"F.O.A.D." wrote in message
...

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?"

==========================

The number that surprised me was deaths by homicide involving
firearms. I read the same thing you did regarding firearm deaths
exceeding traffic deaths by 2015 however that includes suicides.
Unfortunately, although a gun is the method of choice for most
suicides, further gun restrictions won't eliminate them. As stated
in my post, the data is presented simply to put things in
perspective. 11,078 firearms related homicides is too many of course
but it's a reflection of violence in our society ... which also cannot
be totally eliminated. There are bad people in the world. But the
number is not the huge number that some of the media and proponents of
even more gun control measure would like you to believe.

My state has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation.
Permits require background checks and every purchase of a firearm at a
dealer involves a telephone check and taking of an electronic
fingerprint to verify that you are who you say you are and your permit
is valid. You must present a valid permit even for ammunition
purchases. But, our me-too governor has proposed and is pushing for
even more restrictive laws including jail time for purchasing more
than one firearm per month for existing permit holders, making
getting a permit more difficult, and putting a heavy state tax (up to
50%) on all ammunition sales (even range target practice rounds). I
don't see how that is going to affect the homicide rate by firearms in
the country.
All it is is political posturing in reaction to a horrible but
isolated event caused by a kid who was severely disturbed .... as are
all cases of mass murders.