The media outcry against increasing gun ownership by lawful citizens has grown shriller over the past five years as Americans have purchased over 1 million guns each year. The fact that people understand they need to take charge of their own protection just doesn’t make sense to many in well-protected newsrooms across the nation.
Vox.com is the latest to go over the edge concerning guns in America, with a recent headline posing the question, “What happens when everyone decides they need a gun?” The hand wringing op-ed just can’t find an answer to that question, but takes plenty of shots at those who fear our big cities mean streets and feel a need for self-protection.
“Millions more guns, both legal and not, flooded into the country during the pandemic,” the op-ed stated. “Recent Supreme Court decisions made meaningful regulation all but impossible. No one is completely immune from the risks of this new era of gun violence, not even the former president of the United States.
“And though homicide and violent crime have dropped from their pandemic spike, guns are not like iPhones. They don’t outlive their purpose after a few deadly years, and they’re extremely difficult to get rid of safely. They can be deadly for generations to come.”
Oh, the horror! People buying guns who might not ever even need them in a self-defense situation. The author has apparently never heard the term, “It’s better to have a gun and not need one than need a gun and not have one.”
After lengthy discussion on gun purchases and demographics of gun buyers, the op-ed rolls around to the main premise—guns are bad, not good. The editorial quotes John Roman, author of an NORC study out of the University of Chicago.
“It’s conclusive that buying a gun doesn’t make you safer,” Roman said. “If you’re a woman in a household with a gun, your chance of being a victim of firearm homicide goes way up. If you are a teenage or 20-something boy or man, your chance of committing suicide goes up fourfold. We underestimate the cost of gun ownership, in terms of risk of somebody in our household being seriously injured or killed by that gun.”
Of course, another thing that Roman vastly underestimates is how many people buying a gun does make safer. Multiple studies have shown that literally hundreds of thousands of Americans successfully use a firearm in self-defense every single year.
Of course, the Vox article makes no discussion of that, just as you would expect. Telling both sides of the story might make it a little harder to convince readers of their erroneous conclusions.
Vox then turns to an anti-gun Democratic politician to get another take—from the same side—on the issue.
“We haven’t helped people feel safe enough,” said Illinois state Rep. Robin Kelly, whose district includes part of Chicago’s south side. “I can’t tell people how to feel, especially when they see things on the news.”
That statement brings up one of the biggest problems with Democrats’ “solutions” to the problem of burgeoning violent crime. They seem to think their duty is to make people “feel safer,” rather than to actually make them safer. Of course, there’s a big difference.
In the end, while the Vox piece appears to try to be thoughtful, it’s mainly a regurgitation of the same tired anti-gun logic we’ve been hearing for years, simply packaged a little differently. We’d like to say we were surprised, but…
Back to the title of the Vox article, “What happens when everyone decides they need a gun?” As criminals get bolder and more violent and cynical politicians continue to push for gun bans and other restrictions, the time might be now that all lawful citizens need a gun. Criminals already have them anyway.
It’s a diverse group: Over half are women and the majority are Black, but there are white and Hispanic students, too.
Diverse apparently means majority black and female. A group of over half being men and a majority white means it wouldn’t be diverse. This is typical progressive brain rot writing intended for a brain dead audience.
Diversity = Mediocrity
DEI equals stupidity
The disingenuousness is on full display by their harping on the guns themselves.
The Bill of Rights takes messing with the guns off the table so why waste the time and money on a pointless water-treading exercise that accomplishes nothing but enriching lawyers and politicians?
Lock up criminals. Use the media industrial complex to nudge culture toward stability rather than glorify instability. We’ve spent the past 70 or so years selling the coolness of being a hard-assed moron and treating each other like shit. The love song has been replaced by the fucking lotsa bitches song. The value of a family has been replaced by the value of a gold chain. The Heroes Journey has been replaced by gettin’ that cash. The redemption arc is now about dying before getting arrested.
Simpletons always say it’s poverty or the economy. They’ve obviously never lived in one of these neighborhoods. Jobs are available. Problem is your peers see you as a chump and a target for “working for the man” and will make your life hell for trying to do right until you can get out of that neighborhood.
Every value that civilization has accepted as positive to growth has been ripped out of society and stomped on by cynical money grabbers and academic atheists who cannot separate dogma from human experience. If half of these PhDs bothered to read some Campbell instead of spending all their time bashing one particular religion we’d all be better off and further along and ironically probably less religious.
