Record number of Americans buying guns, new FBI figures show

From http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/05/fbi-us-gun-control-record-number-buying

More than 2.4m gun background checks were initiated in January, topped only by last December's 2.7m

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'America is crazy for guns,' says Pam Bosley, mother of a young student shot dead in Chicago. 'We love guns more than life.' Photograph: Elaine Thompson/AP

Americans are lining up to buy guns in unprecedented numbers in the wake of the Newtown school shooting and the debate around tightening gun controls, with federal background checks on prospective buyers running at record levels.

New figures released by the FBI show that 2,495,440 gun background checks were initiated in January. That is the second highest number since records began in 1998, and is exceeded only by the entry for December 2012, which reached a peak of 2,783,765.

Columbus discovers America!

I was watching Marr's excellent "History of the World" on BBC tv - http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00xnrqg/Andrew_Marrs_History_of_the_World_Age_of_Plunder/, when it struck me that if ever there was a good example of the Law of Unintended Consequences, it was the so-called discovery of America by Christopher Columbus.  


Columbus was seeking the Far East by sailing west to cut short the multi-thousand mile land journey across deserts and mountains and through fierce-some tribes and brigands. Instead he found the new continent.  The unintended consequences go far beyond the mere discovery, it provide the 'old world' with staple foods like the potato and maize and the narcotic tobacco. It also meant over the next few century the devastation to the populations of South America, the Incas and the Mayans were wiped out by war and disease and the north American Indians met with no better fate. Followed by the enslavement of vast populations of east Africans.

American 'right to bear arms'

From Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/06/us-usa-wisconsin-shooting-obama-idUSBRE87516120120806?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2FtopNews+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Top+News%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher

The 'right to bear arms' is enshrined in the US constitution. But were the founding fathers aware of the Law of Unintended Consequences?

President Barack Obama answers a question about guns after he signs the Honoring America's Veterans and Caring for Camp Lejeune Families Act of 2012 while in the Oval Office of the White House August 6, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/Larry Downing

By Matt Spetalnick

WASHINGTON | Mon Aug 6, 2012 7:07pm 

President Barack Obama said on Monday that mass killings like the shooting rampage at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin were occurring with "too much regularity" and should prompt soul searching by all Americans, but he stopped short of calling for new gun-control laws.

"All of us are heart-broken by what happened," Obama told reporters at the White House a day after a gunman opened fire on Sikh worshippers preparing for religious services, killing six before he was shot dead by a police officer.

But when asked whether he would push for further gun-control measures in the wake of the shootings, Obama said only that he wanted to bring together leaders at all levels of American society to examine ways to curb gun violence.

That echoed his pledge last month in a speech in New Orleans to work broadly to "arrive at a consensus" on the contentious issue after a deadly Colorado shooting spree highlighted the problem in an election year.

But like his earlier comments, Obama offered no timetable or specifics for such discussions and did not call outright for tighter gun control laws.

Talk of reining in America's gun culture is considered politically risky for Obama, who is locked in a tight race against Republican challenger Mitt Romney for November election.

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Also, there is a novel based on this unique US position: "Unintended Consequences is a novel by John Ross, first published in 1996 by Accurate Press.^[1] 

The story chronicles the history of the gun culture, gun rights and gun control in the United States from the early 1900s through the late 1990s. Although clearly a work of fiction, the story is heavily laced with historical information, including real-life historical figures who play minor supporting roles. The novel also features unusually detailed and intricate facts, figures and explanations of many firearms-related topics. The cover has a picture of Lady Justice being assaulted by an ATF agent."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unintended_Consequences_(novel)