Here’s an interesting statistic from Bob Herbert:
Since Sept. 11, 2001, when the country’s attention understandably turned to terrorism, nearly 120,000 Americans have been killed in nonterror homicides, most of them committed with guns. Think about it — 120,000 dead. That’s nearly 25 times the number of Americans killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Since Sept. 11, 2001, more than 300,000 people have been killed in motor vehicle accidents. That’s more than five times the number intentionally killed by firearms over the period.
According to the Department of Justice there are roughly 15,000 firearm homicides per year (compared to nearly 40,000 traffic deaths per year).
Is the number of deaths the issue or is the number of preventable deaths the issue? We can’t draw any conclusions about the number of homicides that could be prevented by banning handguns, for example. The number of deaths in motor vehicle accidents that could be prevented by banning motor vehicles is 100%.
Note that I don’t advocate banning motor vehicles and I don’t have an opinion on banning handguns. I am, however, puzzled at the ferocity with which people believe in banning handguns.
Not to back up Mr. Herbert stance but he is comparing homicides not deaths, more specifically not accidental deaths. Now if the 40,000 motor vehicle deaths were homicides then I would concede your point. An equally disengenuous comparison would be to ban hearts because so many die each year of heart failure.
My assumption is that Mr. Herbert is implying that guns are more dangerous than terrorism. Guns seem to enable more killing per year certainly, this of course doesn’t mean that those deaths wouldn’t happen without guns but…. Perhaps a simple comparison of the two would involve the per unit danger of each how many deaths per gun vs deaths per terrorist. Of course I have no idea how many guns are in this country and I have no idea how to measure how many terrorists are in or enter this country. Bringing us to the apples vs oranges argument I infer you to be making anyway.
Yep. That’s my point. The number of absurd, over-the-top comparisons is infinite.
I’m concerned most with the stastics showing my chance of dying approaches 100%.
Indeed, PD. Your chances of death are damned near 100%, so hence let’s out law life.
Game over.
Fade to black…..
I’m counting on the margin of error.
A large part of the focus on handguns have to do with the fact that they represent a very large percentage of homicide weapons choices, and the alternative gun choices are so low in comparison. For example, if you look at the FBI database on homicides for 2005, handguns accounted for the accessory weapon in 7,543 cases out of a total of 14,860 cases. Meanwhile, the total amount of homicide cases involving rifles and shotguns each were less than the amount of people beaten to death by blunt objects such as clubs, and the total amount of firearm-using fatalities during the year (1,959) is not a lot more than the 1,831 fatalities from knife attacks.
I suppose you could argue that banning handguns completely (assuming you could even do it, considering how plentiful the actual stock is out there) would simply cause the amounts of other firearm-related deaths to rise, but that’s a huge gap.
So I guess that we should ban blunt objects then? As a point of interest, there is a bill in the Texas legislature that will make it legal for students to carry concealed weapons on campus. I guess they figure that this will be a deterrent to any lone gunman shooting up campus. Now it will be a gun battle! Shoot out at the OK Cafeteria. (Ooo, I see a tv movie of the week in the offing!)
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/politics/6367187.html