks for that. I'll send her a signed copy along with my thoughts on encryption, security, and the absolute inviolable rights to privacy.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday September 20 2016, @04:26PM
Yup. There was a time when you could have found twenty or more firearms in my home. And, if you count blackpowder muzzle loaders as firearms (which the government does not) the number was probably over 30 at times. (The extended family was/is pretty large.)
One kid lost interest in hunting and firearms, another kid became a felon, the other kids have all moved out on their own, and took their weapons with them. Mom and Dad's house isn't the focus of their activities anymore, there's no reason to stash their stuff here.
I'm not a hard core gun enthusiast, so I don't actually have much of an armory today. There is always ammunition sitting around, to fit one thing or another, but the firearms? One rifle, and one shotgun most of the time.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Tuesday September 20 2016, @05:12PM
The reality of course is 17 guns takes a stack of cash and people who can obtain stacks of cash legally are exactly the same population least likely to commit crimes or unsafely store or unsafely operate their weapons.
Actually, starting out today to BUY 17 guns is expensive. (Reference the story about Smokers in England for PRICE INCREASE mechanism by which this is being accomplished).
Most people with several guns obtained them over a lifetime by spending nothing at all, or a small bit here and a bit there with an occasional splurge for an expensive gun. Lowest price I've paid: Zero for a particularly collectible piece.
I still have the shotgun I bought in my teens by saving my meager allowance. In fact I don't remember ever selling or getting rid of any gun I ever acquired.
Normal people accumulate guns over a life time of small investments at opportune times. Collectors might spend the big bucks. But Joe Buckskin has an inexpensive rifle for deer, a shotgun for birds, and maybe a handgun for plinking or a camp gun. I'm betting at least one of them was a hand-me-down from his dad.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 21 2016, @06:37AM
In fact I don't remember ever selling or getting rid of any gun I ever acquired.
I remember one. It was a "Saturday Night Special", some cheap knock off .38 special. It was mine because my father passed away, life-long smoker, enough said. But I heard from a non-blood relative (trustworthy, or not), that my father contemplated suicide with this exact firearm. So I took it out to the shop, laid it upon the anvil, and beat upon it with a four pound hammer until it's barrel could not pass a sheet of paper, let alone a .38 slug. Then I proceed to do the same to the cylinder, the frame, the handle. Threw what remained into the trash. I assume it was recycled. But I suggest to you that there may be situations, however rare and beyond your comprehension, where you do want to get rid of a gun. Even a gun that has never been used in a crime.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 21 2016, @05:04PM
Depending on where you live, you may have committed a crime.
Even completely crushed and useless, a pistol frame is still a "firearm" according to the BATFE rules. Some states and cities make it illegal to dispose of a "firearm" by any method other than turning it in to the police.
(Score: 2) by Kromagv0 on Wednesday September 21 2016, @12:28PM
Sounds like you have described me except I didn't get any hand me downs from my dad as he never hunted. Started with an SKS as a starter deer rifle (very comparable in power to a .30-30 so an effective deer rifle) that I bought from a buddy who is a cop. Then a couple of years later bought a shotgun new at the year end sale at Dick's for $225 and it came with a bird barrel, 4 chokes, a slug barrel, and a 4x scope so it was a good deal. A few years later I wanted a rifle with more accuracy and a bit more punch and happened upon a really good shooting Finnish M39. Go forward a few more years and the large predators in the woods where I own property and hunt have started to take over so I decided to get a magnum class revolver capable of putting down a bear. So over the course of 14 years I went from 0 guns to 4 all with a purpose and I won't get rid of that SKS as it is just fun and cheap to shoot. The next gun I purchase will likely be for one of my kids when they are old enough and if they want to go bird hunting as the SKS still works just fine as a starter deer rifle.
T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday September 20 2016, @05:36PM
Why its interesting is if you assume computers cause autism...
Except, they don't. Guns, on the other hand, do cause gunshot wounds.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @05:51PM
Computers merely attract the autistic, like insects to a bug zapper :^)
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @06:08PM
Omigosh, I have a dozen guns in my home, any one of which could cause a gunshot wound at ANY MOMENT!
