Gun Violence Quotes

Personally, I think we should remove the word "shooting" from the vernacular. It's an ugly, biased word that somehow creates the assumption that a gun was involved. Let's go with 'Interpersonal Ballistic Event' (IBE). ~ Quentin R. Bufogle

I had the vague notion that bearing arms was in poor taste. Unless you were terribly wealthy, hunting was for the brutish lower class, uncivilized country folk, primitive types, people who were dumb and callous and ugly. Violence was just another function of the body, no less unusual than sweating or vomiting. It sat on the same shelf as sexual intercourse. The two got mixed up quite often, it seemed. ~ Ottessa Moshfegh

Lenny's head pounds, in time with the truck's jolts, the women's mouths, the metallic hard-on. The shouts of hate, which he knows in his immortal dove soul are really love, love, love. ~ Laura Elizabeth Woollett

Probably fewer than 2% of handguns and well under 1% of all guns will ever be involved in a violent crime. Thus, the problem of criminal gun violence is concentrated within a very small subset of gun owners, indicating that gun control aimed at the general population faces a serious needle-in-the-haystack problem. ~ Gary Kleck

Our love affair with guns has nothing to do with tyranny, or militias, or self-preservation. Just ask any NRA member the following: If Jesus Christ himself were to come down off the cross and grant you one wish, would you opt for a world without guns
or the one we live in now? If every gun owner truly feared for their life and liberty, the answer would be obvious. But it's not about life and liberty. It's all about the sheer hard-on of owning a gun. ~ Quentin R. Bufogle

We bumped into other silent lines of kids going in the same direction. We looked like we were much younger and our lines were headed to the cafeteria or recess or the carpool line. Or it could've been a fire drill. Except for the stone-faced police officers weaving between us with rifles. ~ Laura Anderson Kurk

There's no evidence that registering guns reduces the level of gun violence. It's not that I don't think it's something worth doing, (but) it's something you do much later. ~ Kim Campbell

The ban on assault weapons has decreased gun violence in Baltimore not one iota. That's because few, if any, of the shootings were done with assault weapons. ~ Gregory Kane

The amount of educational programming on television today is simply desensitizing. The only reason left to go to school is to see gun violence. ~ Bauvard

The NRA disgraced itself this morning with a self-serving press event in which they demonized the media and the entertainment industry for gun violence in America, and advocated a national data base for all mentally ill persons. They apparently want armed guards in all American schools, and it seems, armed volunteers as well. Shocking. ~ Anne Rice

Today I am a lens, a pen, a gun. ~ Caroline Bock

The amount of coercion needed to make society adhere to the model is "a rough measure of the model's validity." "That the Soviet Union had to use so much coercion undermined the credibility of communism as a model of reality," he said. "It is perhaps symptomatic that the USA, a society that elevates freedom to the highest position among its values, is also the one that has one of the very largest penal systems in the world relative to its population. It also inflicts violence all over the world. It tolerates a great deal of gun violence, and a health service that excludes large numbers of people. ~ Chris Hedges

To end the crisis [of gun violence], we have to regulate -or, in the case of handguns and assault weapons, completely ban -the product. We are far past the [point] where registration, licensing, safety training, background checks, or waiting periods will have much effect on firearms violence. ~ Josh Sugarmann

All along I've had to defend my right to get help. ~ Gail Bell

Just a thought for all you God-fearin', gun-lovin', Bible-thumpin' 2nd Amendment patriots. If it turns out Heaven's a gun-free zone, what's plan B??? ~ Quentin R. Bufogle

I could've gone on and on but the truth was all that mattered.
My brother died because someone was jealous. ~ Laura Anderson Kurk

I do believe that, where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Why ban guns? Let's give everyone a rocket launcher! What could possibly go wrong? ~ Oliver Markus Malloy

We must all take care to resist the tendency to focus too much attention on the role that criminals and prior offenders play in gun violence. ~ James Florio

