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“Even as the 2nd Amendment contributes to rising crime in nearby countries, it also validates the concept of governing with guns, both at home and abroad. The U.S. government has, in one decade — between 2006 and 2016 — spent more than $6 billion on small arms alone. That figure reflects a wider trigger-happy reality in which about 250,000 bullets were fired by U.S. troops in Iraq for every rebel killed.” – Iain Overton in Our global guns problem [at latimes.com]

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50 COMMENTS

    • Once again a statistic is misapplied to prove a point. I am sure this 250K number came from the total rounds shipped divided by assume or known enemy dead. Where the 250K rounds all fired in combat? How many rounds were used in training? How many rounds were destroyed in combat or rendered unusable due to wear. In 2005, FOB Marez ASP had thousands of rounds of available for training/zero confirmation due to wear. In Vietnam, the moist wear rendered rounds unusable quickly.

      • I am rather shocked to hear that the U.S. government ONLY spent $6 billion on small arms during a 10 year period. That is $600 million a year. That is NOTHING! Remember that the U.S. military’s annual budget has been in the $600 BILLION ballpark.

        That means that the military spent about 1/10 of 1% (or 1/1000) of it’s budget on small arms.

        But the article didn’t specify the military. It said the U.S. government. Thus, the figure is even smaller than 1/1000, because it also included all federal law enforcement agency expenditures as well. FBI, DEA, Homeland Security, Secret Service, ATF, etc. plus the military ONLY spent $600 million a year on small arms, and this included 2 wars, and arming the Iraqi and Afghan military and police.

        Wow! Apparently the Federal government has spent almost nothing on small arms.

    • Welcome to the wonderful world of modern industrialized warfare. Anybody got stats on what this round count was for WWII?

      • Hard to get accurate stats on the round counts from WWI and WWII – everyone was too busy not dying.

        • I know for a fact that most rounds fired are for suppression, so shooting at someone else so he doesn’t shoot at you. If I remember correctly, the major killers in wars aren’t firearms, but artillery. Then again, I was artillery in the US army, so they may have said that to make us feel better. One rule still counts, though- Big sky, little bullet. And people are crafty and move quickly. So that count seems accurate.

        • So fast math says 4107/5250 lbs of ammo per death (115g/147g). Are we simply crushing them with bullets?

  2. So PRIVATE gun ownership is to blame for govt weapons exports. Copy that. Not really. This guy would blame private bug spray ownership on the Latin American zika outbreak if he could.

    Iain Overton… he British? That would explain EVERYTHING.

    • Yep. Cambridge educated. Wikipedia: “He is also Director of Policy and Investigations for the London-based Charity Action on Armed Violence.”

      He’s a zealot. Correcting the world’s ills, protecting the oppressed wherever they exist, which is everywhere (naturally) because I bet he never met anyone who wasn’t a victim of something.

      At least it explains his statement about old buddy Piers as being the central evidence of the depths and depravity of the 2nd Amendment.

      These British boys need to get a life and get over their butt hurt about no longer being Masters and Commanders since they were on the receiving end of a people clamoring for freedom.

      • Some, not all, Brits really cannot seem to let go of the fact that America kept its independence, twice (1776 & 1812.)

        It kind of reminds me of Apollo Creed in the Rocky movies; yeah, he became Rocky’s buddy, but he was always butt-hurt about losing the title belt, until the bitter end.

        Obscure reference, I know. But, that’s what I think of when the Brits piss and moan about America.

      • Yeah, he can go social justice war some place else. Like his home country. Preferably with the Islamist problem there.

      • This article contains so many lazy assumptions and unsupported claims that I expect even the author is not out to convince anyone. This is a thinly disguised ad to sell the author’s book to the progressive true believers who read the LA Times. “Iain Overton is the author of “The Way of the Gun: A Bloody Journey Into the World of Firearms.” I checked Amazon and this guy’s book is out next month and the synopsis sounds similar to the claptrap in the article.

        • Beat me to it this time. I use, “I award you no points.” as often as possible when dealing with stupid people/situations in my daily life. I have somebody recognize the reference.

  4. Government is the gun. Resistance to government is the gun.
    Before the gun it was the sword. Before the sword it was sticks and stones.
    Maybe he hasn’t noticed but with the exception of a few hippie communes (which inevitably stare down the barrel of governments gun) the totality of human existance is actively opressing or actively resisting opression. The specific tools in use are merely extras on the stage.

    I’m all in for a purely volunatristic live and let live existance. Unfortunately I am of the minority opinion and therefore fall in to the actively oppressed category.

    • Except that the hippie communes ended up falling apart because when everybody owns everything, only a few people among the many actually tried to take care of things, and be productive.

      So either one person rose to the top and tried to dictate to everyone else, to try to keep things running, which people didn’t like and left; or the few that tried to be productive got tired of so much work and left.

      This is why ALL utopian colonies have collapsed. Even the communes in Isreal finally closed their doors, or switched over to individual ownership of property, homes and businesses.

