In America we lose about the same amount of lives to vehicles as we do guns. (CDC numbers.) Little under half of guns deaths are suicides, almost all the rest are gang activity (yes, that’s code for “brown people killing each other”, doesn’t make it excusable) and other things we can avoid.
Point being, vehicular death is nearly 100% random. We make guns out to be a huge danger and completely ignore car deaths. Guy shoots 4 people, nationwide news, every time. Family of 4 gets smeared off the interstate? Maybe a quick blurb in your local news.
Scariest part is all these deaths despite the radical improvements in safety I’ve seen in the past 5 decades. FFS, we used to be OK with drunk driving, people had hissy fits over mandatory seat belt use and airbags. I remember people arguing that anti-lock brakes were dangerous. We have crumple zones vs. cars that were basically rolling I-beams.
tl;dr: I can avoid bullets. I cannot avoid driving risk.
By not being in a gang was the idea. Live by the sword, die by the sword. Gun nuts use that stat to basically say, “That sort of violence doesn’t count.” I bring it up to highlight that, while inexcusable, it’s not random like vehicular deaths.
In America we lose about the same amount of lives to vehicles as we do guns. (CDC numbers.) Little under half of guns deaths are suicides, almost all the rest are gang activity (yes, that’s code for “brown people killing each other”, doesn’t make it excusable) and other things we can avoid.
Point being, vehicular death is nearly 100% random. We make guns out to be a huge danger and completely ignore car deaths. Guy shoots 4 people, nationwide news, every time. Family of 4 gets smeared off the interstate? Maybe a quick blurb in your local news.
Scariest part is all these deaths despite the radical improvements in safety I’ve seen in the past 5 decades. FFS, we used to be OK with drunk driving, people had hissy fits over mandatory seat belt use and airbags. I remember people arguing that anti-lock brakes were dangerous. We have crumple zones vs. cars that were basically rolling I-beams.
tl;dr: I can avoid bullets. I cannot avoid driving risk.
I agree with your general point, but
“brown people killing each other” “things you can avoid” …by not being a brown person?
By not being in a gang was the idea. Live by the sword, die by the sword. Gun nuts use that stat to basically say, “That sort of violence doesn’t count.” I bring it up to highlight that, while inexcusable, it’s not random like vehicular deaths.