In the absence of a Congress ready to act to reduce gun violence, we will keep working to create a different Congress. ~ Gabrielle Giffords

We know we can't stop every act of violence, every act of evil in the world, but maybe we could try to stop one act of evil, one act of violence. ~ Barack Obama

In my lifetime, we have lost a President, a Civil Rights leader and a Presidential candidate - all to gun violence. ~ Marianne Williamson

In 1990, when we started the Black Community Crusade for Children, we were always talking about all children, but we paid particular attention to children who were not white, who were poor, who were disabled, and who were the most vulnerable.Parents didn't think their children would live to adulthood, and the children didn't think they were going to live to adulthood. That's when we started our first gun-violence campaign. We've lost 17 times more young black people to gun violence since 1968 than we lost in all the lynching in slavery. ~ Marian Wright Edelman

The NRA brainwashes you into believing that you need to buy a bunch of guns, to protect yourself from all the people with guns. ~ Oliver Markus Malloy

The proven method for saving the lives of innocent Americans is not disarming them. The proven method for saving the lives of innocent Americans is to arrest, prosecute, convict and jail criminal offenders, especially armed career criminals illegally using guns. This is the way to reduce gun violence. ~ Jeff Sessions

Naked flights of art unshackled and incandescent songs of poetry undiluted return to the soul what hate, ignorance, fear, and violence steal from the heart. ~ Aberjhani

Ultimately the gun is the backstop that prevents the entire social order from being upended. Had it not been for the superior firepower of fearful whites, who knows what would have transpired in American history? You can understand why, in a such a situation, certain kinds of white southerners would cling to their guns. Today Americans still rely on the gun, [...],to preserve the social order [...]. ~ Chris Hayes

In light of all the gun violence in the USA, I'd prefer my democracy unleaded. ~ Jayseth Guberman

There are no free and democratic and wealthy countries in the world that have US rate of gun violence. We have to worry about loners and alienated people. We have to do better on mental health. ~ David Brooks

It was especially striking to me to learn that gun violence is specifically a women's issue: women in America are eleven times more likely to be murdered with guns than women in other developed nations. ~ Amy Schumer

If guns don't kill people, why do mass killers arm themselves with guns? ~ DaShanne Stokes

There's no more personal issue than gun violence; every one of these stories is a life lost, i'm hoping that over the long term, as I tell these stories, that it will help to open people's eyes. ~ Chris Murphy

If you're one of those delusional 2nd Amendment types who believes you and your trailer park 'militia' might need to take on the Army, the Navy, the 101st Airborne and SEAL Team 6; not only should you be denied the right to bear arms
but the right to your belt & shoelaces as well ... 'cause you're stark, ravin' batshit!!! ~ Quentin R. Bufogle

The number of Americans killed since 9/11 by terrorism, it's less than 100. If you look at the number that have been killed by gun violence, it's in the tens of thousands. And for us not to be able to resolve that issue has been something that is distressing. ~ Barack Obama

We don't have a gun problem; we have a math problem: ZERO GUNS = ZERO GUN-RELATED DEATHS. ~ Quentin R. Bufogle

Fixing a broken immigration system. Protecting our kids from gun violence. Equal pay for equal work, paid leave, raising the minimum wage. All these things still matter to hardworking families; they are still the right thing to do; and I will not let up until they get done. ~ Barack Obama

While different states and cities might look to different strategies for protecting public safety, we all can agree on this: we lose too many American lives to gun violence. ~ Martin O'Malley

Today I am a lens, a pen, a gun.
p. 1 ... Before My Eyes ... look for it on 2.11.14 ~ Caroline Bock

Guns kill far more quickly and efficiently than knives, or crossbows, or toenail clippers; and, unlike bombs, you don't need to build one in your basement
they come ready-made! There's a reason why guns are the overwhelming weapon of choice among mass murderers. ~ Quentin R. Bufogle

