What's really killing Americans. HINT: It's not guns!

reply to post by SpearMint

and accidents are arguably not as bad as intentional murders

See, that's what I am talking about.
All deaths are bad...regardless of how it is caused.

The OP is saying that these gun deaths aren't as bad as the others, like it's not even a problem. THAT is my only issue here.

No...he's saying the same thing as I am.
It is bad BUT it's lower than other means of death.
And for us, or well at least for me, I have lost loved ones by ways that are on the top 5 killers.

So, no I don't see how 13,000 deaths trump millions of deaths caused by other means.

A death is a death in my book.
I just don't sit in judgement as to how one's life was taken.
No one wants to be murdered and yet no one wants to die from cancer. Or from a tornado. Or from a wreck.
The list goes on and on but I'm tired so I will call it a night.

The point is, no death is good, no matter what causes it.


Much respect~
snarky

Rofl, didn't Canada have like less than 50 gun homicides last year? "HEY LOOK, 12,000 AMERICANS DIED TO GUNS, BUT 600,000 DIED FROM SMOKING!!! GUNS AREN'T THE PROBLEM!"

You really can't downplay the fact that thousands of Americans die to guns yearly.

But you know what, everyone dies, some sooner than others, so what does it even matter if a few thousand people get killed by guns in America each year? Apparently we value guns more than human life, and so be it, let us deal with the repercussions and the dead children while the rest of the world laughs.

Originally posted by DestroyDestroyDestroy
Rofl, didn't Canada have like less than 50 gun homicides last year? "HEY LOOK, 12,000 AMERICANS DIED TO GUNS, BUT 600,000 DIED FROM SMOKING!!! GUNS AREN'T THE PROBLEM!"

And yet, out of every 100 Canadians, 30 of them own guns. So you are actually helping the point that guns aren't the problem. People are the problem. Rather than being afraid of guns, we should be looking at the reason why people use guns to kill, and solve those problems. Banning guns is just a band-aid to the problem.

Just the simple fact that there are guns, isn't the problem. Let's instead cure the mental illness that causes people to murder. Whether it is by gun, knife, or any other means. Let's look and fix the real reasons gun deaths in America are greater than other countries.

Originally posted by DestroyDestroyDestroy
You really can't downplay the fact that thousands of Americans die to guns yearly.

But you know what, everyone dies, some sooner than others, so what does it even matter if a few thousand people get killed by guns in America each year? Apparently we value guns more than human life, and so be it, let us deal with the repercussions and the dead children while the rest of the world laughs.

No one is downplaying deaths by guns. All deaths are tragic. What I am downplaying is the death by guns hysteria and fear mongering. Do you value automobiles more than human lives? Because automobiles kill far more than guns!

Originally posted by boncho

Originally posted by SpearMint
reply to post by boncho

 

Well obviously other homicides will outweigh gun homicides if gun homicides rarely happen. The thing you're missing is that those other homicides are not elevated compared to the US, and therefore you don't have a point.

I did, when I pointed out Honduras. 88th on the list of guns per capita, yet, number 1 on the list for homicides.

travel.state.gov...

No, what you've done is prove one small country where I suspect law is loosely enforced anyway has a lot of crime. You're a long way off proving me wrong.

reply to post by snarky412


All deaths are bad, I didn't say they weren't, but I think people intentionally killing other people is a bigger problem than people accidentally dying. I don't see how you could dispute that.

Originally posted by SpearMint
reply to post by snarky412

 

All deaths are bad, I didn't say they weren't, but I think people intentionally killing other people is a bigger problem than people accidentally dying. I don't see how you could dispute that.

The same could be said about tobacco companies not banning cigarettes and instead putting retarded pictures and labels on their packets.. Why don't they just ban them? They kill people at a faster rate than guns do.

Originally posted by DarknStormy

Originally posted by SpearMint
reply to post by snarky412

 

All deaths are bad, I didn't say they weren't, but I think people intentionally killing other people is a bigger problem than people accidentally dying. I don't see how you could dispute that.

The same could be said about tobacco companies not banning cigarettes and instead putting retarded pictures and labels on their packets.. Why don't they just ban them? They kill people at a faster rate than guns do.