It’s just easier to waste time harping on guns though.
“the coolness of being a hard-assed moron and treating each other like shit“
Yep, the MAGA philosophy in a nutshell.
And I am quite entertained by your suggestion these folks read Joseph Campbell, hilarious!
Remember, you’re dealing with a group of folks who think the ritual cannibalism of communion is a valuable sacred virtue.
“Eat His body, drink His blood,
And we’ll sing a song of love,
Hallelu, hallelu, hallelu, hallelujah!“
And their new self-manufactured deity is Donald Trump, who has quite literally put the Ho back in Hosanna…
h, yes, the last socially acceptable form of bigotry: anti-Christian.
Good job, 49er
RE: “No one is completely immune from the risks of this new era of gun violence, not even the former president of the United States”
It’s Gun Violence…Again. As if sneaky t. crooks wouldn’t have stabbed the former president, ran over the former president, set the former president on fire, poisoned the former president, hung the former president, etc. Newsflash: Using Gun Violence echos buzzwords concocted by Gun Control Zealots. Again: Using Gun Violence echos buzzwords concocted by Gun Control Zealots.
How about everytime they say Gun Control or do anything Gun Control you ask them, “Are you referring to that antiquated insane agenda that’s Rooted in Racism and Genocide?”
TRUMP/VANCE 2024.
Debbie W.,
The notion that many people call “gun control” is an insane agenda.
While that agenda corresponds to race in our nation’s distant past, the true root mindset that drives disarmament: evil people with superiority complexes.
Unfortunately, evil people with superiority complexes will always be with us and they will always push to disarm people who they deem “inferior”. Note how evil people with superiority complexes have continuously expanded the types of people who they deem to be “inferior” in our nation over the years:
all of 1800s–black people and Native Americans
early 1900s–poor immigrants
middle 1900s–all poor people
late 1900s–all working class people
Evil people with superiority complexes prize their positions and actions and are “all in”. They categorically reject everything that “inferior” people say, including allegations that their positions and/or actions toward “inferior” people are bad, wrong, shameful, etc. That being the case, any attempts to appeal (in any manner–including History lessons) to such evil people with superiority complexes is wasted effort.
While we might be able to reach some of the masses with our nation’s particular History of minority disarmament, I think we are far more likely to gain a lot more supporters when we show them how evil people with superiority complexes want to disarm EVERYONE (not just minorities)–and how that inevitably leads to those evil people using, exploiting, abusing, and consuming the masses.
Cue Debbie’s superiority complex laden rants in 3 … 2 … 1 …
evil grasshopper apparently you got cued by my post…What part of Genocide don’t you understand? Apparently the evil tyrannical part.
Once again…Your word salad Confirms your Gun Control History ignorance. If you were as smart as you think you would not have replied to my post as there was zip, nada, nothing for you or anyone else to bark at, etc.
RE: “Debbie W.,The notion that many people call “gun control” is an insane agenda”
Next time grasshopper try really hard to set aside your twisted thinking and quote exactly what I said…
“How about everytime they say Gun Control or do anything Gun Control you ask them, “Are you referring to that antiquated insane agenda that’s Rooted in Racism and Genocide?”
Debbie W.,
“How about everytime they say Gun Control or do anything Gun Control you ask them, ‘Are you referring to that antiquated insane agenda that’s Rooted in Racism and Genocide?’”
Therein is YOUR error: gun control IS NOT ROOTED in racism and genocide, it IS ROOTED in the superiority complexes of evil elitists. My list of the ever expanding target demographics of gun control show that clearly, as do other nations which effectively have only one race and yet apply gun control to large swaths of their population.
If we tell people that gun control is purely a racial / genocidal thing, a lot of people will reject that notion at the outset. Many will claim that there was/is no genocide. Many people will shrug because they assume that they are a member of the preferred race and it won’t affect them. Still other people discard the entire conversation because they believe that our nation has progressed past racism.