Each and every child in this country is valuable because they are our future as a society. We cannot afford to lose a single child to ill-health, under-education, abuse, addiction, jail, or gun violence. America's highest goal should be for every child to grow up to be a successful young adult
healthy, educated, free, secure, and a good citizen. ~ John F. Kerry

Making improvements to our background check system and cracking down on illegal gun trafficking are common-sense ways to prevent violence without punishing law abiding gun owners. We owe it to the American people to take real action to reduce gun violence in our communities. ~ Martin Heinrich

As a former District Attorney and Attorney General, I know the urgency of providing safe homes, schools and neighborhoods for all. This remarkable tour-de-force is a powerful study of one promising solution: a data-rich, eminently readable demonstration of why we should treat gun violence as an American epidemic. ~ Scott Harshbarger

Capitalism is cruelty for money. ~ Oliver Markus Malloy

A blanket could be used to stop gun violence. Make sleep, not war. ~ Jarod Kintz

There are certain things in gun control that have a certain public appeal, but when you're legislating you need to look at the research on what works, what doesn't, and what really has an impact, recognizing you're never going to do away entirely with gun violence ~ Kim Campbell

When the NSSF fights against legislation designed to prevent mass shootings because it "won't work and is a violation of rights," we understand that many people agree with that argument. But that's not, at all, even a little bit why the organization lobbies so hard. It works hand in hand with the NRA and certain senators, and spends millions of dollars per year for one reason and one reason only: to make more money. And every time a shooting happens, it makes even more money.

Yes. For real. When a mass shooting makes national headlines, the gun lobby purposefully stokes up fear and paranoia over proposed new gun laws so that scared citizens get out their checkbooks and buy a new AR-15 (or sporting rifle). So why would the NSSF have any interest in stopping mass shootings? Why would it engage politically and invest in compromise, a reform plan that attempts to make all Americans safer, or any sort of reckoning of the role guns play in gun violence? It won't.

However you feel about guns and their place in America - whether we're talking about rifles for hunting or assault rifles, or anything in between - it's undeniable that the gun lobby has refused to acknowledge or entertain any sort of regulation or reform aimed at making us a safer and saner nation. The reason why: because that does not make it more money. A customer base kept terrified at all times that this will be "the last chance before the government bans" whatever gun manufacturers are peddlin ~ Trae Crowder

Apparently, the heart of opposition to new gun regulations is in the white community. Yet white people face far less daily violence with guns. ~ Juan Williams

The thought of just how inadequate the body's natural defenses --skull, bone, brain-- were in the face of the advanced physics-- lead, gun-powder, momentum -- of invented death. It all seemed so absurd to him: that a life comprising so many accumulated years could be interrupted with such indifferent swiftness. ~ Adam Sternbergh

The ice cold fear I'd felt, not knowing if Wyatt was alive, pressed into the wall with other girls and surrounded by guys who were unspeakably brave, hit my body again in a wave. This was trauma - the gift that keeps on giving. ~ Laura Anderson Kurk

Why ban guns? Let's give everyone rocket launchers! What could possibly go wrong? ~ Oliver Markus Malloy

So long as you have a society with a lot of guns- and America has more guns per capita than any other county in the world- children will be at risk of being shot. The questions are how much risk, and what, if anything, is being done to minimize it? If one thinks of various ways in which commonplace items, from car seats to medicine bottle tops, have been childproofed, it's clear that society's general desire has been to eliminate as many potential dangers from children as possible, even when the number of those who might be harmed is relatively small. If one child's death is preventable, then the proper question isn't "Why should we do this" but rather "Why shouldn't we?" It would be strange for that principle to apple to everything but guns. ~ Gary Younge

We actually do have a lot of guns. There's a lot of hunting in Norway. But there's almost no gun violence."
"Why do you think that is?"
"On a fundamental level," says Sigrid, "I think it's because we don't want to shoot each other."
"That could be our problem right there," says Melinda ~ Derek B. Miller

