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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
CONTACT: Brady Campaign Peter Hamm, Communications Director Doug Pennington, Assistant Director: 202-898-0792. |
America Leads: Unfortunately, in Gun Homicides
WASHINGTON - July 2 - God Bless America. On the eve of the Fourth of July, as Americans
reflect on the history of the nation’s founding and contemplate its
future, the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence has released the latest edition of its God Bless America poster,
documenting that, in one year, guns murdered 17 people in Finland, 35
in Australia, 39 in England and Wales, 60 in Spain, 194 in Germany, 200
in Canada, and 9,484 in the United States.
When compared by gun murders relative to population size, the facts hold true: Citizens of the U.S. are murdered with guns at a rate five times higher than our nearest high-income neighbor, Canada, and at rates 10 to 44 times higher than the other high income nations.
This holiday weekend marks the 11th anniversary of a tragedy that could have been avoided. On the Fourth of July weekend in 1999, white supremacist and anti-Semite Benjamin Smith murdered Northwestern University head basketball coach Ricky Birdsong and Indiana University graduate student Wan Joon Yoon, and wounded nine others before committing suicide. Smith was prohibited from purchasing firearms, and would have been stopped by a Brady background check if the nation required the checks on every gun sale. He bought his “Saturday Night Special” handgun from Donald Fiessinger, a “private seller” who had purchased 65 handguns over two years from the same Pekin, Illinois gun store, the Old Prairie Trading Post.
The store remains open, but no longer sells firearms. The owner and his customer, Fiessinger, were indicted on gun trafficking charges, pled guilty and served jail time.
“We make it too easy for dangerous people, like Benjamim Smith, to get dangerous guns,” said Paul Helmke, President of the Brady Center. “And we haven’t closed the loophole that allowed this to happen 11 years later - the loophole that says if you buy a gun from a private seller, you don’t have to pass a background check.”
Background information about the statistics, sourcing data, and copies of the poster can be printed here: http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts?s=2.
The Brady Center believes that the U.S. Congress should extend Brady criminal background checks to all gun sales, particularly those at gun shows. On this July 4th, its leaders call on elected officials in Congress to pass gun show loophole legislation (S. 843 in the U.S. Senate and H.R. 2324 in the U.S. House.)
When compared by gun murders relative to population size, the facts hold true: Citizens of the U.S. are murdered with guns at a rate five times higher than our nearest high-income neighbor, Canada, and at rates 10 to 44 times higher than the other high income nations.
This holiday weekend marks the 11th anniversary of a tragedy that could have been avoided. On the Fourth of July weekend in 1999, white supremacist and anti-Semite Benjamin Smith murdered Northwestern University head basketball coach Ricky Birdsong and Indiana University graduate student Wan Joon Yoon, and wounded nine others before committing suicide. Smith was prohibited from purchasing firearms, and would have been stopped by a Brady background check if the nation required the checks on every gun sale. He bought his “Saturday Night Special” handgun from Donald Fiessinger, a “private seller” who had purchased 65 handguns over two years from the same Pekin, Illinois gun store, the Old Prairie Trading Post.
The store remains open, but no longer sells firearms. The owner and his customer, Fiessinger, were indicted on gun trafficking charges, pled guilty and served jail time.
“We make it too easy for dangerous people, like Benjamim Smith, to get dangerous guns,” said Paul Helmke, President of the Brady Center. “And we haven’t closed the loophole that allowed this to happen 11 years later - the loophole that says if you buy a gun from a private seller, you don’t have to pass a background check.”
Background information about the statistics, sourcing data, and copies of the poster can be printed here: http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts?s=2.
The Brady Center believes that the U.S. Congress should extend Brady criminal background checks to all gun sales, particularly those at gun shows. On this July 4th, its leaders call on elected officials in Congress to pass gun show loophole legislation (S. 843 in the U.S. Senate and H.R. 2324 in the U.S. House.)
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4 Comments so far
Show AllThis is a corporate policy to go along with removing rights here. Take it from the world's expert on empire.
"Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest." -- Mahatma Gandhi (An Autobiography OR The story of my experiments with truth, by M.K. Gandhi, p.238)
So, go away with your gun rights push now, something Hillary Clinton has pushed internationally as a small arms treaty while promoting nuclear weapons and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The US won't even sign the land mines treaty but is keen to take small weapons away from people trying to defend themselves.
Go away. The left is waking up to gun control as an elite agenda, and getting it why the founding fathers had the second amendment in the Bill of Rights.
Opposing any of the following things, including Gun Control, would get you listed as a potential dangerous "militia member" in Missouri (before the governor had to withdraw it). http://www.newswithviews.com/baldwin/baldwin500.htm
But if you look at tit again, this is essentially an international corporate or bankers' wish list for world control, with GUN CONTROL right up there near the top. Gandhi was no fool.
The United Nations
The New World Order [Until recently, this was treated as conspiracy theory. Now one can't oppose it.]
Gun Control
The violation of Posse Comitatus
The Federal Reserve
The Income Tax
The Ammunition and Accountability Act
A possible Constitutional Convention
The North American Union [Until recently, this was treated as conspiracy theory. Now one can't oppose it.]
Universal Service Program
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) [Hidden inside the Immigration Reform Bil.}
Abortion
Illegal Immigration
If the world was not insane the private ownership of handguns would be treated as a public health issue equivalent to a major outbreak of smallpox or Ebola virus. Ebola is fatal and causes the infected person to bleed to death. Handguns often do the same thing. Our twisted desire to own hand guns, supported by the gun lobby and the Congress, results in numerous preventable deaths which occur in households where these weapons are present. Citizens should be allowed to own handguns if they were willing to have them stored outside the home in designated armorys. Everyone will argue that this is not in keeping with the Second Amendment but the safety of innocent people should come before ready access to potentially deadly weapons.
alcohol, tobacoo, and firearms should be the name of a convience store not a government agency
He who lives by the gun...
Gotta love Americans with their guns in one hand, their Bibles on the other and nothing but hatred and ignorance in their hearts.