I agree, but that's a whole different issue.

reply to post by WP4YT


isn't it quite mind numbing when you have a federal and state level government that act's upon issues such as this, like 5 year olds. you can't make this up, they could easily be actors on a soap opera and no one would know the difference.

i think the medical death rate is well over 250k these days as there has been 1 peer reviewed study done on that very issue, that i know of. that and i'm certain the death toll from Fukushima has not been added into that equation either.

source- ezinearticles.com...,000+-Deaths-Annually&id=146887


here we are people and not even one word mentioned by our elected officials about doing real work to fix real problems in our country. we get nothing but 5 year old rhetoric from these numb skulls and the worst part is, we accept it.

what we have my friends is all those stuffed shirt, loud mouth, irritatingly back stabbing jerk offs from high school, running our country. you remember them don't you, the cheerleader that slept with half the senior class in order to be "popular". the class president that turned in class mates by day and smoked joints with the same at night, hidden from view of course.

the upper crust ass holes from high school, now run our states and our country and i suppose it's our own fault but don't be too hard on us common folks, because lying, cheating, stealing, back stabbing, gossiping are not something we stomach well, hence why we don't get into politics. we have to change that though, or we're doomed for certain.

reply to post by SpearMint

But guns and knives are not made and owned by the average person with the intention to kill, that's a gun's sole purpose, to kill. People do not kill people with these methods as much as guns for some very good reasons, like traceability, the likelihood of them or other people fighting back, the getaway and cleanliness. Guns make it easy, if you take away guns you don't see the numbers made up for with other weapons. I know you can't magically take away all guns, but that doesn't mean it's not stupid to promote them.

Bullsh*t! It's far easier to trace a gun than a knife. Knives don't have to be registered. If you take the guns away, people DO use other means and criminals will still get guns.

Originally posted by SpearMint

Originally posted by boncho

Originally posted by SpearMint
reply to post by boncho

 

Well obviously other homicides will outweigh gun homicides if gun homicides rarely happen. The thing you're missing is that those other homicides are not elevated compared to the US, and therefore you don't have a point.

I did, when I pointed out Honduras. 88th on the list of guns per capita, yet, number 1 on the list for homicides.

travel.state.gov...

No, what you've done is prove one small country where I suspect law is loosely enforced anyway has a lot of crime. You're a long way off proving me wrong.

Okay let me read this again...

Well obviously other homicides will outweigh gun homicides if gun homicides rarely happen. The thing you're missing is that those other homicides are not elevated compared to the US, and therefore you don't have a point.

You are reenforcing my previous statement of violence not being attributed to weapons but to the underlying causes.

When I give you a country that has lower per capita gun ownership than the US, but a higher homicide rate, you say laws are loosely enforced and and it has a lot of crime so it's not relevant.

So what is relevant?

Yes, guns are effective at killing people. But if you have a violent society that is using knives, there will still be homicides. Look at the UK:

Knives now kill six a week

www.thesun.co.uk... e-crime-each-week.html

It seems like you are asking for a country identical to the US but without guns for any of us to make a comparison or a point to you. I've given you enough examples of countries with less or more gun ownership and rates of homicides that differ greatly, showing that underlying violent tendencies has everything to do with gun violence. Just as it has to do with knife violence.

You say guns are intended for killing people. But if you want to argue semantics, they are sold for sporting and/or hunting. Not for killing people.

someone posted in another thread i agree with 100%, obama taking advantage of a horrific situation to booster his personae is all the gun-ban" rhetoric is about. if a person like me can see it and understand it how is the world so fooled?!!

529,000 dead from tobacco HA and TPTB will not allow the legalization of marijuana. it's all about priorities kids.

marijuana has bee around long before cigarettes and to my knowledge there's no one who's died from purple sticky punch. think about it.

The biggest killer in the US and elsewhere is heart conditions.

This includes smoking, but also bad diet, cholesterol, obesity, lack of exercise, stress and many other things more which contribute to heart conditions.

Why does the statistic say "tobacco use", and then "medical errors" coming 2nd...completely skipping the #1 reason for deaths?

I cannot take this graph seriously in the slightest!

