More guns equal more safety...except when they don't

New Stanford research confirms that right-to-carry gun laws are linked to an increase in violent crime…. Now, Donohue and his colleagues have shown that extending the data yet another decade (1999-2010) provides the most convincing evidence to date that right-to-carry laws are associated with an increase in violent crime…. “The totality of the evidence based on educated judgments about the best statistical models suggests that right-to-carry laws are associated with substantially higher rates” of aggravated assault, rape, robbery and murder, said Donohue. The strongest evidence was for aggravated assault, with data suggesting that right-to-carry (RTC) laws increase this crime by an estimated 8 percent - and this may actually be understated, according to the researchers.

It’s been accepted as Gospel by those devoted to their interpretation of the 2nd Amendment: more guns equal more safety. Only when Americans are carrying firearms will they truly be safe from those who’d seek assault, rob, and/or murder them. Only when Americans are armed will they truly be able to protect themselves and their families.

An armed society is a safe society.

Except when it’s not, which a new study from Stanford seems to indicate. I’ve always wondered how introducing ever more firepower into the public arena could possibly make people safer. All it takes is for an accidental discharge (which happens more frequently than you might care to think), and suddenly safety is non-existent, because one or more innocent people have been injured…or worse.

The Open Carry movement isn’t about safety or the 2nd Amendment. It’s about assholes with guns demonstrating their belief that the 2nd Amendment allows them to carry whatever weaponry this wish wherever they might wish to carry it. They eschew accountability because…the 2nd Amendment; DUH. Why any reasonable person would think it necessary and appropriate to carry an AR-15 into a grocery store, coffee shop, or other public venue is the perfect example of someone demonstrating that they are in fact NOT reasonable.

The truth is that more guns equals more safety like handing a 16-year-old boy a bottle of Wild Turkey and the keys to your Lexus equals better driving. More guns only equals more tragic, preventable deaths. If there’s one thing that an be said for the Open Carry movement, it’s that they have blood on their hands…but at long as that blood doesn’t belong to someone they love…well, FREEDOM!!

Or, let’s just call it what it is- freedumb.