      This is why all countries based on communism have collapsed, while communism light, socialism/progressivism, because it is slower and leeches off the productive class more slowly, lasts a little longer, but all systems based on this ideology will ultimately collapse. What is our debt now, 50 trillion of unsecured liabilities?

      “Socialism is a great idea, until you run out of other people’s money”

      I know I’m getting tired of working 80 to a hundred hours a week to make ends meet. If it wasn’t for the amount of taxes I pay, I wouldn’t need to work a second job.

    • “Government is the gun.”

      Can’t be said enough, this is how it works, how it has worked all along, and will always work. This is a law of nature – like gravity. The nature of government is to implement controls upon society, I mean can anyone imagine a government that does not do such a thing? Were it to exist, then what exactly would it do?

      Government is when a collective group of people agree – or are forced to agree – to a set of rules and laws that govern that society. You see, it’s right there in the very definition of the word itself! And there is no way for a government to enforce these rules other than the use of force.

      If you don’t think the government is fundamentally guns, then try and stop paying your taxes. If you do this, and persist, then men with guns will find you and either put you in prison or shoot you. Per. I. Od. That’s how it works folks, and there is no need to, as Mr. Overton puts is ‘validates the concept of governing with guns’. There is no need for validation, it is, and that is that.

      This dude really isn’t making sense at all, I just don’t understand the point he is trying to make here. It’s like he just laid out a bunch of lefty sounding buzzwords and phrases in front of him and then arranged it into a set of paragraphs. Perhaps he was high.

      Obligatory;

      “The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man’s rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence. A proper government is only a policeman, acting as an agent of man’s self-defense, and, as such, may resort to force only against those who start the use of force. The only proper functions of a government are: the police, to protect you from criminals; the army, to protect you from foreign invaders; and the courts, to protect your property and contracts from breach or fraud by others, to settle disputes by rational rules, according to objective law. But a government that initiates the employment of force against men who had forced no one, the employment of armed compulsion against disarmed victims, is a nightmare infernal machine designed to annihilate morality: such a government reverses its only moral purpose and switches from the role of protector to the role of man’s deadliest enemy, from the role of policeman to the role of a criminal vested with the right to the wielding of violence against victims deprived of the right of self-defense. Such a government substitutes for morality the following rule of social conduct: you may do whatever you please to your neighbor, provided your gang is bigger than his.” — Rand, Galts Speech

      Rand wasn’t right about everything, but when she was right it was like a freaking laser beam.

      “Even as the 2nd Amendment contributes to rising crime in nearby countries,”

      Dude, WTAF? You can’t back this statement up with logic and facts. Besides that, it’s other countries you are talking about, they are perfectly able to handle their own affairs and it’s none of our freaking business. Who cares?

      I think the guy was high.

    • I’m huge a proponent for volunteerism, the doctrine of free will, and the policy of being anti-initiation of force. However, there this one glaring problem – people.

      It’s kind of like violence and gun control; until everyone is non-violent and lacks weapons, no one can be non-violent and lack weapons.

      It’s a great ideology, but, on the whole, people, can, will, and are guaranteed to f*ck it up.

  6. I lost count over how many murders I am responsible for because I own firearms, (according to the author).
    So many stats tossed in the salad by the author with no citations to back his claims.
    I need more coffee.

  7. Ah the old iron river of gun is the reason Mexico has crime issues. I guess when your ruled solely by your emotions, you can’t see beyond the thing closest to you that you hate most.

    As for governing by force, his only real issue is that the government can’t use force against people he disagrees with. It is possible he’s that naive that he thinks the movies represent real life where the totalitarian always falls, but in the real world, most stay in power and rule with the gun. Say like Iran which I’d be willing to bet the author has no issues regarding.

    • If you give a guy a hammer he does not necessarily become a carpenter, but if he is a carpenter he will definately going looking for an efficient hammer.

  9. Meh…. individual rights means this guy gets to say his piece. Doesn’t make him less of a tool, but he gets to say what we wants.

    Also, he is entitled to express his opinion but that doesn’t mean his opinion isn’t wrong.

  10. That round count makes sense. Consider that most Marine troops that deployed shoot 400 rounds yearly on qualifying week, complete a 2 to 6 week predeployment shooting package, and have very restrictive rules of engagement that make them fire mostly warning shots at vehicles and make the standard for shooting at a person very tough to pass.
    Add the fact that collateral damage limitations means most kills are done with guided munitions like HIMARS and Predator drones. Just ask anyone who has been in a firefight in Iraq or Afghanistan and they will probably tell you it was settled with air delivered munitions. Those numbers are true, but unless you want untrained troops that get killed easily or you lessen restrictions, they will not change

  11. Well the British have a looong history of slavery and subjugation by force. Also indentured servitude, child labor ethnic cleansing and other vile crimes against humanity. When they talk people’s rights it’s akin to the KKK promoting civil rights. I wish every time a “Brit” starts spouting their BS, somebody jumps on them with both feet and tells em’ to STFU.

    • Well, if you want to blame some people in the present for the sins of people that are no longer alive; then blame everyone for slavery, oppression, ethnic cleansing, wars of aggression etc. Because almost everyone practiced all of these evils through all of history. Even the American Indians and the blacks in Africa raided and traded in slaves long before they encountered the white man..

