Excerpts from Bloomberg News, Ken Wells…. This is a fascinating article.
“A gun is like a fire extinguisher… It isn’t there because you want to have a fire or expect to have a fire.”
Gun advocacy is on the increase. Besides Students for Concealed Carry, there are the Pink Pistols, Mothers Arms, Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, the Second Amendment Sisters, the Women’s Firearm Network and the International Defensive Pistol Association, among others. Their influence may be outsized in gaining converts as they set up Facebook pages, churn out blogs and post recruiting videos on YouTube.
…The surge has been propelled by shifting politics and demographics that have made it easier and more acceptable than at any time in 75 years for Americans to buy and carry pistols. Post-9/11 fears also seem to be a factor, as has been the relentless pro-gun politicking of the National Rifle Association and marketing, particularly to women, by handgun manufacturers.
Twenty years ago, 76 percent of women [said they would never own a handgun], and 68 percent of all people in the country were wary enough of firearms of any kind to tell Gallup pollsters that they backed laws more strictly limiting their sale. Then what Gallup calls “a clear societal change” began.
In October, a Gallup poll found record-low support for a handgun ban -- at 26 percent among all, and 31 percent among women. The poll, which has tracked gun attitudes since 1959, documented a record-low 43 percent who favor making it more difficult to acquire guns and record-high numbers of women and Democrats saying there is a firearm at home. Forty-seven percent said someone in the household owns at least one gun, the highest reading in 18 years.
The growing acceptance of guns echoes a transformation in the politics of weapons. In 1987, Florida joined a handful of states that by law or tradition allowed people to carry hidden guns; now Illinois is the sole conceal-carry holdout, and the U.S. House of Representatives on Nov. 16 sent to the Senate a bill advocated by the NRA that would require those that issue concealed gun permits to recognize licenses from other states… The conceal-carry movement has gained momentum, in part because the dire predictions of anti-gun groups in the early years of the fight -- that carriers of hidden guns would deploy them to settle disputes over road rage and the like -- haven’t materialized.
[Ed. note: Obama won't come for the guns - he'll come for the bullets]
My other blogs:
Research finding a drop in violent crime rates from Right-to-carry laws....
ReplyDeletehttp://johnrlott.tripod.com/postsbyday/RTCResearch.html