HopeTracker| Timothy Egan is a self-described third-generation Westerner who have lived in and around guns his entire life.  Writing “Myth of the Hero Gunslinger” for the NYT, Egan says that the argument that more guns will make people safer is flawed. This argument is front and center in the wake of the Tucson shootings.

Arizona is moving to legislate guns in the schools, and yes, packing a pistol in Congress will become law if Texas Republican Rep Louie Gohmert’s bill to allow firearms in the Capitol Building passes.

Are control control advocates just spineless, American whimps?

Gun Holders 4.5 Times More Likely to Be Shot in Assault

Egan suggests we have brains and common sense, citing a 2009 survey by the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine finding that rather than protecting gun-toters from being shot in an assault, he/she was four times more likely to be shot when confronted by an armed assailant.

In Philadelphia about 5 people are shot every day and one dies. The study concluded that people with a gun were 4.5 times more likely to be shot in an assault than those not possessing a gun.

Gun Owning States Also Highest Gun Deaths State

Egan shares statistics that states with the highest rates of gun ownership have much higher gun-related death rates. In Hawaii 9.7 percent of residents own guns and the state has the lowest gun death rates in the country.

Forty-five percent of Louisiana residents are armed, making it the most armed state in America, and it has the highest gun death rate. Arizona, scene of the recent carnage, is in the top 10 states for gun ownership and gun deaths. The pressure now in Arizona is to arm citizens with more guns.

In the Harvard study Egan refers to, levels of suicide are also significantly higher in gun-toting states.

The NYT comments in Egan’s article are amazingly lucid, including one that refers to the mythology that has grown up around the Wild West and explored by Richard Haring Davis.

The reader Bejay from Williamsburg, Va writes: