I grew up in a house with guns. In fact, we had the only firing range allowed in Omaha in our basement. When my dad finished his tour of duty in Korea as a Marine, he came back a sniper. A very good sniper. He won Marksmanship awards. Back at that time, the Omaha police department didn’t really have any gun training facilities, so my dad was allowed to train them in our basement. Got pretty loud, some days.
Needless to say, we were all taught gun safety. I remember firing his .45 as a child. Wow, what a kick. To be honest, I never fired another weapon until I met Bob and we acquired our own guns.
Dad’s rifles and hand guns were kept in their bedroom closet, with no gun safe. And, as far as I know, none of us kids had any inclination to touch one without his approval. We didn’t want the wrath of dad on us. No way.
So, of course, I believe in our right to bear arms. Our forefathers knew if are rights weren’t protected, we could be taken over by either our own government or another country.
However, in our current society, the Democrat’s (blue) are claiming that the increase in gun violence is due to all the lax gun laws in our Republican (red) states. Their data shows that the most gun violence is in Red States. So, they keep clambering for more gun control and, in reality, they want to totally disarm our nation. There data isn’t wrong. However, they aren’t looking at the whole picture. Of course. Can’t go against their own narrative.
The biggest piece of the puzzle they’re missing is gun violence by CITY, not state. Well, that opens up a whole new can of worms. One the Democrat’s don’t want to acknowledge, let alone admit.
So, let’s take a look at the top cities in 2021 with the highest homicide rates and their political leanings, whether Red or Blue. They are listed from the most murders to the least. Click on the above links to see the exact numbers.
Memphis, TN – Blue city in Red state
Detroit, MI – Very Blue city and Blue state
Milwaukee, WI – Blue city in Red state
Atlanta, GA – Blue city in Red state
Kansas City, MO – Blue city in Red state
Louisville, KY – Blue city in Red state
Indianapolis, IN – Blue city in Red state
Las Vegas, NV – Very Blue city & Blue state
Columbus, OH – Blue city in Red state
Minneapolis, MN – Blue city & Blue state
Albuquerque, NM – Blue city & Blue state
Houston, TX – Blue city in Red state
Dallas, TX – Blue city in Red state
Nashville, TN – Blue city in Red state
Tulsa, OK – Red city in Red state
Denver, CO – Blue city in Blue state
Portland, OR – Blue city in Blue state
Ft Worth, TX – Red city in Red state, but right next to Dallas which is BLUE.
Oklahoma City, OK – Red city and Red state
San Antonio, TX – Blue city in Red state
Charlotte, NC – Blue city in slightly Blue state
Austin, TX – Blue city in Red state
Colorado Springs, CO – Red city in Blue state
Wichita, KS – Red city in Red state
Seattle, WA – Blue city in Blue state
Boston, MA – Blue city in Blue state
Raleigh, NC – Blue city in slightly Blue state
Mesa, AZ – Red city in Blue state
Arlington, TX -Slightly Red city in Red state. Again, not far from a very BLUE Dallas
San Diego, CA – Blue city in Blue state
El Paso, TX – Blue city in Red state
Let’s do the math. Out of the top 20 states, 10 of them lean RED. IF you only look at those numbers, it looks bad for us lawless gun owners in RED states. But hold your horses there, young man. What’s causing those RED states to have such high homicide rates? Well, golly geez, look at all them BLUE cities in those RED states. Out of the 31 cities, 24 are run by Democrat’s. The same liberals that have the strictest gun control laws on the books. That makes no sense, right?
Hmm, I wonder if there’s a correlation? Of course there is.
When I was having this exact same discussion with one of my liberal leaning family members and showed her the TRUE stats, she brushed it off and said, – Well, that’s because those are the biggest cities.
She totally missed the whole point, or choose to ignore it.
If those cities didn’t have such strict gun laws, and were being run by a Republican, I believe the gun violence wouldn’t be the same. You can see in Chicago, once a Democratic mayor was elected, their gun violence went through the roof.
And, No, I’m not trying to pass the buck onto the Democrat’s. Well, maybe a little, since it’s their laws that are causing all the deaths and mayhem. Still, what we also need is more help for our mentally ill populace. Instead, they get neglected and ignored until they do something that puts them in the spotlight. Mass Shootings.
I am in no way a mathematician and all my figures and statistics were gleamed off the internet. But I hope I’ve presented them in a better light than what the left-leaning media and Democrat’s have done. They have perverted the truth for their own agenda. The real question is, WHY?
Gee, I thought I was signing up for BOOK-related posts. I get ENOUGH political $h!t from every other source under the sun.
I didn’t mind the musings on sunflowers, etc., but politics is a bridge too far.
