Since you view the VPC with such jaundice, let’s eliminate their assessment of the CDC data and look at the text of the report itself, starting with a summary that recapitulates what I’ve been trying to convey:

“Although violent crime rates have declined in recent years, the U.S. rate of firearm-related deaths is the highest among industrialized countries. In 2010, incidents in the United States involving firearms injured or killed more than 105,000 individuals; there were twice as many nonfatal firearm-related injuries (73,505) than deaths. Nonfatal violence often has significant physical and psychological impacts, including psychological outcomes for those in proximity to individuals who are injured or die from gun violence.”

I have never disputed the fact that crime rates in general are down in the US. I’ve stated this repeatedly. Regardless, we stil have the highest per capita number of firearm-related injuries and deaths. Also from the report: “the U.S. rate of firearm-related homicide is higher than that of any other industrialized country: 19.5 times higher than the rates in other high-income countries.”

My question is: Why should this be acceptable or good enough for America?

Violent crime and gun death and injury are not the same thing. Violent crime can be relatively low, but deaths or injuries from guns can rise and fall in relation to it. The two data sets are not yoked, though they can overlap.

In states with liberal gun laws and greater access to guns, gun deaths (from all causes, not just violent crime) are significantly higher than in states with tighter laws (including more expansive background checks). There are a number of links to this data from different sources. This is one of them: http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/firearms-death-rate-per-100000/

You can check the stats in the Kaiser data against maps of the states where gun laws are relatively liberal, including open or concealed carry, etc.: http://www.opencarry.org/?page_id=101

Our society is constantly changing in its attitude toward guns. Though violent crime is falling, a Pew study found that “the vast majority of gun owners say that having a gun makes them feel safer. And far more today than in 1999 cite protection – rather than hunting and other activities – as the main reason for why they own guns” (Pew Research Center, 2013)

This suggests that while crime is down, but people don’t feel safer.

Moreover, gun sales spike every time there’s a high profile shooting. What’s bad for the individuals and communities involved is very good for the gun industry. It’s unfortunate, but there it is.

You ask:

1) As each state has returned to Defensive Carry what has happened to the crime rates in those states?

Again, I’m not arguing crime rates. Or even that guns can be used to protect kith and kin or property. If I lived in rural Montana or Texas, I might consider gun ownership prudent. As it is, I have several reasons for not owning guns. It would not be rational for me to insist that because I wouldn’t own a gun no one should. Nor would I suggest that a gun is always the best option for protection, even if you own one. The friend I mentioned who taught me how to handle firearms recently had a young man sexually harass her in her home. What saved her, however, was not a gun. The guns were locked up in well-hidden safe. What saved her was her Great Dane, who apparently offered to eat the guy.

2) Has an increase in the number of guns and gun owners been matched by an increase in violent crime?

Again, violent crime is not the issue that I’m raising. It’s access to guns by people not able, for whatever reason, of handling them safely. Or who are willing to use them to settle domestic disputes or express their displeasure at someone else’s behavior. The statistics on American gun deaths and injuries are not in dispute; our rate is significantly higher than any other industrialized nation. This statistic are meaningful independently of the stats for violent crime.

3) Is violence in the US distributed evenly among the entire population, or is it confined to a few densely populated areas?

Of course, it’s not evenly distributed. Who suggested that it was? Urban areas have the most gun violence that is gang-related, while most of the accidental deaths—self-inflicted and perpetrated—appear to come from more rural areas of states in which gun ownership (access) is high, and there are relatively liberal laws pertaining to gun ownership. We get shootings here in the California ‘burbs, too. Several in the last year. There’s a memorial shrine under a tree one block from our house because someone with a gun lost his temper with someone outside the local 7-11.

4) Is violence in the US distributed evenly among the entire population, or are most offenders and their victims members of violently criminal subcultures?

It’s no surprise that violent criminals come from violent subcultures. I’m not arguing that they don’t. But either are gun-related injuries and deaths limite to those violent subcultures. But, again, the issue is not violent crime. Looking at a collection of weekly reports from across the country, there are significant deaths and injuries that are inflicted by children on other children and even adults, accidental shootings by people who were “playing” with a gun when it went off, and even a handful of cases where someone dropped a gun and it went off. Some of the accident prone and victims are law enforcement officers and military. Then there are the cases like the recent one in which a man barged into the home of his ex-wife’s sister and shot six members of a family, leaving only one child alive. These cases happen all too frequently, but most of them do not make the national news—I think because they DO happen frequently enough that they become normalized.

I don’t know about you, but I refuse to take these deaths as a normal part of the American landscape. Acceptable amounts of collateral damage. Something we don’t want to talk about for whatever reasons.

To be frank, I’m more concerned about these deaths because I think they’re preventable and symptomatic of a facet of this issue that looking at crime stats misses: a casual, even careless attitude toward guns, coupled with access (guns left out and loaded in a family room, left in a mother’s purse, etc) is taking a toll on families in states where guns are treated as if they were just a harmless toy. These are the states contributing to the statistics that tell us gun-related injuries and deaths are higher in states that have liberal gun laws.

