oh wow. the part about the gun vs. car violence might actually come true.
here’s Bloomberg predicting it three years ago
and here’s an article with this craaaazy chart:
DAYUM AMERICA. WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK?
everyone knows a totally insane amount of people die from car accidents every year. but this year we might actually die more JUST FROM GUN ACCIDENTS.
I mean, people LOVE to talk about how “guns don’t kill people”
and I’m not exactly saying “cars kill people”
YOU CAN’T EVEN KEEP THEM SAFER THAN ONE-TON SHEET METAL DEATH BOXES SCREECHING ACROSS THE EARTH AT SPEEDS HERETOFORE UNSEEN IN NATURE?
you can get a gun for $500. and they “don’t kill people”. they’re “safe to use around your family.”
but they’re STILL gonna cause MORE maimings and deaths than a country-wide 24/7 network of different $20,000 machines powered by something called a “combustion engine”, a device whose name literally means “LIGHTS SHIT ON FIRE”, and were all built in completely different ways by completely different people all over the world some time in the last 100 years?
I mean, cars are IMPORTANT. you know what I mean? they connect people across state lines. they provide active value to you almost every single day for decades. they’re so important that most low- and middle-class families go into debt just to own them. like they do with houses!
“but we can just use them more safely!”
oh, that’s gonna help? let’s look at the breakdown of gun deaths:
There are roughly 32,000 gun deaths per year in the United States. Of those, around 60% are suicides. About 3% are accidental deaths (between 700-800 deaths). About 34% of deaths (just over 11,000 in both 2010 and 2011) make up the remainder of gun deaths and are classified as homicides.
whereas nearly 100% of car-related deaths are considered “accidents”
only 3% of gun deaths are accidents by innocent civilians.
even if EVERYONE who is a Good Person who would Never Hurt Another Human Being Ever made NO mistakes with their guns anymore, that wouldn’t decrease the amount of gun deaths in our country by even 5%.
this thing is SO DEADLY and SO EASY to get a hold of that 97% of the time a gun goes off, it was done with lethal intent
“if you outlaw guns, then only outlaws have guns”
THE OUTLAWS ALREADY HAVE THE GUNS.
BECAUSE THEY ARE SO EASY TO GET
THAT ANY ASSHOLE WITH A COUPLE HUNDRED DOLLARS AND A FEW HOURS ON CRAIGSLIST COULD PROBABLY SCORE ONE TONIGHT
AND YOU’RE TELLING ME THE OUTLAWS WILL GET THEM EVEN MORE?
HOW THE FUCK MUCH MORE DO WE NEED TO GO BEFORE WE DECIDE TO START RESTRICTING THEM A LITTLE MORE?
this year, the tiniest little chunk of accidental gun deaths will still kill more innocent people than every single car accident combined, and that STILL only accounts for 3% of the deaths.
like, maybe the best solution isn’t “ban them”,
and maybe the best solution isn’t “sell even more”,
but ONE OF THOSE THINGS HAS A PROVEN HISTORY OF HELPING WITH THOSE PROBLEMS, AND ONE OF THEM DOES THE EXACT OPPOSITE.
sometimes I just have to realize that me and a lot of other people share wildly different definitions of the word “safe”.
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