In 2010 83% of the firearm related homicides were gang related. I'd like to see what number of the total homicides listed from the year were gang related.

remember to read

reply to post by WP4YT


It is interesting but either they forgot a few sources or deliberately didn't include them. I can find statistics to show that abuse of prescription medicine is the number one cause of death. Doctors are number 3 not sure what number 2 is. According to this chart TOBACCO should be illegal. Why is tobacco legal while hemp is not? I think what you are pointing out is not that there should not be some "licensing" required for gun ownership but that cigarettes should be illegal and society as a whole should sue those who profited from that industry. They are guilty of what is equivalent to war crimes. Why aren't we taking a collective step to end the Tyranny?

Excellent data.

Also note that it is firearm "homicide" and not "murder." There is a HUGE difference. Homicide legally means death at the hand of another person. It could be "justifiable homicide" as in the case of self-defense. "Murder" factors in criminal intent. All murder is homicide but not all homicide is murder. Case in point:

This homicide by firearm # also includes both police and homeowners who justifiably shoot a criminal.
This # also includes criminals who shoot other criminals (e.g. drug dealers vs drug dealers).

That widely publicized # should be drilled down to separate out "purely innocent victims" vs "criminals."

In my area, there have been 20 firearm related homicides in the past 5 years. Of those, 5 were justifiable police shootings, 2 were justifiable home owner shootings of armed robbers, another 2 were murder-suicide, and the remainder were related to criminal activity of all parties involved.

As a supporter of MADD, I would like to also point out that there were a whopping 10,136 drunk driving related deaths in 2011. www.madd.org...

There are some on this thread (I am not pointing fingers) that no matter what the discussion on privately owned guns, they are having no part of it. The US is a cesspool of self inflicted gun deaths and other countries in the world, due to their superior everything, have evolved into a panacea free from firearms.

Just my take on a few talking points:

'There is no need to live in fear'
If you have no fear, you are oblivious to the world around you. No human on planet Earth has any right to live in a world free from danger. Be it disease, famine, accidents, or whatever, your time here is limited. No safe place exists except in the mind of the deluded.

'Think of the Children'
Many anti-gun advocates here have demonstrated they are pro-abortion advocates. How do those two reconcile with regards to the children? (Please no flame from pro/anti abortionists. This is just an observation/question)

'Sure more people die from tobacco use but they still die from guns'
Sure do. No doubting that. But why then are we not outlawing tobacco? Let's start with the most people we can save first. There is no Constitutional Amendment securing tobacco use so it should be a slam dunk. Then we can work our way down the list. To espouse concern for human life but then start at the bottom of the list seems rather hypocritical.

'A gun's sole purpose is to kill humans'
Could be. It is an inanimate object so to ask a gun what its purpose is is rather futile. Perhaps if we asked gun manufacturers we might get a better answer. However, I am sure their answer for making guns is profit. Maybe we should ask gun owners. Being in inanimate object, a tool, there would be different uses for them. Some, I am sure, would be to kill people. Thus, supply and demand kicks in. Getting rid of the supply does nothing to diminish the demand. It simply sends it elsewhere. Please see the War on Drugs.

Gotta go for now. Just some thoughts.

Originally posted by boncho
Since one of the first things that will come up (Since you mentioned Hitler) will be the anti-gun stance that in fact Hitler made it easier to own and procure guns. Which is partly true, although that was for people on his side, not his enemies.

This came in a thread I made about gun control.

Yeah thats BS! He most certainly armed the Hitler youth and other factions which supported him but it is nonsense to bring that up.

blog.beliefnet.com...

“Then they took our guns

“Next came gun registration. People were getting injured by guns. Hitler said that the real way to catch criminals (we still had a few) was by matching serial numbers on guns. Most citizens were law abiding and dutifully marched to the police station to register their firearms. Not long afterwards, the police said that it was best for everyone to turn in their guns. The authorities already knew who had them, so it was futile not to comply voluntarily.


Kitty Werthmann

“No more freedom of speech. Anyone who said something against the government was taken away. We knew many people who were arrested, not only Jews, but also priests and ministers who spoke up.

“Totalitarianism didn’t come quickly, it took 5 years from 1938 until 1943, to realize full dictatorship in Austria. Had it happened overnight, my countrymen would have fought to the last breath. Instead, we had creeping gradualism. Now, our only weapons were broom handles. The whole idea sounds almost unbelievable that the state, little by little eroded our freedom.”

“This is my eye-witness account."

“It’s true. Those of us who sailed past the Statue of Liberty came to a country of unbelievable freedom and opportunity.

