Firearm Casualties


The conflict on gun rights: do lives even matter?
The conflict on gun rights: do lives even matter?
The conflict on gun rights: do lives even matter?
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Disinterest in The Founding Fathers Intent
Document Archive
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With Biden's 'Safer America' Plan, my seven years' work in gun control finally reaches fruition. Here iare my final words on it.
~ Ernest Meyer, September 2022


Created: Sept 2015
Modified: Sept 2022
Updated biannually

Although lethality is the proud objective of virtually all gun design, gunshot victims can take a while to die. Some last a few months. Sometimes organ failure can linger for a year or more before mortal wounds finally finish the victim off. If they survice more than two years, the CDC decides they are merely 'permanently wounded.' Despite firearm injuries oscillating wildly between two and five times more than the number of deaths, no one cares much about them at all. Meanwhile, there is a delay that firearm casualty analysts must patiently endure, while the deaths from prior years tick upwards. Eventually, public statistics are released for the frequently impassive dismissal of their significance, completely detached from the agony of those who perished, let alone the grief of their loved ones for their lost children, relatives, and friends. Instead, empathy for those who wrongly suffered is demeaned, amidst angry calls for the necessity of lethal self defense from gun profiteers and their supporters.

This is not to say the physically handicapped and otherwise vulnerable should not be able to avail themselves of the best self defense available. Yet the pervasive obsession with the right to kill by those who should be capable of non-lethal self defense has exceeded all humane proportions. One might rightly think this is not a nation of the free, but of cronies and wimps who think only of themselves.

Disinterest in The Founding Fathers Intent

While working on this topic for the last six years, I naively assumed people were ready to consider issues arising from promulgation of authority from natural rights to Constitutional rights. What I actually witness is ongoing arguments about the last four words of the 2nd Amendment, 'A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.' All 27 words already exceed the capacity of virtually all Americans for rational argument. As things are, it's absurd to expect that America as a nation could ever understand Locke's argument from a state of nature, derived from the natural law described on this site.

Document Archive

President Obama quoted the second 5,000-word letter I sent him (the first was on the Lockean interpretation of natural rights, which he had not heard about before). He very kindly started the speech 'earnestly,' as you will hear. The portion of my letter he quoted starts 'dead people had rights too' from 27m:45s to 29m:00s. The quote is only 90 seconds, but is quite famous, because he broke into tears while quoting me. Of course, NRA fans called them 'crocodile tears.' There is a description of our academic conclusions on the philosophy of law, revised a number of times to accommodate questions and criticisms since, on this site.


Third Eyes on Guns and Hate Propaganda

A blog describing the bizarre beliefs of the new Tea Party arising from NRA hate propaganda, with a historical and psychological explanation of how hate propaganda works. After sending this to John Oliver one Tuesday, he worked all week on a show deriding 'NRA TV,' appearing the on National TV the following Sunday. John Oliver agreed with this article's conclusion, also in my brief cover letter, that 'humor is the best possible way to counter NRA's hate propaganda.' the 'NRA TV' channel has since been taken off the air, and the spokesperson, Wayne LaPierre, has been demoted. A public version is being prepared on this site. Meanwhile, colleagues may find it in my LinkedIn Archive.

9/16 Firearm Casualities and Solutions Report



This report was considered by the US House Oversight and Reform committee, resulting in the HR5103 'Gun Violence Tax Bill.' However, due to pressure from Sandy Hook Promise, the House bill used the vastly inflated gun-violence cost estimate from Mother Jones (Miller, 2015; link inside the report's references). The bill was promptly thrown out. The report provides detailed research and analysis of the questions:

A download link is above and an online PDF reader is below.

The Benthamite Amendment (May 2020)

This is really a pointed humiliation of NRA's claim that more guns mean less crime. But as it were true, it proposes a gun-violence excise-tax, revenue from which would subsidize gun-violence costs, as well as first-gun purchases by low-income households, either from inventories of prior federal gun-buyback programs, or from gun manufacturers. Mandatory safety training is also recommended. This Amendment includes substantiating data, enhancements from NRA representatives; cost projections from a decade of CDC and DoJ data; and peer review of gun-safety analysis.'

An online PDF reader is below.


LinkedIn Archive (Access requires LinkedIn connection)

Natural Rights, Gun Rights, and Legal Rights (Jan 2015) starts "Natural law provides very clear answers on the gun rights versus gun control debate. But natural law, as it is invoked in USA's declaration of independence, requires accepting the existence of God, so natural law cannot be taught in American public schools. As a result, 99.9% of Americans on both 'sides' of the gun debate have opinions of the derived constitution that are very flawed. Here is a primer on natural law, and how it applies to gun liberties." In 2015, almost a dozen Constitutional Lawyers and professors reviewed with interest, including President Obama. It resulted in the State Supreme Courts approving city gun-violence taxes in Chicago, Seattle and Los Angeles.

Are Guns more Dangerous to Owners than Criminals - New findings are presented showing that a gun in the home increases risks of residents being shot to death by 3~4 orders of magnitude more than it is likely to stop a crime. Also, during attempts of self defense, 2 out of 3 firearm fatalities are accidental killings of family or friends, rather than of criminal aggressors. Additional data on domestic violence is presented. Peer reviewed by Dr. G. Wintemute, M.D., M.P.H., Professor, Emergency Medicine (UC Davis, CA); Director, Violence Prevention Research Program.