On 2/19/13 9:00 AM, Eisboch wrote:
For kicks I looked up the leading causes of death in the USA. Data is
the final numbers from 2010 as published by the Center for Disease Control.
Surprisingly, firearms related deaths didn't make the top ten and
firearms related homicides weren't even close to the top ten. It's
interesting that deaths caused by traffic accidents numbered about 3
times those of homicides involving firearms, but all the focus is on
more gun control laws.

Personal note: This is not a excuse of deaths caused by firearms, but
rather an attempt to put it all in perspective.

Heart disease: 597,689
Cancer: 574,743
Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 138,080
Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 129,476
Accidents (unintentional injuries): 120,859
Alzheimer's disease: 83,494
Diabetes: 69,071
Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 50,476
Influenza and Pneumonia: 50,097
Intentional self-harm (suicide): 38,364
Traffic accidents: 33,808
Firearms: 30,470 (19,392 suicides, 11,078 homicides)


There are solid statistically based predictions that state that firearms
deaths will exceed traffic accident deaths in a couple of years.

Oh, you forgot to list the number of Americans who die of old age.

On a more serious note, I only took one college-level statistics course
and have forgotten most of what I ever learned about that sort of math,
so I asked a family member who has taken four graduate-level stats
courses about these sorts of comparisons (gun deaths vs. car deaths vs.
cancer deaths, et cetera) and got a chuckle in response. "Such
comparisions are based on silliness and are statistically absurd. Yes,
more people die of cancer than of gunshot wounds but...so what?"


--
I'm a *Liberal* because I knew the militant christian fundamentalist
racist militaristic xenophobic corporate oligarchy wasn't going to work
for me.