“America is truly is the greatest country in the world.

“Don’t let freedom slip away.

“After America, there is no place to go.”

Gun free zones are targeted because they are defenseless, just as an unarmed America would be defenseless!

If we abandon the law which our country was founded on then we invite another Hitler to power etc... Elections can be bought in America, but at the end of the day none can trespass to far because American citizens constitute the largest armed force on the planet! Would you really like to see a helpless American public?

Dont think it could happen here in America? Then you are deluded! Had the jews of Nazi Germany been armed like the America public we never would have seen 50 million killed in WWII! It is very likely that Hitler would have been taken out early in his career!

We absolutely do maintain a balance of power by purchasing and keeping all the arms we can get a hold of! It is a silent trust, and it most certainly keeps tyranny in check.

When we vote for a president it a choice between two persons who have been pre selected by corrupt systems. Our media ignores true merit and instead props up the plastic men with billions of dollars backing them. America is ripe for Fascism and in my mind the need for a well armed populace is greater than any other time in history.

Common sense seems to be missing in Americas politics. Instead of meaninful change we will instead be surrendering our guns to a goverment which has killed and continues to kill thousands of children in Iraq and beyond.. If you trust a system which is for sale to the person willing to spend the most and you expect it to always have your best interests at heart. Then you are a fool! I wonder how many Jews trusted that Germany would always have their best interests at heart?

To sit and pretend that a gun ban is to safe guard children is complete nonsense! It is to further a power grabbing tyranical agenda! In the last decade or so many power grabs have been made and some of our most basic rights have been stripped away. IT IS TIME TO STAND YOUR GROUND PEOPLE! If they had taken all these rights at the same time we would have fought to the last breath! Why is it ok piecemeal? If it quacks like a duck and swims like a duck it's an FN duck people!




A single armed security guard could have prevented the massacre!

In this world we will always have nut jobs and the best option is to be prepared by having guards at schools and other "soft targets"! We guard banks, but not our children! At least once a week a kid is taken and tortured to death by some nut job.

Even if Lanza had not been able to get guns he could have done just as much damage or more using other means. Thank God he didn't walk in with a homemade flame thrower or similar. Thank God he didn't take his time and level the place with explosives etc... What if "What if" he had just walked in and started kicking down doors and tossed homemade grenades/pipe bombs in?

There is only one way to stop a person bent on killing others and himself, and this by direct confrontation. The only answer is to guard the children!

reply to post by SpearMint


"You're comparing intentional homicides with accidents and things we cannot control. I think your attitude towards the issue is disgusting"

How do you know the government isn't selling (allowing) sales of addictive cigarettes to kill people. How do you know all the medical "accident" were really accidents. In any case both could also be reduced and are 4/5 times higher than guns. Make laws where doctors can go to jail more easily instead of just big pay offs and IM sure that number would go down. How can the government allow the sale of a substance that they have said themselves is a danger to health and levied taxes against it.

More clubs and knives have killed people than any guns will have, minus war of course. So lets make all baseball bats plastic, frying pans out of paper, bricks out of cotton candy. Oh wait get rid of rope too because they used to lynch people with ropes....... Don't see any rope registries.

Hrm funny that doesn't happen to often any more ...why? Education and stricter laws dealing with mob rule or mob mentality, not more rope control. so how about instead, we just make it anyone thats a repeat offender is automatic death sentance. bam the problems slowy start to dwindle over time. heh?

Now if we could solve the problem of guns going to be destroyed and mysteriously ending back in the hands of criminals/drug lords/ dealers, well then WE MIGHT GET SOME WHERE. But if we are selling them back to the drug lords to the south, who do you think is selling it to them here? The same damn people lol. I mean really do you think all these street thugs are ripping ak47/ and Uzis off of grandma and the local guy down the street?

This to me is the biggest danger. People in power that have been corrupted or at a minimum go along with the good ol boy system and keep mouth shut. You can have every regulation in the world dealing with guns, hell you could even put tracking devices in them, and wont stop criminals from getting guns when they are being handed to them by the people who are supposed to be incarcerating them.

im pretty sure if it was automatic death sentance for having any connection to or selling arms to be destroyed to criminal entities, that problem would be mute as well. but we wont see those laws ever because the system is corrupt. not the guns.

(doesnt not own a gun but i can learn from history)