I don’t see error in mentioning racism. I see error in tying gun control only to racism.
uncommon,
Don’t blame Debbie Dimwit, she can’t help herself. Once upon a time, she learned that there was a racist past to gun control (and much early gun control WAS affirmatively racist, either in intent or actually de jure). Debbie mounted that tired pony, and she’s going to ride it to death, and then beat the expired corpse. She can’t get her tiny mind around the idea that gun control is and has ALWAYS been about power and control . . . sometimes for racist reasons but ALWAYS for reasons of power and control. Apparently that concept is beyond her mental faculties. Modern gun-grabbers don’t want to take guns from blacks, they want to take guns from EVERYBODY.
so..where’s the “like” button?
LampOfDiogenes,
I figure that Debbie is unable to seriously consider any viewpoint which challenges her baseline. (That would entail the possibility of being wrong and having to admit it–the horrors!)
I also figured that I would try one last time, with my explanation this last time being absolutely bullet-proof (no pun intended).
Going forward, I may make mention of this from time-to-time just to yank Debbie’s chain.
uncommon,
Her abrasive (I’m trying to be nice, here) personality and her complete focus on ONE aspect of the origins of gun control (not even the first, many towns in the “Old West” banned carry within town limits, and that was before the Civil War, and blacks wouldn’t have been allowed to own much of anything, much less guns), and that ONE aspect she can comprehend is racism. Did the Reconstruction/Jim Crow south glom onto that to keep ‘them n*ggers’ from getting guns? Oh, HELL YEAH . . . but local authoritarian sheriffs and marshals had been doing it for years just to make their lives easier. Fast forward to today, and we have turds like Mini-Mike Bloomberg, Shannon Watts, Gabby Giffords and the like who are ‘taking it into the future’.
Unfortunately, our dear Debbie Dimwit can’t process that thought. And her self-important style, combined with her one-dimensional view of the subject, make her posts near-impossible to read.
uncommon_sense makes common sense. Those opposing POTG aren’t motivated by history as it relates to racism and genocide, rather they are motivated by their desire(s) for control and they do so due to their feelings of superior elitist status. They view POTG as “deplorables” per one politician. Our time would be better spent by defending all attacks against the 2nd Amendment with present day arguments while sticking to the subject at hand. History has its place, but the singular history argument of racism and genocide does little to correct the wrongs imposed on POTG at the present time.
More importantly is how do we fight the wrongs as they relate to POTG and the 2nd Amendment now in this present day and time.
“evil people with superiority complexes have continuously expanded the types of people who they deem to be “inferior” in our nation over the years:
early 1900s–poor immigrants”
Yep, here it is 100 years later and once again “evil people with superiority complexes” continue their disinformation against “poor immigrants”
“Recent Supreme Court decisions made meaningful regulation all but impossible.”
Do tell: how do any laws or court decisions enable government to “regulate” the behavior of violent criminals roaming freely among us?
Spoiler alert: violent criminals who are free among us do whatever they want regardless of laws and court decisions.
Vox=putz. They pretty much obey their lefty masters. Quoting Robin Kelly are we? She’s our pathetic dim congress critter. Dumb as a box of rocks but I’m sure has at least one armed dude with a gat. I’m merely a plebian so I get no privilege in ILLANNOY which I’m really hating🙄
Against the fake sista and for the white guy…
All gun control is based upon a lie a lie if believed leaves one with nothing but the empty hollow promises of a politician. The very same politicians who are surrounded by heavily armed agents that your tax dollars pay for. Agents armed with the very same firearms that you just gave up for you own good.
guns for me..not for thee….it really is all about power and control…and we’ve seem ample evidence of how that plays out in other countries…..
“University of Chicago” – Training school for sanitation technicians
The article should have quotedJohn Lott the premier gun control expert at the University of Chicago a few years past. Nothing has changed since he left except new Lefties.
liberal left-wing shrieking irrelevant website shrieks about how guns are bad.
Shocking.
the insane premise that a gun does not make you safe is something they’ve been pushing for awhile now…they keep selling it but obviously most don’t believe it…which frustrates them no end
When crime is not reported (hidden) in ‘blue’ cities you can’t claim crimes rates have dropped (or you can to push your propaganda). The “mostly peaceful” quote comes to mind, (looking at you Minneapolis).
Vox is just another liberal rag, after all. There was a time when I confused the author, Vox, with Vox the site. That was embarrassing when I realized who and what I was confusing. Vox the author is pretty hard right, and Vox the publication is little better than a bought and paid for Bloomberg publication.