We know that there are several predisposing factors to gun violence: poverty, lack of education, lack of good parenting, lack of jobs, living in an environment where violence is seen every day, all the time. And children being born to children are likely to have all of these predisposing factors. ~ Joycelyn Elders

When nearly 3,000 people died on 9/11, it was enough to create massive change in our society. Over ten times as many people die from guns each year. Where is the social change? ~ DaShanne Stokes

To all the kids from the "special" reading class back in high school (the one where you tried to form words using wooden blocks)
PLEASE stop telling me that I can't blame an "inanimate object" for the off-the-hook gun violence in this country. YES! ... I CAN!!! I blame all the "inanimate objects" in Congress who refuse to pass sensible gun legislation because they're too chicken-shit to take on Wayne LaPierre and the gun lobby. ~ Quentin R. Bufogle

We have to go to war against the people who enable the gun violence, the people who stop us from keeping guns out of the hands of mentally unstable people, of felons, and that means the NRA leadership. ~ Jerrold Nadler

If the GOP truly cared about saving lives, they'd stop blocking gun violence research. ~ DaShanne Stokes

Citizenship means standing up for the lives that gun violence steals from us each day. I have seen the courage of parents, students, pastors, and police officers all over this country who say 'we are not afraid,' and I intend to keep trying, with or without Congress, to help stop more tragedies from visiting innocent Americans in our movie theaters, shopping malls, or schools like Sandy Hook. ~ Barack Obama

If you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns. The first people who are going to be in line to turn in their guns are law-abiding citizens. Criminals are going to be left with guns. I believe that concealed carry is a way of reducing gun violence. ~ Gary Johnson

It's not the gun you should be scared of - it's the crazy man with the gun ~ Jennifer McMahon

Every day in America is a day with a shooting. ~ Bill Maher

Most people are slow to champion love because they fear the transformation it brings into their lives. And make no mistake about it: love does take over and transform the schemes and operations of our egos in a very mighty way. ~ Aberjhani

Moments ago, the U.S. Senate decided to do the unthinkable about gun violence
nothing at all. Over two years ago, when I was shot point-blank in the head, the U.S. Senate chose to do nothing. Four months ago, 20 first-graders lost their lives in a brutal attack on their school, and the U.S. Senate chose to do nothing. It's clear to me that if members of the U.S. Senate refuse to change the laws to reduce gun violence, then we need to change the members of the U.S. Senate. ~ Gabrielle Giffords

Homicide through gun violence is the leading cause of death among young African American males in the United States. If people look a certain way, they have a higher tendency of dying, of having their lives taken away. ~ Ryan Coogler

Most studies find that each murder in America leads to costs of between $10 million and $12 million, including police and prison bills and social services for families of victims and perpetrators. The University of Chicago Crime Lab calculates that gun violence costs every Chicago household about $2,500 a year. Crime ~ Nicholas D. Kristof

If violence is wrong in America, violence is wrong abroad. If it is wrong to be violent defending black women and black children and black babies and black men, then it is wrong for America to draft us, and make us violent abroad in defense of her. And if it is right for America to draft us, and teach us how to be violent in defense of her, then it is right for you and me to do whatever is necessary to defend our own people right here in this country. ~ Malcolm X

Wanna know what a bullet feels like, Warren? A real one? It's not like in the comics ... I think you need to. Feel it ... It's not going to make a neat little hole. First - it'll obliterate your internal organs. Your lung will collapse, feels like drowning ... When it finally hits your spine, it'll blow your central nervous system- ... I'm talking. The pain will be unbearable, but you won't be able to move ... A bullet usually travels faster than this, of course. But the dying? It seems like it takes forever. Something, isn't it? One tiny piece of metal destroys everything. It ripped her insides out ... It took her light away. From me. From the world ... And now the one person who should be here is gone - and a waste like you gets to live. A tiny piece of metal. Can you feel it now? ~ Joss Whedon

