The lingering reality of Saturday 13 July in Pennsylvania is not a nick of an ear. It is that yet another family has suffered at the bloody hand of the NRA. The tragic irony that like the rest of the Tr*mp-cult they probably support the guns-for-fools ethic.

You might want a little something for your kitbag when you next must discuss the subject with your crazy relative or friend.

Here are the top 25 countries ranked by homicide by firearm per 100,000 for the latest year reported. We're proudly at #9, having edged out Mexico (you know, the country with all the violent people) by a few hundredths of a killing per hundred thousand. Most of those ahead of us have been engaged in criminal, civil, racial or ethnic strife for decades. But hey: USA, USA, USA!

(1) El Salvador 78.52, (2) Venezuela 49.73, (3) Eswatini 37.16, (4) Jamaica 35.22, (5) Honduras 29.40, (6) Guatemala 25.48, (7) Brazil 23.93, (8) Colombia 20.38, (9) UNITED STATES 12.21, (10) Uruguay 11.67, (11) Mexico 11.55, (12) South Africa 10.47, (13) Panama 9.95, (14) Montenegro 8.68, (15) Philippines 7.72, (16) Costa Rica 7.59, (17) Barbados 7.36, (18) Nicaragua 7.09, (19) Paraguay 6.32, (20) Argentina 5.72, (21) Peru 3.72, (22) Serbia 3.23, (23) Albania 3.20, (24) Croatia 2.83, (25) Chile 2.79.

There are approximately 20 million AR-15 style rifles in private hands in the USA. Most are unsecured in closets and under beds along with enough ammunition to kill scores or hundreds.

Over 40,000 people are killed by firearms in the USA eveyr year. Only about 200 have allegedly been murdered by "illegal aliens" in the past eight years (that's the number of arrests, not convictions as reported by Customs & Border Protection), which averages about 16 per year. That means you're 2,500 times more likely to be killed by a relative, friend or neighbor than a non-citizen.

By Anonymous

In the aftermath of our recent national spate of gun-totin' insanity (Lewiston, ME, Oct. 2023) a friend has re-posted a meme on Facebook suggesting that "gun control" is rendered foolish by virtue of a comparison of crime rates in Chicago and Maine. Hmmmmm?

Apples and Oranges, I fear. Cannot let this one slide, especially this week.

Maine has a current population density of just 43.1 people per square mile, over an area consisting of 35,380 square miles, which makes it the least densely populated state in New England, the American northeast and the eastern seaboard, as well as all states with an Atlantic coastline and all of those states east of the Mississippi River. In short, at any given moment there's hardly anyone to shoot.

By comparison, almost a quarter of Illinois' population is living in Chicago due to the job opportunities there. The city's population density is 4,593 people per km2 (over 100 times that of Maine). In August, they're all riding the EL, smelling after a day's work and frustrated at every little thing, and they're inches apart.

Assume one person in ten thousand is angry or crazy enough to be homicidal. In Maine there would be 134 dangerous persons in 35,385 sq mi and in Chicago 269 in 234 sq mi.

In Maine the nearest dangerous person is thus occupying (35385/134) sq mi or about 11.5 million sq ft, or about 3,827 feet away (a mile is 5,280 feet).

In Chicago that person is standing in only 37,892 sqft or about 100 feet away, i.e., in your own back yard. If the population of dangerous people is five per ten thousand, one is sharing your bedroom.

Despite the obvious intent, the meme has nothing to do with the Second Amendment or personal liberty generally. When that was adopted in 1791, the nearest angry or crazy person (white, as nonwhites were not then counted in the census) was about 55 miles away and carrying a muzzle loading rifle that took two minutes to load and was about as likely to explode in his face as to launch a projectile.

How does gun control work? Japan — a country with which my family has proud connections — has a total homicide death rate of 0.02:100,000. It takes a long time and a lot of demonstrable training and paperwork to qualify to own a gun, and then never a handgun or semi-automatic anything. The US rate is 12.2:100,000, or SIX HUNDRED AND TEN TIMES AS HIGH. The difference is gun control.