“There has never been a school shooting in a school that allows teachers to carry,” said Massie. “More guns lead to more deaths,” countered Bowman, “more guns lead to more deaths!”
It’s understandable that tempers flare and voices rise in the aftermath of such horrific events. When faced with such situations, the urge to do something—to do anything—is nearly impossible to resist.
But is Rep. Bowman right that “more guns lead to more deaths?”
The short answer is no. That’s great news, especially since reducing the number of guns in circulation presents not just immense pragmatic challenges but almost certainly insuperable constitutional barriers.
Over the past few decades, the number of guns in America has increased massively, so much so that there are now more guns than people in the United States. Yet federal crime statistics show that firearm homicides dropped about 40 percent between 1993 and 2018, from 7 per 100,000 people to 4.3 per 100,000 people (for nonfatal crimes involving guns, the decline was 71 percent). Violent crime, including homicides, did spike during the pandemic, and while the most recent data is incomplete, it’s clear that gun-related violence remains far below where it was 30 years ago despite more guns than ever being out there.
When it comes to schools, the 2020–21 academic year, the latest for which full data is available, did see the highest number of school shootings with casualties this century. There are thankfully too few violent deaths to generate statistically significant conclusions, but the long-term trends show no increase in homicides or suicides among students, staff, and teachers.
Overall, schools are becoming safer and safer, with the government finding that between 2009 and 2020, “the rate of nonfatal criminal victimization (including theft and violent victimization) decreased for students ages 12–18, from 51 to 11 victimizations per 1,000 students.”
What about Rep. Massie’s contention that there has never been a school shooting in a school that allows teachers to carry? He appears to be correct, though contrary to his claim that there’s never been an accidental weapons discharge by a teacher, a January 2023 RAND Corporation study found that educators and school resource officers have been involved in accidental discharges of weapons. On the larger question of arming teachers, RAND found that there is simply no good data on whether doing so would increase gun violence or reduce it across eight categories, including mass shootings and suicides.
— Nick Gillespie in Do ‘More Guns Lead To More Deaths’?
Well, the way that the antis, communists and socialists believe is that if there are more guns in the hands of good citizens then someone MUST die.
After all, they do want to kill the Constitution. And SCOTUS also, or at least make it a puppet court.
Completely eliminating guns from a country the size of the United States is impossible. Those who keep calling for a complete ban on guns are asking for the impossible and are not acting in an intelligent manner. Even if it were possible to eliminate guns from our country completely, many explosive substances could still be used in place of firearms to kill large numbers of people more efficiently than any gun. The real answer is to eliminate these “GUN-FREE ZONES” and stop making it so easy for these mass shooting nut cases. In every school, there must be at least one teacher who is capable of being armed. Even if there are none, the fact that there might be armed teachers in a school will stop these nuts from shooting up schools and looking for an easier target. There is one thing all these nut cases have in common and it is not the fear of dying. It is the fear of failure. The failure of not killing enough victims and hereby failing to get the notoriety they all crave.
Bowman pounding on the table……. again. Well at least he stays bought when he is paid for.
Soros pounds Rep. Bowman over the table.
He like most American Democrat Politicians gets down on his knees for that contribution $.
The world will be a better place when old Soros finally passes on.
Not quite the reference I was going for but if the shoe fits.
That evil prick son of his is waiting in 5he wings.
Yes, it’s too bad that the bastard’s money won’t die with him.
Rep. Bowman is a jackass, as are all leftist.
That damn pesky constitution of ours keeps getting in the way of the Democrats.
Only a Gun Control History illiterate would march around begging for Gun Contro.l.
It’s useful idiots marching around begging for you to be defenseless like Gun Controlled Blacks subjected to Jim Crow, etc. And useful idiots marching around begging for you to be defenseless like Jews in nazi germany, etc.
Today the silence from the Gun Control parade is deafening over the man in Brazil using a hatchet to murder 4 children and mame 4 other children at a day school.
The mindset behind the marchers is the mindset that plastered Gun Free Zone signs all around schools. Deranged people who clearly criminally misue anything they can get their hands on see those signs as welcome mats. High above the fray incompetent people who hung up the signs and put defenseless children below the signs are liable.
The TN school had doors that were breached, halls that cannot be locked, staff that is totally defenseless and a pissant boy-girl with cutsie stickers on firearms succeeds…pathetic.
