Wednesday, January 9, 2013

BloggeRhythms 1/9/2013

I doubt anyone rational would deny that the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut was one of the worst to occur in our nation. And in time, as the underlying facts fully surface regarding the responsible party, perhaps his actions will become understood.
 
However, my thought for today regards the propensity for politicians to take personal advantage from such situations in what seems to me like efforts for political gain.
 
Because while there may be significant value in conferences, studies and probes on gun control, I don’t see the need for all the self-promotion on the subject from pure pol’s like VP Biden, Andrew Cuomo and Iowa state Representative Dan Muhlbauer.
 
Since I myself know very little about gun statistics, when pondering the subject this morning I decided to look up the numbers for Texas. Because to me, the state conjures up all the elements of the wild, wild, west where everyone totes a six-gun on their hip.
 
According to Wikipedia in a “study conducted by the Open Society Institute in March 2000, Texas received a score of negative six (-6) when evaluated on the toughness of its gun laws compared to other U.S. states. Each state was scored on 30 criteria, with each criterion assigned a maximum numeric value between 0 and 7. States scoring highest on each criterion are considered to have the toughest gun laws. The only states scoring lower than Texas are Alaska, Louisiana, and Maine.”
 
So, that means that Texas has the fourth lowest gun restrictions for the U.S, which is caused in part by its “lack of minimum legal age requirements for gun possession.”
 
Looking at the search results, clearly illustrating that Texas indeed has very lax gun control laws and with no minimum age restrictions, I was sure my inclination in picking them to have an extremely high gun-related crime rate had to be correct. However, that’s not what the rest of the facts say which follow.
 
“For the period 1976-2005, two thirds of total homicides in Texas have been committed with firearms. The year with the most gun homicides was 1991 with 1,835 and has steadily been declining since then and now total firearms homicides account for less than 1,000 per year. Moreover, the firearms homicides per 100,000 people in Texas have remained stable around 4 since year 2000.”
 
Digesting the above information, I remembered a notation in yesterday's entry stating, “Texas limits its part-time legislature to a 140-day regular session every two years, and has statutory caps on some types of spending.”
 
Thus, once again we have compilations of information showing one of the most successful state’s in our nation has apparently rightly concluded that minimization of government works best. And that obviously when responsible folks are left alone, everyone, including the government, does considerably better all told. So, while all these politicos might eventually do some good gun-wise, I think it would seem far better if they simply kept quiet while trying to do so.
 
That's it for today folks.
 
Adios

No comments:

Post a Comment