I've enjoyed reading the local edition of the Atlanta
All of the city's mindless boosters and pro-sports fans that declared Vick the end-all do-all handy-dandy panacea solution of the woes of the only team besides the Braves that spent zillions of dollars on salary for grown men to play boys games are continuing to bitch and complain and choke on their predictions of greatness and a football dynasty developing down at the Georgia Dome.
Another AJC article that caught my eye was this one about gun ownership here in the US compared to the rest of the world (click):
United States the world leader in gun ownership
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published on: 08/29/07
There are nine guns for every 10 people in the United States, with about 270 million firearms in circulation, according to a report released Tuesday.
People well-armed: Worldwide, civilians now have access to 650 million small arms — from handguns to semiautomatic rifles — an arsenal that far outstrips what is held by police and militaries, according to the annual Small Arms Survey. It estimates that civilians account for about three-fourths of the 875 million such weapons in circulation.
U.S. the leader: The United States has the heaviest concentration of firearms. Of the 8 million new firearms manufactured annually around the world, roughly 4.5 million are bought in the United States.
Other countries with high per capita ownership include Yemen, with 61 small arms per 100 people; Finland with 56; Switzerland with 46; and Iraq with 39.
Much lower on the scale are Brazil, with nine guns per 100 people, England and Wales with six, India with four, China with three and Nigeria with one.
Of course the Associated press breathlessly reports these statistics like they are a bad thing in the headline, but then goes on to say that the level of gun ownership might not actually be the cause of crime when the true details are analysed.
I Agree totally, and having had the barrel of a crappy medium caliber revolver broken off its frame on the back of my hard head nearly thirty years ago in a robbery, I subscribe to the idea that anything can be a deadly weapon in the hands of someone that wants to hurt or kill you.
You can be killed with a salt shaker poked into your eye or other bodily orifice, and you can succumb to a pool cue or bar stool driven across your shoulder blades.
So why don't we ban salt shakers, pool cues, and bar stools along with guns?
After all, I bet the number of bar stools in Europe approaches that of the US on a per capita basis.
You can also drown in a Cool Whip bowl full of water if someone holds your face in it long enough--let's outlaw Cool Whip and water while we're at it..
All I can say is that the anti-gun weenies need to just shut the hell up and go home and eat some Tofu and recharge their stun guns and cans of mace and watch another evening of PBS TV programming.
By the way, I'm afraid that I'm guilty of skewing the statistics upward in a significant way, because if you come down to one of the places which I occasionally occupy here in the SOUTHERN UNITED STATES, you will find the gun to owner ratio to be more like SIX guns per person...
...and that "one person" would be ME.
Now put that in your pipe and smoke it.
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