      It was actually England and western Europe that outlawed slavery first, then the US, while the rest of the world still continued the practice, some countries even today still have slavery.

      So no, I don’t accept guilt for something I didn’t personly do or participate in, nor do accept some type of collective guilt for something my country did in the past. That is just a tactic used by the progressives to push thier “social justice” agenda in giving power and money to the professional victim class.

      • So we are just as guilty as the British. I wonder who we learned it from??? Hmmm? My point is that the British have no room to look down on anyone else. Or wave the “bloody shirt” and point fingers about how we should behave.do or think Thru use of force AND GUNS we escaped from this future and forged our own RIGHT or WRONG. Enjoy your history and future you EARNED it. What’s the quote about chains resting lightly?

        • Hmm, James, my point is that we are NOT guilty. We, as a individuals, or we, as a country, are not guilty of something we had no direct part in.

          So I can write, as someone in England can write about the evils of slavery, because neither one us support slavery or have owned slaves, and not be hypocrites.

          But if you want to accept some collective guilt for something that people all around the world had practiced for all of history, go right ahead.

  12. “Even as the 2nd Amendment contributes to rising crime in nearby countries… ”

    Like Canada? Oh wait, I forgot Canada doesn’t count, because it doesn’t fit the narrative. He must’ve meant Mexico. Well, gosh, if our guns are really causing so much turmoil in Mexico, then I reckon we better get started on that wall – got to save the Mexicans from us, you know.

    “…it also validates the concept of governing with guns, both at home and abroad.”

    Fair enough. Name one, first, second, or third world, country on the planet, in which the gov’t does NOT have a monopoly of force over its people; (i.e., more armament and the sole power to initiate force, at will); and we can emulate them…

    Don’t worry – I’ll wait.

    • He must’ve meant Mexico.

      It wasn’t the second amendment that sent firearms into Mexico; rather, it was illegal, state-sponsored gun-running, through the ATF.

      • US.gov is the largest firearms distributor on the planet Earth, and as you would say, “full stop.”

        We stack ’em deep and sell ’em cheap… Or just give ’em away, whatever.

        • I’m sure our government is doing strenuous background checks all those rebel groups they sell/donate those arms to

  13. I am so sick the Progressives lies. They throw these lies out again and again no matter how many times we prove that they are lies. Frustrating! I do take comfort, however, that their lies will lead to their eventual demise. In Lincoln’s immortal words: “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.”

  15. ‘Even as the 2nd Amendment contributes to rising crime in nearby countries, it also validates the concept of governing with guns, both at home and abroad.’

    This is almost as dumb as the guy who thought our gun rights depended on Roe v Wade. First, it’s our drug use that contributes to crime in nearby countries, not the 2nd Amendment. Second, every government on earth has governed with guns since they were invented. Does he think that the government of North Korea doesn’t have guns because the people don’t?

    • I may be nit picking here but it’s is the prohibition of drugs not their use that is contributing to the violence

      • Well it takes both the prohibition and the appetite for the product to create a black market. If the government banned gonorrhea there wouldn’t be turf wars on our border between rival cartels trying to bring it in to the country. On the other hand, I’ve never heard of a tequila gang turf war either, although that might have been a thing back in the 1920s.

  16. Please allow me to correct the title of this article to read ” Blame the Second Amendment for America’s Troops Winning Our Wars”. Our enemies in both world wars feared the American soldiers ability to shoot and shoot very well. Most were country boys who grew up hunting and shooting, and just about every city kid would grab their .22 and bike out to the city dump and shoot rats etc.

    Yes, my best friend, now deceased, used these skills in ‘Nam as a sniper with great results….only to die as a result of agent orange cancers years later. The stories he reluctantly shared with me spoke volumes of his skills, honed on the farm years ago, that saved his life through many fights.

  17. Now back to gun talk- any thoughts on what kind of rifle they were modeling when they drew that illustration.

    I see AK, mini -14, and my winchester in the stock.

  18. I taught consitutional law in a university for 5 yearss and had exactly one student who thought the second amendment contributed to crime and unneccessary deaths. I also spent 6 years as a prosecutor and before that worked as a local cop, millitary cop, state park ranger and federal agent. This is the first idiot I have read that really thinks the mere presence of guns creates crime…..Actually, its the presence of cash that creates crime….if they had no cash, no one would rob banks, or liquor stores or convenicne stores..think about it, same logic..

  19. I wish that leftards like Miss Overton would get their stories straight. Last week, it was global warming that was causing all the wars. Now it’s the Second Amendment. What’s it gonna be next week — the high cost of college tuition? Income inequality? Explosive flatulence? The Brexit? Premature toilet training?

  21. Ho, boy, this was just too ridiculous:

    “The lifting of the Federal Assault Weapons Ban in the U.S. in 2004 resulted in more than 2,600 estimated additional homicides in Mexico.”

    It’s SCREAMING correlation, but the author still decided to scream “Causation!”

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