School shootings are carried out by sick individuals hell bent on revenge for some perceived offence against them. The best way to stop them is to have armed guards, school staff, administrators and janitors all trained in proper response to threats, and for those willing and able to carry a firearm, frequent training & practice. Hardening the school helps also. Here in Texas 174+ of the counties out of 254 support firearms for teachers and staff, some advertise that fact on the school grounds, other do not. I think it’s a great deterrent.
Banks think that their money is worth guarding with armed guards. The government thinks that game animals are worth protecting with armed police. Shouldn’t schools/local governments think that their students are worth protecting with armed guards/police, too? And let the teachers with carry permits carry!
We should also rebuild a culture of respect that has crumbled away in the last 50ish years. We have become a society that doesn’t respect anything, thinks words are violence, and values vengeance over justice. Too many people have become convinced that the world is ending and that they can’t improve their lives.
The liberators liberated us from our culture of respect. Now they’re liberating us from the burden of acknowledging biological facts. Liberators never stop liberating. Or you could say Progressives never stop progressing.
Massie shouldve slapped the taste out of his mouth…
The initial reporting I have seen indicates that the Nashville shooter bought all of her guns legally, after NICS checks. So, apparently, the whole “universal background checks” thing would have done diddly squat. Given her approach to gaining entry to the school, she damn well knew she was committing illegal acts.
What, exactly, would “more laws” have done to prevent this event??
Not a damn thing. Their goal is not to control the access to guns of women like the shooter. Their goal is to limit the access to guns of people like you.
GUNS ARE NOT THE PROBLEM. Guns have been around for hundreds of years. Our modern-day social ills are the problem. Mass shootings in the past were always the result of gang warfare, criminal activity, racial hatred, or government policies. It’s only in recent times that we see this new phenomenon of mentally deranged persons who kill because they are such complete losers. They want to strike out for recognition and notoriety. We will never put a stop to this unless we completely correct all of society’s Ills. Since we can’t do that, we must at least make it much harder for these nuts to successfully kill large amounts of children and adults. We can do that, not by disarming victims, but by training them and arming them. The recent school shooting in Tennessee was stopped when guns arrived at the school in the hands of trained police officers who acted instead of dilly-dallying around. This shooting could have been stopped much sooner if someone in that school had been already armed. This is common sense. Something that seems to be in short supply these days.
“GUNS ARE NOT THE PROBLEM.”
Yes, they are. Guns make people do evil things because guns are imbued with a spirit of power over others. Simply put, remove all firearms, and there can be no gun crime. Total gun confiscation is like law: remove the laws, and there will be no crime. The core problem is that law is the root cause of all crime.
If only they’d put up enough “Gun-free school zone” signs, it would have stopped that Nashville school shooter. Add a few additional “Gun-free school zone” signs to each entry door and exit door, and that’ll stop school shootings for sure!
Or maybe make some more specific ones saying “Assault-weapon-free school zone” or “Scary-looking-black-gun-free zone” (same thing), then it would solve the problem.
Because everyone knows criminals intending to commit mass murder obey all laws, rules, regulations, and signs.
(Obviously sarcasm)
The people who write the laws sit behind armed guards and barricades but refuse to write national law “mandating” at least a minimum number of armed personnel per grade level based on the population of the school… The reason is obvious, no school shootings no gun control no Bloomberg MONEY…
Ironically, both Bloomberg and his money are protected by, you guessed it, guys with guns.
The left just needs to admit that its political goals are more important than the lives of children – especially children who’s parents might be conservative Christians.
All of those who pass all of these anti-gun laws that do nothing but make victims out of you and me are always protected by numerous armed personnel. They keep coming after our guns and do not have to suffer the consequences of their restrictive gun laws. We have to start voting smarter. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see how damaging these liberal politicians are to our country. Liberalism or conservatism, when taken to extremes is very damaging to our country. We have to find more Moderate politicians to solve our problems. That’s just common sense, something that is very lacking in our society.
