Gallup has long asked Americans whether they thought having a gun in their home would make their home “safer” or “more dangerous.” In 2000, 35 percent of Americans thought it would make them safer. Today, that number is at 63 percent.

What’s nearly as interesting is that, even as people are increasingly embracing the idea of guns in the home, the number of homes with guns in them hasn’t really risen.

In fact, the percentage of homes with guns in them — while steady during the 21st century, is actually down from the 1960s, ’70s, ’80s and even early 1990s. Currently, 42 percent of Americans have a gun in their home, according to Gallup’s data

via Why the NRA is so powerful, in 1 chart – The Washington Post.

It still amazes me that this graphic continues to be seen as correct without looking at the obvious. According the graphic, in 1994, 51% of the households in the US had at least one weapon. According to the Census Bureau, in 1994 there were an estimates 97 million households so we can safely assume that at least 48 million (rounded up for clarity’s sake) had a gun in it. But according to the same graphic, two tears later some 13 million homes dumped an equal amount of firearms without anybody noticing it.  That is some serious stealth tonnage that went unreported.

Of course there might be another explanation why so suddenly a boatload of households told the pollster that they had no guns: Fear of prosecution, lawsuits and confiscation.

This was the time of the Brady Bill, of the full media attacks against gun owners, of mayors demanding the NRA turn in its membership lists so they could sue or impose extra taxes on gun owners. So people back then got really skittish about sharing info about what they had in their homes and if somebody said “Well, I know you had a gun in your house” the smart-aleck response that lasts to this day was “It was lost in a tragic boat accident.”

Mine are still at the bottom of the river in case you need to know.

Er… no. That is not what we are talking about.

Via reddit.

Sign created by Matt Dawson.  I don’t think it is available in Pier One just yet.

Hat Tip Doug T.

115 is the number of Law Enforcement Officers killed in the Greater Caracas during 2014. The most recent killing occurred Friday at seven in the evening, when a member of Policaracas was shot in El Paraiso.

Commissioner Luis Guillermo Palacios (40), had 19 years  of service in the police force and that day he left his home in the San Martin Avenue to buy food at El Paraiso. He was off duty. He was on his bike when several suspects intercepted him as he moved through Plaza Washington  and shot him three times in the back. His family presumed he was killed to steal the weapon.

via 115 funcionarios de seguridad han sido asesinados este año – Sucesos. (Original article in Spanish & translated)

And yes, those 115 cops were killed to get their guns. The Gun Control Laws instituted in Venezuela are draconian to the point that no guns have been sold to private individual in over two years.  So, if you are a criminal and do not have a contact in the underworld for guns or they are asking too much for one, you go where you know there are: Cops.

As of today, forty police officer have fallen to gunfire in the Line of Duty in 2014 in the United States. Venezuela has almost tripled that amount…but bear in mind that the country is one tenth the population of the US. Now imagine if 400 LEOs were to be mowed down in 11 months and what kind of outrage and full-fledged operations against criminals we would be witnessing.

By the way, crime has not slowed down in Venezuela at all.  And Caracas has now the distinction to be the most violent city in the world.

But Gun Control works according to the intelligentsia.

After defeating Democratic state Senator Wendy Davis in a landslide, Texas Governor-elect Greg Abbott said Wednesday that if an ‘Open Carry’ bill is passed by the Texas Legislature, he would sign that bill into law.

via New Texas Gov. To Sign Open Carry Of Handguns Bill Into Law.

That the Open Carry bill in Texas would only cover sidearms and make the Open Carry of Long Guns illegal or restricted from/to range or hunting.  And I just have a feeling that exactly that may happen.