You're proposing to spend BILLIONS of dollars in enforcement (not even mentioning all the jobs and benefits lost from the manufacturing of firearms) to save what, some percentage of 30 lives that wouldn't translate over without a gun, when I'm proposing to spend billions in mental wellness to help:
- 42,000 people died in auto accidents in 2020. 66% of those - or over 27,000 - are attributable to aggressive driving NOT GUNS.
- the 45,000 suicides per year (whether by gun or otherwise);
- the 43.7 milllion people on anti-depressants in the US;
- that portion of the 164 MILLION people that use illicit drugs in the past year; granted, not all of them are problematic. But fully 4% of the population (same source) or 13 million people are subject to opioid abuse. That's the same percentage, ballpark, of homosexuality in the United States, so NOT an insignificant number of people.
- Almost 42% of our population - or 139 MILLION people - are obese in the United States. Fully 50% - or roughly 22 million people - of our African American population is obese (same source).
We are a struggling nation. It's not "guns" that denotes that, it's the plethora of OTHER data points that are on the rise that denotes that. We need to get to the root of why it was so important for that BMW driver to exact his revenge over what, some perceived slight? Why is it so important to slaughter a school to justify your world view? Why are so many people escaping through medication, both legal and illegal? Why are so many of our people killing themselves? Why are so many of our people eating themselves to oblivion?
I'm curious - how do you know that the person in the BMW is on an antidepressant or had a mental health problem? How do you know if the person in the BMW is using drugs? How do you know if the person in the BMW is obese?
I don't know, and I don't care. I'm working on the premise that we're never getting to 100% on anything. Anyone who does polls or satisfaction surveys will tell you that there is always some percentage that objects out of principle. I'm not spending a billion dollars (or whatever the number is) in order to target one specific person. That's a fools game, and also runs counter to the baseline assumptions. We have no idea what was going on in that car and we never will; without that, we're guessing and speculating.
What I'm saying is, given that, you can spend the same (or similar) amount of money, get the same (or similar) benefits with respect to specific gun violence, but get ALL these other societal benefits, as opposed to all the potential unintended consequences, and perhaps a total INCREASE in absolute deaths. Seems a no-brainer to me.
Look, if I were queen, we'd have all the money going into every public health problem that is impacting the US, including the public health crisis around gun violence. Don't fall into the trap of arguing the fallacy of relative privation here. If gun violence were only limited to road rage incidents then you've made yourself a fine point. But they are not. You know it and we know it. All of these things can be true at the same time. Drug abuse, obesity, and mental health can cause harm and death typically over a period of time. Guns can cause death in a period of seconds. And there is absolutely no reason why ALL of these issues can't be addressed at the same damn time, except for a lack of willingness from our elected officials to do the hard work....to stop pointing fingers at each other and stop making excuses for and taking money from industries (including the health care industry and pharmaceutical industry) that then expect a little quid pro quo in exchange....and get some shit done about it.
Except I'm not falling into that trap; I've written the same things in other non-road-rage instances. Here we just happen to be talking about road rage. Where I'm really going is the basis for these claims. I was crass in my reference before, but I really do sincerely believe there's a subjective, intangible hatred of guns here that transcends any real data or real-world connection. Swedish Goose - and I'm sorry to call him out - is predicating at least in part his argument on a statistic that is PROVABLY INACCURATE. We wouldn't tolerate this in almost any other instance. Which tells me there is more to this than pure fact or pure science. The two issues are not identical, but I think there's a fundamental similarity between those opposed to abortion and those opposed to guns. It just SEEMS bad, but in reality, the effects are the same. Just like banning abortion from that teenager in Arkansas doesn't impact any particular citizen in, say, Michigan or Virginia, so banning guns from the guy in Tennessee that legally owns 200 guns doesn't make any particular citizen any more safe.
But you and I are in lock step on the rest of it. I'm with you generally; we can do two things (or more) at once. No argument. I'm not at all suggesting that we should arbitrarily select individual things to tackle. If anything, I'm going a little further and wanting to be a little more ambitious and comprehensive. IMO, guns are being targeted because they are an easy scapegoat. We don't, as a general matter, respect mental inconsistencies. Simone Biles was celebrated by many, but vilified by many. It wasn't THAT long ago that a Presidential candidate was made out to be unstable for having sought mental wellness support. The converse is true, though: we shouldn't just pander to the easy solutions as a stop gap, especially if those easy solutions are predicated on "feel good" or the idea of "just doing something". I don't agree that removing the guns changes the game in the way that many, here and elsewhere (I won't presume you) do. I DON'T think that taking guns away reduces the mass killing problem. I just don't. It might introduce a lag in time, but I strongly feel we're just kicking the can (that's why I keep bringing up the ACA, another high-level thing we just kicked the can on).
Harmony, the data just doesn't support many of the claims being made. I'm sort of confused and concerned about this; with all the talk about "fake news" in the lexicon today, with all the focus on "truth", why am I - who is living in his truth, at least with respect to this issue - the one being asked to defend his position? Why aren't all the people who were so concerned about vaccines and whatever, not calling to task the basing of broad societal concerns on provably faulty information?
And to further explain: so many of the deaths by firearm today are SUICIDES. And while I get the idea that we might want to remove guns from the troubled in order to save their life (since it seems that people don't replace methodologies when it comes to suicide by firearm) why are we focusing ONLY on the gun aspect? I've already conceded that I would, as a larger package, accept limitations on gun ownership. I would accept background checks, and I fully support red-flag laws, with the idea that we can keep guns away from an impulse user. There
were roughly 46,000 suicides in 2020. Slightly over half were by firearm (I think I cited that above). The proposed solution - removing guns - will, at it's absolute most successful, prevent 27,000 deaths, less those that DO transfer methodology (admittedly, that percentage is low) and minus all those increased homicide numbers that we KNOW have happened whenever guns were unilaterally removed from an environment. My method will, at it's most successful, prevent almost double that number, plus improve the lives of all those people who think about or contemplate suicide and either are not successful or lack the wherewithal to actually attempt it, without ANY of the increases in homicides, and in fact a strong possibility that even MORE deaths would be prevented - by firearm or otherwise - by reducing the rage we see on an almost daily basis.
No, it's not easy. No, it doesn't garner votes. No, it doesn't break the financial stranglehold that the NRA has on politics (and politicians that vote other, non-gun-related topics important to the Democratic Party agenda). But it will, undoubtedly, save lives. We've SEEN this (remember that study I gave the link to where gun deaths dropped in half in jurisdictions where therapy was introduced in the criminal justice system?).
Topic: Father dies for spraying windshield fluid on another car (Read 4108 times)