Ya know…I don’t think the First Amendment covered mass communication and what we are seeing today…HMM why not a RED FLAG law for news reporting. If we feel a media outlet is biased or shall I say it “Lying” we call the cops and they shut down the media outlet, you know seize their equipment, LOL revoke the “employees” from being able to report until a court hearing???HMM>
Then make it required that all journalists or other members of the “shit I cannot make it in the Psych degree lets try journalism” crowd Have to register and go through a state approved course to report…LOL WHAT they hell what’s good for the goose is good for the gander
“If we feel a media outlet is biased or shall I say it “Lying” we call the cops“
“If we feel… “
Karen, I wish you conservatives would rely just a bit more on facts rather than your feelings before you call the cops, I think the whole country would do better.
“”It’s conclusive that buying a gun doesn’t make you safer,” Roman said.”
This bullshit makes me mad as hell. Gun safety is largely determined by personal competence, not luck. It follows that predictions of individual fate, based on population statistics, are INVALID.
Are the professors who make such arguments propaganda-creating con-artists, or deep mathematical ignoramuses? They had to pass courses in statistics to get those cool degrees. So, WTH?
displaying misinformation has always been a tool of the left…saying it often enough in the hope some will believe it…doesn’t seem to be working in this case
XZX,
2A advocates do need to get realistic about one thing – we all pretty much agree that the 2A means exactly what it says (not the idiot interpretations of morons like MajorLiar, Mini-Mike Bloomberg, Kamal-toe Harris, Shannon Watts, etc.), but that leaves us with a problem . . . the 2A doesn’t require you to be COMPETENT with that gun you are acquiring. Now, most ‘responsible’ gun owners pursue training and practice, just as you would for any other potentially dangerous activity, and practice ‘safe storage’ as THEY interpret that, based on their individual situations. I couldn’t possibly give any kind of accurate estimate of the number of hours/rounds I’ve expended on various ranges in my life, or the number of hours I’ve spent in training classes. The only thing I am CERTAIN of is that I have absolutely no faith in ‘the government’ to make a rational determination of what standards of competence, gun safety, gun handling, gun storage are appropriate for ME. Hell, they can’t even keep their effin’ trains from derailing, and their vaunted green energy projects have proven to be useless, unreliable environmental disasters.
Do I trust all new gun owners to be ‘responsible’? No, probably not – but I trust them, making individual decisions for themselves, one HELL of a lot more than I trust the government to figure out how to pour p*ss out of a boot.
I try to make the acquaintance of ‘newbies’ at the ranges I frequent, and gently attempt to steer them in what I consider the right direction, but . . . every person has the right to go to hell their own way. If someone ignores my advice? Hey, they are ultimately responsible, anyway (at least in a sane society). I don’t presume to judge what is “right” for any other human. Certain idiot Leftist/fascist authoritarians, and the Dimocrat Party, choose to exalt their beloved “government” over individual rights, which is why I despise them.
“…we all pretty much agree that the 2A means exactly what it says … but that leaves us with a problem . . . the 2A doesn’t require you to be COMPETENT with that gun you are acquiring.”
Is that really a “problem”? Is competency at anything a factor in protecting/exercising natural, human, and civil rights?
Consider, the everyday, non-specialist, non-lawyer is assumed, under the law, to be legally competent to determine if an arrest warrant, or other warrant, is properly constructed, when the government breaks into an occupied dwelling (except for Patriot Act warrants, that no one outside govt is competent read).
Seems the founders decided that anyone who builds/purchases a firearm is competent to use, or not use, based on their common sense.
“Competency” in gun handling and use is a good thing, but not a mandatory factor. Thus “competency” is not a “problem”, right?
“the 2A doesn’t require you to be COMPETENT with that gun you are acquiring“
Yes, it contains a black letter plain text requirement for a ‘well-regulated’ militia.
“I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for few public officials.” (George Mason, 3 Elliot, Debates at 425-426)
Once again the idiots blame the inanimate object for the actions of the human using it.
As ever it always comes back to the human hand holding the firearm and the human mind directing the action.
Since those with evil or criminal intent will find ways to arm themselves or give themselves an advantage over their intended or potential victims/prey with no regard for words on paper, no amount of pearl clutching, hand wringing, political posturing or demonizing law abiding citizens will stop any act of violence. Only the availability of the tools needed for self defense and the will to use them will stop the predators in our midst.