I can’t take the attitude that it’s just natural selection cleaning out the gene pool. These are human beings who have broken families because someone was careless with a weapon.

Access is an issue that begs scrutiny, but also education and basic gun safety. We require people to pass a driving test—either written or behind the wheel at various times to make sure they remember how to handle a car safely. Wouldn’t you agree that, given the power of a gun, similar care should be taken?

I was going to challenge you to go to the VPC’s youtube video page and watch the videos they host titled “Proof that Concealed Carry permit holders live in a dream world” and then ask how these lies, half-truths, irrelevancies, & standard gun nutter talking points qualified as loving speech.

With the VPC issue laid to rest I would then invite you to look at the other links with a viewpoint that should now be unbiased in terms of thinking I’ve claimed the links are from the VPC.

I would follow with asking if you really believe gun owners & gun issues get a fair chance from the MSM & gun nutter politicians?

But I’ve decided not to.

Instead I’m going to ask you the following questions

1) As each state has returned to Defensive Carry what has happened to the crime rates in those states?

2) Has an increase in the number of guns and gun owners been matched by an increase in violent crime?

3) Is violence in the US distributed evenly among the entire population, or is it confined to a few densely populated areas?

4) Is violence in the US distributed evenly among the entire population, or are most offenders and their victims members of violently criminal subcultures?

If you can answer these then we could have a meaningful discussion, but would we really need to?

(I’m a supporter of the second amendment, have been a sport shooter all my life and until recently always considered myself fairly conservative – but because I don’t advocate tearing down the government by force apparently I’m part of the problem – according to some)

I’m perfectly happy to do research. I’ve done a great deal of it. The problem is that the amount of research I’ve done is irrelevant. You have made your own assumptions about what I do or do not know or do or do not understand because we disagree on some points (although even that isn’t certain). Nothing I say is likely to change your opinion about me simply because you view me as having a dissenting opinion.

At this point, we’re talking past each other and you’ve made assertions that, when I ask you to provide evidence, you simply denigrate me personally.

The data are not dissonant. They are measures of different things. Let me be clear—my point in saying that my best friends are gun enthusiasts was to disabuse you of the idea that I’m afraid of guns. I’m not.

Let me disabuse you of further misapprehension: I don’t think you’re evil, and it’s that sort of polarizing rhetoric that makes it impossible to grapple with our overlapping problems—of which access to and attitudes about guns are only a factor.

If you don’t want to present evidence that the VPC is using hate speech against gun owners, fine. If you want to hold me responsible for the rhetoric of anti-gun polemists, it’s your party. If you don’t want to discuss ways in which we can address gun violence without trampling on anyone’s rights, fine. If you refuse to hear that I’m not arguing the numbers from the UCR and BJS, that’s also fine. It’s not just, but it’s within your rights. You can also attack me personally—that’s your prerogative. I refuse to return the favor.

You seem well-spoken and intelligent. But you’re not hearing what I’m really saying, so I don’t expect this dialogue will ultimately bear fruit. Sorry about that.

If you can’t parse that the first example, referring to the VPC’s brand of insanity, described as a youtube video, and meant as a singular example, is it worth the effort to converse with you?

Your attempts to spin the reports from major news agencies, the New York Times, CNN, FOX as the work of individual bloggers is as ludicrous as claiming such propaganda doesn’t shape the dialogue or legislation

If these kinds of mediapathic reports didn’t shape opinion, how the heck do you think the whole notion that we have a ‘gun problem’ got started in the first place?

Viewing the relevant data is useless if you aren’t asking the right questions.

Besides the FBI data is only part of the puzzle, you need the data from the BJS if you’re seeking an informed opinion on these issues.

You also have to know the history of gun control legislation & the history of Defensive Carry legislation, without that data you’ll remain clueless.

Some of your best friends are gun owners? And some of my best friends are Jews.

Look humans are messy, careless, and accident prone, but accidental gun deaths have stayed flat, about 650 or so a year for at least the last 2 decades.

650 is barely a drop in the bucket when compared to all the other interesting ways 2 million plus of us find to do ourselves in annually.

If you were concerned about accidental death rather than accidental gun death you would be campaigning for safer swing sets, or mandatory swimming survival training for infants

And suicide is sad but do you know what separates suicidal people from the rest of us? They kill themselves, if they can’t use a gun they’ll use a rope, or poison, or a knife or…I’m not doing the whole laundry list

Again if you were concerned about suicide instead of gun suicides you would be looking for ways to decrease suicidal ideation. (Hint, making people believe they have no say in their lives is profoundly depressing)

I’m don’t care if people think I’m dangerous, what I object to is being accused of being EVIL, simply because I own & carry guns.

Which brings us to your threat assessment skills.
When you encounter a stranger, whether they are openly armed or not, you don’t know how big a threat they are to you and yours.

If they attack you, whether they are armed or not, if you are armed then at the very worst have a parity of force. If you are unarmed then you are stuck with ‘might makes right’. You may claim you don’t want to live in such a world, wouldn’t it be worse to die there?

A calm rational discussion will only be possible once you have all the data. Until you do any such discussion is worthless