You don't need a weapon to protect yourself. ~ Bill Maher

Gun violence has cost us too many political leaders, and hardly ever the worst ones. ~ P. J. O'Rourke

America: Land of the free and home of the gun.
We are not brave, we are cowards, or we would have done something, anything after Newtown. Instead we did Nothing. ~ Jonathan Heatt

When a country with less than five percent of the world's population has nearly half of the world's privately owned guns and makes up nearly a third of the world's mass shootings, it's time to stop saying guns make us safer. ~ DaShanne Stokes

We must urge a national dialogue on better methods of curbing preventable gun violence, and address the need for mental health awareness and access to psychiatric services in this country. ~ Charles B. Rangel

I don't view myself as a victim of gun violence. I view myself as a victim of a maniac who happened to use a gun as a tool, and I view myself as a victim of the legislators at the time who left me defenseless. ~ Suzanna Hupp

Forget the National Debt Clock. We need an electronic billboard to track all the daily shootings in this country. I'm really sick of listening to all the mouth breathers who soil their camouflage pants every time someone suggests we might have a gun problem. Other countries have crazy, violent people. What they don't have is 300,000,000 WMDs and a gun show loophole that allows any psycho with a valid credit card to own 'em. ~ Quentin R. Bufogle

Guns make losers feel like winners. That's why people who suck at life don't want to give up their guns. ~ Oliver Markus Malloy

The Brady Act was passed in response to what Congress described as an 'epidemic of gun violence.' ~ David Souter

There's a big overlap between conspiracy theorists, racists, gun nuts, doomsday preppers, fans of the rapture and poor white Republicans. They all have one thing in common: They feel like the oppressed underdogs. ~ Oliver Markus Malloy

But the pistol, this Walther ... it was as if it had been made for the express purpose of shooting people. With a chill Richie realized that was why it had been made. What else could you do with a pistol? Use it to light your cigarettes? ~ Stephen King

Before you're allowed to own a .44, your IQ should be higher than .44. ~ Quentin R. Bufogle

Saying gun control hurts our freedom is a false argument amounting to propaganda. Gun laws don't curtail freedom any more than speed limits or seat belts. You still get to drive your car and have guns, we're just trying to save lives as you do. ~ DaShanne Stokes

Let them have guns' is as much a solution to mass murder and gun violence as 'Let them have drugs' is a solution to drug addiction. ~ DaShanne Stokes

Gabby Giffords deserves a vote. The families of Newtown deserve a vote. The families of Aurora deserve a vote. The families of Oak Creek, and Tucson, and Blacksburg, and the countless other communities ripped open by gun violence - they deserve a simple vote. ~ Barack Obama

Never did I fight for the poor. I fought against the rich
which of course isn't at all the same thing. In any case, the fighting was the point. You don't fight to become free
to fight is to be free. A man with a gun and the will to use it can't be mastered, he can only be killed. ~ James Carlos Blake

Synarchy and its Malcontents The purpose of this book is to provide a historical overview of secret societies and the threat they pose to the global population. It is not meant to purport any political overview, serve as an economic primer or foster xenophobic sentiment. The educated reader can, and likely will, come across suitable works in which he can make an informed viewpoint in this regard; and in all likelihood, he or she has already done so. But in researching this book, one particular strand tends to serve as a unifying factor behind the seeming disparity of these groups. That factor is that of a singular philosophy that seeks to construct a homogenized culture and governmental structure, wielding an inordinate and unassailable power, aided by the twin guardians of finance and cronyism. One in which dissent is silenced - by acts of violence if need be - by force, and control exerted over every aspect of its citizens lives, often unknowingly. ~ James Jackson

Memory taps a gun to your inner skull and demands you bring back the dead. ~ Donte Collins

Unfortunately, to try to disconnect faith from vision is to do violence to the whole personality, and the whole personality participates in the act of writing. The tensions of being a Catholic novelist are probably never balanced for the writer until the Church becomes so much a part of his personality that he can forget about her - in the same sense that when he writes, he forgets about himself. ~ Flannery O'Connor