And NO, I won’t state my views on the subject other than what I have just written, so draw your own conclusions.
Considering 98% of all my posts are about books, I don’t think I need to apologize for this one. Life isn’t rainbows and sunflowers, sadly. Who knows, my next one may be about birds, or flowers, or maybe our impending civil war, or illegals ruining our country. It will be whatever dwells on my mind at the time.
Suffice it to say that I disagree wholeheartedly with your views. Why would ANYONE need the right to carry a gun.
Because it is written in our Constitution. Our forefathers came to America to get away from the over reach of their own governments. They understood the need for citizens to defend themselves from enemies foreign or domestic. If you have no way to protect yourself, you are setting yourself up to be taken advantage of by criminals. Which is what is happening right now. Every person should have the right to defend themselves.
The US Constitution was written over 200years ago. Situations change. If it was right and sensible in that time doesn’t mean it’s right and sensible now.
How many children have to die before the US citizens say enough is enough?
It took just 1 school shooting in the UK for our gun controls to be tightened even more. We’ve never had the right for an independent citizen to bear arms. Our police aren’t armed, either.
There is an argument to say that the more people are carrying guns, the more it will escalate. I have no fear of being attacked. The only person I know who has a gun is my farmer nephew.
I’ve read of children shooting siblings because they found their parents’ gun, in the US. Doesn’t happen here.
Yes, there will always be criminals, and if people feel they are likely to be attacked by someone with a gun, they will want one to ‘defend’ themselves. But if someone shoots you, it’s a bit late to have a gun.
This escalates. Here in the UK we have a problem with knives. (Not as big as your problem with gun crime, though.) Young people in some areas are carrying knives because they feel threatened by others carrying knives. Young people who would not normally carry a weapon. So other young people start carrying them.
It has also been shown that these youngsters who are only carrying them for ‘protection’ are likely to use them, even if they have no intention to do so.
Are there so many criminals in the US that one needs to be afraid all the time?
I respect you as a writer and a publisher, and I love your books, but I cannot agree with you on this.
It doesn’t matter if your blue or red… There are situations when it’s necessary to have a weapon. I’ve lived all over the United States, including the largest metro areas and towns of less than 2k. I’ve experienced wildlife walking down the streets or chilling in one’s yard – from large (agressive) snakes and crocodiles to cougars and bears.
What it comes down to is educating people and making sure support is there. We don’t have the education we used to. We don’t teach life skills anymore – but even like when I was a kid in school. We’re starting to give better care for mental health, but there’s still a huge stigma.
We have a lot of big things to fix that are larger than A or B questions. Until we can responsibly conquer these issues, the rest is just static blurring the way.
Wildlife is one component that people who live in the cities don’t understand. And others who don’t live in the USA have no clue how vast our country really is. Living on our small farm, we had to deal with raccoons, coyotes and even rutting dear. You hear of hikers getting mauled and killed by bears or alligators every year. Guns are a necessity.
Exactly. And a semiautomatic weapon is best if you don’t take a large animal down the first hit because then you’ve just pissed it off LOL. Or what about a PACK a wolves or coyotes? 2 bullets aren’t going to do the trick.
Whether it’s an aggressive water moccasin, rutting deer, wild boar, attacking bear, or charging rhino, you’ll be grateful for the weapon and quick fire bullets!
There’s ALWAYS a BIGGER story than just A or B. However, LAW is black and white, which is why we have to be mindful. What you decide for a highly populated URBAN area will NOT work for someone in a rural terrain or wilderness. Laws have to support EVERYONE and not point only ONE view.
I still disagree with you both. The US is the only country in the world where you have a right to carry and own a gun, but it is not the only country in the world that has large and dangerous animals.
This year alone there have been 110 mass shootings in the US, 67 of which had fatalities. In 13 days!
I tried to find statistics for the world, but it’s difficult because so bad is it in the US that it was only there that stats for this year appeared. Others dated back to the 19th century. In Africa, where you can’t argue that they don’t have large and dangerous animals, mass shootings are rare. Only a handful in the last 100 years. Same for Canada. Canada is similar to the US with the wildlife, yet they have gun control and few mass shootings.
People want to compare the USA against all other countries but that just doesn’t work. Our dynamics are so different from everyone else. We have a larger land mass and more diversity of people. People who live in other countries, like the UK or just Europe in general have no idea how vast our country really is. Just to drive from the south of Nebraska to the northern section, the state I live in, takes 8 hours. Most of the drive is in the country. And that’s just one state out of 48.
I’ve gone camping most of my life, and I would never go without some type of weapon. Obviously, you’ve never been confronted by wild animals before. I have. And living on a small farm, we had to defend our livestock against predator’s with guns.
It’s so easy to judge when you’ve never experienced it.