Doing the same thing repeatedly expecting a different outcome is defined as insanity. What has been done about school and other mass shootings is obviously not working…..making schools “Fish In A Barrel Zones”….er, my bad…”Gun Free Zones” for good guys, but not the bad guys. Believing that LEOs are First Responders is not working. You, the people at the scene of Evil intending Violence, are the First Responders. You are on you own, your own First Responder. On that day when your number comes up in the Evil Bearing Violence Lottery, you must be ready, able, and willing to deal decisively with Evil…or you are merely a victim-in-waiting. With reference to First Responders, if one is a RESPONDER, one is already behind the curve on the Violence action. The act of Violence is the BANG!! After the BANG, to the RIGHT of BANG, one can only react, respond to Violence from a position behind the curve. The trick is to get ahead of the of Violence, be LEFT OF BANG, identify anomalies that portend Violence so one can act ahead of Violence to preempt violence. Reference books such as Left of Bang, Spotting Violence Before It Spots You, The Gift of Fear, and When Violence is the Only Answer, all dealing with situational awareness, identifying anomalies in the environment, and taking action ahead of the BANG. These principles need to be applied in our schools as well as our personal lives. This is not to be mis-construed as advocating Red Flag Laws. If guns, “weapons of war” if you must, are good enough, effective enough to protect the slimey likes of Slo Joey and Beef On The Hoof Cori “Guns2ProtectMeNotThee” Bush, then they are good enough to protect our kids, families, loved ones. Annually, guns in the hands of good guys prevent astronomically more potential Violence than guns in bad hands cause. Sadly, there is an intertwining alternate agenda not intended to prevent casualties of Violence, but to capitalize on dead bodies in schools, in WallyWorlds, entertain venues, and grocery stores.
Politicians who advocate more and more gun control are really striving for more and more people control. They just love these mass shootings, especially the school mass shootings because these atrocities help them in their cause. These politicians don’t want to stop these mass shootings. You can see that by the legislation that they always propose. They aren’t trying to disarm the lunatics, they are trying to disarm the law-abiding. That’s what always happens in countries just before they lose all of their freedoms. We must keep alert and oppose these gun-grabbing tyrants.
Nick Gillespie is an atheist supporter of potheads. He has never supported the first amendment. And he has not been a supporter of the Second Amendment. He would completely put the Second Amendment far behind in a level of importance. His primary interest is in legalizing drugs. And making drug addicts comfortable, by using “theft through taxation” in order to pay for drug rehab, drug paraphernalia, and condoms for drug addicts.
He is a supporter taxpayer funded injection centers, so that intravenous drug users can be monitored by government paid medical staff, to ensure they don’t overdose and die from their individually freely chosen personal actions.
And he is a libertarian. I have never liked him having watched him on television going back to the 1980s on the orginal McNeil/Lehrer PBS news program. As far as I’m concerned he certainly is one of the persons, who helped to destroy whatever good libertarianism had.
Chris T,
“And he [claims he] is a libertarian.”
There, FIFY.
The “infestation” into libertarianism has been going on for a very long time now. It is unfortunate that the true believers of libertarianism have far too late, come to understand this invasion into their political thought.
And it’s not just the Libertarians that have this problem. The Democrats and the Republicans have both unfortunately allowed their own political thought to be invaded as well.
This article speaks to the TRUTH of the issue. The Lefties are trying to make this lie the truth. Not on my watch!
The only way that “more guns equals more deaths” would be true is if you see that more guns in the hands of law abiding citizens equals more criminal deaths. That’s an equation i can live with.
Ed, DITTO!
Bowman is a classic “useful idiot.” When the commies succeed in their revolution, he’ll be one of the first liquidated.
More women equals more rape. Does that mean we should minimize the number of women in our community in order to minimize rape in our community?
On the same vein, more men equals more rape. Shall we commence minimizing the number of men in our community in order to minimize rape in our community?
Of course the obvious answer to both rhetorical questions above is an emphatic, “NO!”
The root cause of violent attacks are humans who do not control their emotions and/or who reject the immense intrinsic dignity and value of human life.
Furthermore, humans are creative, imaginative, and resourceful: someone who is determined to harm others will find a way to do it, regardless of how “readily available” firearms may be.
Wisdom thus directs us to two simple strategies:
Prevention:
We must do everything possible to raise children into responsible and productive adults who control their emotions and deeply value human life.
Mitigation:
All responsible people must have the capability to effectively protect human life. That requires secure facilities (e.g. locking your home’s doors) and immediate defensive measures (e.g. having a firearm readily available–and the skill to use it–to defend human life).
