American Carnage Quotes

“Another source, the Gun Violence Archive, shows that in 2021, there were 44,820 gun deaths in the United States, but just 1,237 verified defensive gun uses, or thirty-six gun deaths for every self-defense use of a gun.134 This last figure does not even include all the nonfatal shootings that occur in the country every day. There are about twice the number of nonfatal as fatal shootings in the country each year;135 therefore, the ratio of shootings (fatal and nonfatal) to self-defense gun uses is somewhere around 100:1. Consequently, gun-related deaths and injuries by aggressors outnumber defensive gun uses by a very large margin.”
― Fred Guttenberg, American Carnage: Shattering the Myths That Fuel Gun Violence

“Recent work by Jennifer Klinesmith and her colleagues at Knox College in Illinois found another explanation for such an effect.121 Male students had their testosterone levels measured prior to the experiment. Students in one group were then encouraged to handle a gun, while the other group played a game. Subsequent measurement of their testosterone levels found that those handling the gun had a greater increase in their testosterone levels. Each group was then given an opportunity to engage in aggressive behavior, and those who had handled the gun displayed more aggression. Furthermore, those showing greater increases in testosterone level showed more aggressive behavior than others. The study suggests that the presence of guns may produce hormonal changes in males that then elicit aggressive behavior.”
― Fred Guttenberg, American Carnage: Shattering the Myths That Fuel Gun Violence

“Intervening in an active shooter situation is the work of SWAT teams rather than teachers. Any possible benefit would be outweighed by the change in the teacher’s role from one of educator to that of security provider in a militarized zone.”
― Fred Guttenberg, American Carnage: Shattering the Myths That Fuel Gun Violence

“Sepsis, a potentially life-threatening condition caused by the body’s response to an infection, kills the same number of people each year as gunfire, but receives 100 times the funding.3”
― Fred Guttenberg, American Carnage: Shattering the Myths That Fuel Gun Violence

“•A number of state Supreme Court rulings have also taken the position that public safety takes precedence over rights enshrined in the Constitution. In 1874 in the case of Hill v. State, the Georgia Supreme Court held that the state’s ban on carrying guns in churches, polling places, and courts was constitutional because the right to bear arms does not override safety considerations. That Court would have characterized today’s “guns everywhere” laws in states like Georgia as barbaric and as a sign of failure of institutions to protect the public:”
― Fred Guttenberg, American Carnage: Shattering the Myths That Fuel Gun Violence

“•US and state Supreme Court rulings have often shown that public safety is the first priority of government. In New York v. Quarles, the US Supreme Court recognized that the public safety risks produced by a single unsecured gun can outweigh Fifth Amendment rights.236 In that case, a woman claimed she was raped by an armed man. When the suspect was apprehended, the officer questioned him about the location of his gun without giving Miranda warnings. The Supreme Court refused to exclude the suspect’s response as to the location of the gun because the danger created by the gun “presents a situation where concern for public safety must be paramount[.]” The firearm, which the suspect had concealed in a supermarket, posed a potential danger to public safety since an accomplice might use it or an employee might gain possession of it. The Court’s ruling regarding the admissibility of the suspect’s response showed that the public safety issues raised by a gun in this case outweighed the Fifth Amendment right of suspects.”
― Fred Guttenberg, American Carnage: Shattering the Myths That Fuel Gun Violence

“•Amnesty further notes that, as part of the right to life and other human rights, the responsibility of nations to prevent gun violence requires: (1) restricting access to firearms, especially on the part of those at an elevated risk of misusing them; and (2) implementing violence reduction measures where misuse of firearms persists. The human rights group asserts that nations “should establish robust regulatory systems,” including licensing, registration, restriction of certain weapon types, safe storage, research, and policy development. Nationally, the US has done little or nothing in relation to any of these policies for more than twenty-five years, and, due to the influence of the gun lobby, has seen Congress suppress funding for research on gun violence since 1996. Amnesty notes that countries not only have obligations to protect the lives of individuals from state agents but from actual or foreseeable threats at the hands of private individuals as well. Violence is especially foreseeable in low-income neighborhoods with persistently high levels of violence, poor public services, and policing that may not comply with international standards.”
― Fred Guttenberg, American Carnage: Shattering the Myths That Fuel Gun Violence

“Tom Gabor, the first author, has calculated the odds of being murdered with a firearm in a number of advanced countries.132 While one in every 29,000 Americans will be murdered with a gun each year, the odds are much lower in other countries: Israel = one in 95,000; Canada = one in 271,000; Australia = one in 655,000; and in Germany, the UK, and Japan, the odds of being murdered with a gun in any given year is less than one in a million.”
― Fred Guttenberg, American Carnage: Shattering the Myths That Fuel Gun Violence

“Dayton’s police chief, Richard Biehl, had the following to say about the futility of the rapid response by his officers to the 2019 shooting in the city’s Oregon District: Despite their best efforts, their heroic efforts, their extraordinarily rapid response to this horrific threat doing what has really rarely been done anywhere in the country to stop a threat that soon, and still nine dead and 20 others injured…It’s amazing the harm a person can cause in such an extraordinarily short period of time when they have a high-velocity weapon with an enormous amount of ammunition…There’s a balance between protecting oneself and providing weapons and equipment that allows mass shootings to occur and for victims to be injured or killed at a rate of more than 1 per second, which happened in the Oregon district…That’s unconscionable and that’s something that can’t be deemed reasonable.111”
― Fred Guttenberg, American Carnage: Shattering the Myths That Fuel Gun Violence

“An analysis conducted by the first author in his book Confronting Gun Violence in America found that the ten states with the weakest gun laws had over twice the gun death rate as the ten states with the strongest gun laws.101 Thus, gun deaths are linked more closely to gun ownership and weak gun laws than they are to urban living.”
― Fred Guttenberg, American Carnage: Shattering the Myths That Fuel Gun Violence