My idea for a Buddhist video game: No guns. Self-immolate instead. Get reincarnated. Repeat until you find Nirvana. Takes forever to play. ~ Dan Spencer

Authority is like a Uniform while power is the gun. You need power to enforce authority just like a policeman on the highway, he is authorized by the law but without gun, even children can make a mockery of him. ~ Ikechukwu Izuakor

According to Herodotus, the ancient Persians felt that what was necessary in the background of a young man entering adulthood was his ability to ride, shoot straight, and speak the truth. Perhaps we should now grant our college degrees to young men who measure up to that standard. ~ Jeff Cooper

Every one of my positions cuts - out half the country. I'm pro-choice, I'm pro-gay rights, I'm pro-immigration, I'm against guns, I believe in Darwin. ~ Michael Bloomberg

I suspect that a greater and more insidious influence [than violence in movies] may lie in what they tell us about being in love, and how to conduct ourselves while in that condition. ~ David Thomson

Violence against women is the single greatest human rights violation of our generation, ~ Patrick Stewart

The good news from the U.S. military survey of focus groups is that Iraqis do accept the Nuremberg principles. They understand that sectarian violence and the other postwar horrors are contained within the supreme international crime committed by the invaders. ~ Noam Chomsky

Some thirty inches from my nose
The frontier of my Person goes,
And all the untilled air between
Is private pagus or demesne.
Stranger, unless with bedroom eyes
I beckon you to fraternize,
Beware of rudely crossing it:
I have no gun, but I can spit. ~ W. H. Auden

Be merciful to yourself, stop fighting yourself quite so much. Maybe what you are asking of yourself, what you're driving yourself to do or to be, what you put a gun to your own back to make yourself do, is something at this point you needn't have to think about doing. So, think back at the end of the day to the wars you're involved in. How are they going? ~ Frederick Buechner

Research has convincingly demonstrated that using the "rod" creates children who are not more obedient but who are instead simplymore angry and aggressive than other kids. Parents who routinely slap or strike their children are actually handing them a model of violence to imitate
and many do indeed grow to be abusive, some even murderously so. ~ Julius Segal

It's not the drug that causes the junkie it's the laws that causes the junkie because of course the drug laws means that he can't go and get help because he is afraid of being arrested. He also can't have a normal life because the war on drugs has made drugs so expensive and has made drug contracts unenforceable which means they can only be enforced through criminal violence.

It becomes so profitable to sell drugs to addicts that the drug dealers have every incentive to get people addicted by offering free samples and to concentrate their drug to the highest possible dose to provoke the greatest amount of addiction as possible.

Overall it is a completely staggering and completely satanic human calamity. It is the new gulag and in some ways much more brutal than the soviet gulag. In the soviet gulags there was not a huge prison rape problem and in this situation your life could be destroyed through no fault of your own through sometimes, no involvement of your own and the people who end up in the drug culture are walled off and separated as a whole and thrown into this demonic, incredibly dangerous, underworld were the quality of the drugs can't be verified. Were contracts can't be enforced except through breaking peoples kneecaps and the price of drugs would often led them to a life of crime.

People say "well, I became a drug addict and I lost my house, family, and my job and all that." It's not because you became a drug addict but, because t ~ Stefan Molyneux

Faced with the collapse of Iraq into something like Lebanon - or worse, Somalia - the Bush administration opted for a new counterinsurgency strategy. Violence was reduced because, for the first time since the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, Iraqis felt that there was a force capable of dominating the situation and ensuring basic order. ~ Noah Feldman

The magnitude gap is also reflected in different time perspectives. Oppression, violence, and cruelty fade much faster into the distant past for the perpetrator than for the victim. ~ Roy F. Baumeister

An ugly woman with an ugly gun is a terrible thing. ~ Ross Macdonald