What's Really Going On Here?

I have some left-leaning friends who are not your typical low-info drones; they are very intelligent, thinking people.  This post is aimed at them.

There is an awful lot of political rhetoric out there right now demonizing the NRA and anyone who believes in the 2nd Amendment.  There are many bills in state and federal legislatures aiming to take away "assault rifles" (most of which are not), "high-capacity magazines" and even regular old shotguns.  Yesterday Charles Rangel (D-NY) said we have to get rid of guns because "millions of inner city kids are being killed."  Can we look at some facts here and get some perspective please?

2012 Statistics (USA)

- 8583 deaths in which a gun was used (Sorry Charley, not millions.  You might be even
  more clueless than Al Gore and his "just a few miles beneath the surface of the Earth its
  a million degrees."  Why do intelligent thinking liberals overlook this kind of garbage?)
  And while I don't have the exact number, many of these were perpetrated by bad guys
  with illegally owned hand guns, not "assault rifles."

- 40,000 + deaths in automobile accidents.  Can't remember any legislation to ban cars.

- 10,000 + deaths perpetrated with hands or feet.  Yes its true, more people killed by
  hands and feet than guns.  Honestly, are guns really the problem here or is there
  something else going on?

On a seemingly unrelated note, the Department of Homeland Security has now stockpiled enough ammunition to fight the Iraq war for another 24 years.  (The Pentagon released a report detailing how much ammunition was used per year in the recent Iraq war. Ammunition stockpiled by DHS was compared to this data to come up with this scenario.) Why does DHS need so much ammunition?

You can call this conspiracy theory if you like, but I would ask you to use your critical thinking skills for a few minutes and ask yourself the "why" questions posed by this data.

What's really going on here America?

Strive for greater things my friends!

Chris