“Once again the idiots blame the inanimate object for the actions of the human using it.”
Very simple, actually. An inanimate object, (firearm) influences the choices humans make. At that moment, the inanimate object co-locates with the human. Once obsorbed, the inanimate spirit causes the human spirit to contemplate actions that would otherwise go unprovoked. Without the now dual nature of the human, no one would be harmed by a firearm-inspired spirit.
As said before, “Eliminate, totally, all firearms in the nation, and there can be no firearm crime”. Heck, eliminate law, and there can be no crime, atall.
The inanimate object (firearm) must turn one into a schizophrenic according to the sack squeezers.
“An inanimate object, (firearm) influences the choices humans make“
Absolutely true, without question.
Of course, the rest of your spiritual psychobabble is total BS.
“ ‘It’s conclusive that buying a gun doesn’t make you safer,’ Roman said.”
Oh is it now… lets ask the ~2.1 million defenders last year who were made safer because they had purchased a gun, a lot safer when the bad guys showed up. Oh yeah those people who you don’t want to be safer, they don’t count right? Kinda ignored those didn’t you, they would spoil the model of your made up BS ‘fact’ if they were included.
Did y’all ever notice how the anti-gun claim to be all about ‘common sense’ and ‘public safety’ and the ‘children’ but they completely ignore the hundreds of thousands every year that exercise ‘common sense’ and use a firearm to defend themselves or homes or others from violent criminals to save ‘children’ or adults or the general public safety in some cases. Ya never hear these anti-gun groups cheering these lives saved and/or made safer do you. hypocrite liars every one of them.
I have never heard of even one person from these anti-gun groups that rushed to actually face the threat at that moment of need to save a child or adult or a home or the general public from violent criminal activity – law abiding gun owners do it thousands of times annually. But these folks from these anti-gun groups are the first ones to tell you “that buying a gun doesn’t make you safer” when that’s an absolute lie proven to be a lie thousands of times annually.
It is not ‘conclusive’ by any means and claiming that is using bogus biased ‘pseudo science methodology of ’cause we say so’ BS.
most folks see through the ruse..record sales indicate it’s not working….
They’re being selective. The paper all these claims end up tracing back to is this.
The methods make some sense in terms of the population of “abused women”. Outside that, the comparison isn’t valid. IRL, there are a lot of other variables they don’t address, like an armed woman vs with an abusive ex who also has a gun etc etc.
That said, yes it is true, if there’s a gun in the house and you have a mentally unbalanced abuser who’s unemployed with drinking and drug problems who has access to that firearm, you’ve got a pretty serious risk.
Interestingly, the risk goes way, way up if the woman leaves. Unless she takes the guns with her, then it drops drastically.
Of course they never compare that to a sober, employed guy who doesn’t kick the shit out of his wife. They only look at the curve they’ve created and never compare it to a population level curve.
Which can kinda be forgiven since they point out that the average time police have known the abuser is abusing is a smidgen over three full years. Which raises A LOT of other questions.
https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.93.7.1089
(current odds as of August 1, 2024) odds of winning the lottery jackpot: ~ 1 in 292,000,000 – but, some people still purchase lottery tickets wanting to win the jackpot.
(current odds as of August 1, 2024) odds of your house burning to the ground: ~ 1 in 3,000 – but you still purchase home owners insurance
(current odds as of August 1, 2024) odds of being a victim of on line identity theft or some other on-line crime: ~1 in 4 – but you still purchase a computer
(current odds as of August 1, 2024) Odds of being a victim of a violent crime : ~ 1 in 3 – smart people purchase a firearm.
A defender with a firearm is more than 97% likely to successfully employ that firearm in DGU to stop or deter a criminal attack AND escape any injury. Conversely, a ‘defender’ person not armed with a firearm is ~ 91% likely to suffer extremely very serious injury or death in a criminal attack no matter what other ‘defense’ means they use.
In 2023, in the U.S., 35% of the women attacked for purposes of rape were armed with a firearm and successfully employed DGU to prevent the rape and also escaped injury, ~3% of others managed to escape their attackers before the rape took place and the rape happened on all the remainder even when ‘armed with something’ and/or employing other defensive means (e.g. trying to flee, barricading in a room, chemical defenses, hand-to-hand combat, screaming for help, blunt or sharpened/pointed ‘objects’, knives, calling 911, etc…).