Save me, mummyguv!!!
(Score: 2, Funny) by aristarchus on Wednesday September 21 2016, @06:48AM
Hey! Is this you? (proud graduate of the James Yeager Firearms for Idiot Mercenaries School): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTGmTrQXrwg [youtube.com] "I just fucking shot myself!"
(Score: 4, Insightful) by mhajicek on Tuesday September 20 2016, @08:18PM
Guns cause gunshot wounds exactly the same way that computers cause malware. They don't. People use the tool to do the thing, or another thing, or yet another thing.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @06:57PM
Why its interesting is if you assume computers cause autism, then having the government take away the right to own computers for a mere 3% of the population would magically cure half the autism.
Unfortunately that's how low functioning people think about guns. Why, that piece of steel in a certain shape magically all by itself with no one else to blame shoot someone. Therefore the problem is the piece of steel, and if you believe in magical thinking we could eliminate half of all violent crime at a cost of merely taking away the rights of 3% of the population.
You are begging the question too, in the exact opposite way.
If owning computers caused autism, then removing computers *would* reduce autism. That's kind of the definition of a causal link. Likewise, if owning guns causes an increase in violent crimes, then reducing guns would reduce the crime rate.
If you have evidence (not annecdotes, like the pro-gun-control group uses all the time as well) then you should present it. Otherwise you are engaging in the very same logical fallacy that you are accusing others of.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 21 2016, @12:35AM
So that's how a guy with a wife and two kids ends up owning four 22s that are gunsmith adjusted to perfectly fit four closely related people.
You might be a redneck if you're closely related to your wife.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @04:20PM
> If we were to talk about computers
Because just like computers, guns get 2x as functional every 18 months. That sig-sauer I picked up at Best Buy last week is like an apache gunship compared to the 20 year old sig-sauer collecting dust on the shelf in my basement. But I just can't get motivated enough to throw it away even though its totally useless.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @05:11PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @07:04PM
By that logic 2% of car owners own 80% of cars.
The details matter.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @04:43PM
It is interesting because of suicide.
We shouldn't be talking about the 3% who own 8+ firearms.
It is all the other owners who aren't gun fetishists that are interesting.
From TFA:
But Azrael’s immediate reaction to the survey results, she said, was not to focus on the gun owners with dozens of weapons, but on the nearly 50% of gun owners who had just one or two. “To change their behavior with respect to guns, and the ways in which they store them, or their decision-making – we could have a really big impact on suicide,” she said.
Roughly 20,000 of America’s more than 30,000 annual gun deaths are suicides.
“I don’t know anybody who thinks or talks seriously about confiscating guns,” she said. “From a public health perspective – you don’t seize cigarettes.” But, she said, “you do try to make good science available. You do try to help people think about the risks and benefits of the behavior they choose to undertake.”
Gun ownership alone increases the risk of dying by suicide by 300%. [foxnews.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 21 2016, @10:08AM
It also turned out that people who drink water are significantly more often found to be thirsty than people who don't drink water. So in order to fight thirst, I suggest banning water.
Or in short: Correlation != Causation
If you plan to commit suicide, you're going to get a means of committing suicide. A gun is a reliable means of committing suicide. Therefore if you plan to commit suicide and guns are easy to come by, the probability is high that you'll acquire a gun. This implies that at the time you commit suicide you are likely to be a gun owner (the other alternative is you got access to a gun you don't own).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 21 2016, @11:17AM
Sort of, but suicide is very rarely carefully planned in advance. It is commonly a spur-of-the-moment, emotional, "I can't take it any more" thing.
If such a suicidal person has an easy means of suicide at hand, such as a gun, they're likely to use it then and there. If it takes time and effort to commit suicide (eg. walking to a bridge), then they get time to alter their emotional state, and can have a more considered mental state at the moment of truth.
Time heals all wounds, but a gun takes no time at all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 21 2016, @12:58PM
I don't think sleeping pills take more time to use than a gun. And I guess most suicidal people, including those who use a gun to commit it, already have sleeping pills, since whatever drives them into suicide probably has caused them sleepless nights for a while.