A pair of shoes for every child killed by gun violence since Sandy Hook

60% of gun deaths in the US are suicides. We won’t count those because 1. They are suicides and 2. Studies such on one done on men over 55 (and common sense) indicate that where those gun suicides are reduced there are corresponding and almost equal rises in other types of suicide for that group. In short- with suicide a person is or isn’t going to do it regardless of how. So that’s about 11-15,000 gun homicides a year including school shootings. That’s a lot of people. The most conservative government and independent estimates say that 60,000 people a year have used a gun in self defense against violent crime. The highest I’ve seen is 3 million, and the CDC’s study showed 2.5 million! So even if we go conservative we have 6x the lives saved...

Now- we must also remember that many cases of “defense” by firearm go unreported because users tend to not want the legal hassle, and that we cant actually measure how many crimes have been deterred because a gun was present. An independent study by a college shows that of REPORTED incidents about .9 percent of people involved in violent crimes actually discharged or reported leveraging a gun against an attacker. However that is ONLY violent crimes, only 30% of Americans own guns, and the areas with the highest violent crime also happen to be ones with little or no right to carry and laws which make use for self defense outside (and often inside) the home unrealistic. Only about 3 million Americans carry a gun every day which is roughly... 0.09% of Americans.... strange.... so less than a tenth of a percent of Americans carry guns that could help against crime, but almost 1% by the MOST conservative figure, done by an Ivy League school, have used guns for defense....

Of mass shootings- a debatable 74% of guns used are obtained legally. That means that 78 people have legally purchased guns and used them for mass shootings. So even if we take that figure at face value, and the figure that there is 1 gun for every 3 Americans in legal possession meaning over 100 million guns in private hands conservatively- 78 of those guns owners have committed a mass shooting- or 0.0078% of gun owners. That makes a person over 100x more likely to use a gun in self defense and an insane number of times more likely to conduct themselves legally in ownership and never fire a shot in anger. A field of shoes is very emotionally stirring- and it IS a tragedy. However the numbers show cold that guns aren’t the problem here. There IS a problem but people need to look at something other than a blind and emotional scapegoating of guns.

I think a death before consciousness for a baby is better than a terrible life that they can't be sufficiently raised in and thus may very well die because their parents can't afford or raise them

Sorry but no. Please reconsider your way of thinking.