“(current odds as of August 1, 2024) odds of winning the lottery jackpot: ~ 1 in 292,000,000 – but, some people still purchase lottery tickets wanting to win the jackpot.”
It is settled science that not one person has won a lottery, who didn’t possess a valid lottery ticket.
Jes sayin
“…as Americans have purchased over 1 million guns each year.”
“…as Americans have purchased over 1 million guns every month.”
FIFY
Once more the anti-gun Liberal nut cases have us running around chasing our tails. This isn’t about personal protection. It’s about the 2nd Amendment. The whole purpose of the 2nd A. is to protect ourselves from government tyranny. Biden’s stupid remark that you would need an F-16 to do that is so asinine. In Vietnam, the VC didn’t have F-16s and they were able to take on a well-equipped army. In Afghanistan, terrorists were never defeated. They were able to outlast a well-equipped army. If those chicken livered politicians in Washington D.C. think January 6th was a big deal, that was nothing. Unarmed people running loose in the Capital building made them stain their drawers. Even with a corrupt mass media protecting them and not calling them out on their lies isn’t keeping more and more people from seeing what’s really going on in this country. If elections get rigged, there will be hell to pay.
If you’re the one chasing your tails based on their actions, how are they the nut cases?
I VIETNAM the problem with the US ARMY was NOT fire power is was ONE Bad POLITICAL DIRECTION, , BAD management and poor Leadership at all levels [and yes I do realise that that is a Generalisation and that there were remarkably good leaders at all levels as well but they were dramatically outnumbered ] trying to fight what was basically a POLICING exercise with always one arm tied behind ones back. Lack of conviction by those doing the actual fighting that they were fighting for a worthwhile cause.
But perhaps also not realising that VIETNAM had never in it’s history been completely Conquered. Not even by the MONGOLS or the CHINESE. The fact is that the AMERICANS have never been able to fight insurrgencies on the insurrgents level E and neither have the SOVIETS/RUSSIANS
We lost in Vietnam because we were on the wrong side.
We were serving the corporate interests of Michelin rubber, Royal Dutch Shell, etc. and not the freedom loving common folks who wished to throw off the yoke of foreign multinational corporations.
seentoomuch, airplanes don’t fly without pilots, fuel and maintenance.
And it doesn’t matter who has them.
You’re not supposed to be flying anyway, pleb.
They seem to think their duty is to make people “feel safer,” rather than to actually make them safer.
*rubs temples* They don’t seem to think this, they do think this. They’re also not wrong. I’m really not sure how this isn’t glaringly obvious.
In general terms GUN OWNERSHIP gives about as much protection as a WAX JACKET and you know it.
The whole Gun Ownership debate is really about FIREARMS INDUSTRY MARKETTING aided
and abetted by paid HACKS like you, CROOKED POLITICOS and BENT politically motivated JUDICIARY and convincing the as STALIN put it the ‘WILLING FOOLS’ that they have a chance against a determined BAD Guy or Gal with a GUN AT YOUR HEAD.
Though I come from the UK I was a SMALLARMS INSTRUCTOR in the UK Forces [and we are not known for being backwards in the FIREARMS STAKES are we??] dealing with real people in real combat situations. The man with the gun in hand always has the OVERWHELMING advantage.
“In general terms GUN OWNERSHIP gives about as much protection as a WAX JACKET and you know it.”
[blah blah blah]
“The man with the gun in hand always has the OVERWHELMING advantage.”
Doesn’t it hurt whenever you flipflop like that?
The only beings reading Vox are those who have already bellied up to the entire koolaid dispenser and drank all the flavors – the echoing is strong there.
“the echoing is strong there“
Says the frequent poster on TTAG…
“The irony is strong in this one… “
American have been buying over one million guns per MONTH for many years. Not per year as you state. And a lot of these purchases are by new shooters, minorities, women, and even people who fear DJT will put them in a concentration camp. Every time there is a major push to ban or regulate guns, sales of that gun go up. This is a major reason AR-15’s are now Americas rifle.
“And a lot of these purchases are by new shooters,…”
“A lot” seems a rather vague metric, perhaps “A bunch” would be more definitive?
All seriousness aside, I do wish we could put a provable number to the statistics about new gun owners, each month/year.