Note that countless children will “slip through the cracks” and become monsters in spite of our best individual and collective efforts to raise children to become wonderful adults. That is why we also need the mitigation measures which I outlined above. Anyone who opposes effective mitigation measures supports violent crime.
And some people are psychopaths who fall into your monster category.
“More guns=more death” is a central tenet of faith in the bizarre religion that is the modern left. They can’t prove it, they just “know” it is true (insert Reagan quote here). They state it, without evidence, even in light of contrary evidence, and then demand that laws be made to address the proliferation of guns. When they do get a law passed, and no reduction in death occurs, they just claim they didn’t go far enough. If, as they assert, more guns=more death then, by logical extension, fewer guns=less death. According to their faith, this is an unassailable truth the leads to zero guns=zero death. That is, of course, not true but it is difficult to reason someone out of a position they did not reason themselves into.
is a central tenet of faith in the bizarre religion that is the modern left.
You are confusing religious faith with CULT worship…
Well, yeah, a bit but, still, a tenet of faith nonetheless.
MyName,
Well said. I tip my hat to your sir or ma’am.
Less firearms in the hands of citizens, as these laws are written to do, will increase death of innocents.
Forget the Hollywood version of the wild west, society will return to the violence of the Middle Ages where the strong preyed on the smaller, the weaker and the infirm.
Several years ago I was sitting around a campfire with two friends, we’ll call them Doug and Brian, and we were discussing guns and gun control and politics etc. Doug is a gun guy, Brian is not. At some point Brian opined that the world would be a better place if there were no guns. I suggested a thought experiment in several phases. (it is important to note, at this point in the story, that Doug is about ten years younger than me and outweighs me, and Brian, by 80 to 100 lbs – Doug is not fat, he is 6’5″ and around 260 lbs – think linebacker) For my thought experiment I asked Brian to consider that the whole world was the three of us, two gun owners and him. Who, I asked, is in charge? He started to say something about democratic decision making and so forth but I cut him off and said, nope, I’m in charge. Why? he asked. I said because while both Doug and I own guns, I’m the only one carrying one right now. I then posed the question, “If Doug and I both get rid of our guns, who is in charge then?” Brian started talking about democracy again and I cut him off and said, “No, Doug is in charge?” Again, Brian asked, why? “Because Doug can beat the crap out of either of us if he wants to. In fact, I’m second in charge because Doug and I see eye to eye on a lot of things and we’ve known each other a lot longer than we’ve known you. They only way you can have a say in this world of ours is if Doug and I each get our guns back so the beat-down is off the table and you get one too. Then, we could have a working democracy.”
*The* only way …
The power of, “If it saves only one, it is worth it.”, is insurmountable. It is a statement at the most visceral level; immune to logic and reason.
All that needs to be done to blow up arguments that crime and violence in states without strict gun control is acceptable, tolerable, not as bad as advertised, is for a single death to raise the stats in one of those states. “Higher” is higher, regardless of the actual number.
Quoting stats to “support” gun ownership is simply admitting that the Second Amendment is needs-based. End “gun crime”, and you end the need for people to go about armed. And part of ending “gun crime” is to remove guns from law-abiding gun owners, before guns can twist their minds into using a gun to commit a crime. (no, ending “gun crime” in the inner cities of Dimwitocrat controlled cities is not the answer; good people don’t go into those bad places, and removing guns from gangs and criminals is too hard and dangerous)
LOUD NOISES! LOUD NOISES! I WIN!
This really ought to be so completely obvious…
Audrey Hale walks into a school armed and people are being killed until more guns show up. If hers remained the only firearms on premises then there absolutely would have been more death. More guns means less death.
leftist demoncrats want to disarm the populace and certainly not to save lives. you cannot cram socialism down the throats of an armed populace. hitler and stalin both made sure to disarm the populace. when florida allowed concealed carry the crime rates went down. it was difficult for the felons to discern who was an armed potential victim. it puts the fear of God in the person planning a crime.
I would have told Rep Bowman that the problem is not my guns, it is your sons. Caucasian, Trump hat wearing, Lifetime NRA members are not murdering people.
More Gun Free zones equals more deaths.
Maybe they should ban the real problem…criminals.
If more guns leads to more death we should all be dead at this point; since we’re at 400+ million guns in this Country; and something like +1 million per month.
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