In 2010:
8,775 firearm related Murders. [FBI]
31,672 total firearm related deaths. [CDC] (Includes the 8,775 above)
61% of those were suicides (19,392). There were 12,280 non-suicide related firearm deaths.
Compared to
38,329 total drug overdose deaths. (CDC statistics from Associated Press)
22,134 were prescription drugs. (opioids like OxyContin and Vicodin contributed in 3 out of 4 cases, anti-anxiety drugs like Valium in roughly 30 percent)
17% of prescription drug deaths were suicides. That’s roughly 18,370 non-suicide related prescription drug deaths.
Total drug related deaths are higher than total firearm deaths. Prescription drug deaths are higher than firearm Murders. Non-suicide prescription drug deaths are higher than non-suicide gun deaths.
Yet the government is trying to force healthcare upon the people while trying to ban firearms from the people for the overall good of society???
Suggesting something else is more of a problem is not a Logical argument against gun control, but that is not the argument I’m making. My argument is that the Legislative and Exectuive branches of our government are not consistent in their evaluations of what is good for society overall. Violent crimes have dropped consistently since at least 1992, while drug overdoses have continued to rise the past 11 years, yet they denounce weapon ownership and promote mandatory health care insurance. Weapons have as much of a self preservation purpose as does healthcare, only from a different threat to loss of life. While healthcare insurance might reduce the costs to society overall from those who cannot afford it, an increase in civilian weapon ownership statistically leads to lower robbery levels with no overall increase in other crimes, and might not only reduce the number of police required but also the size of our standing army to fight invasion…both also lowering the costs to society.
The contradition shown above seems to suggest that deaths are okay in a desire for complacency, but deaths are not okay when they arise from a lack of complacency.
[FBI- Crime in the U.S. 2010]
[CDC 2010 Table 18]
[AP- Drug Overdose Deaths up for 11th Consecutive Year]
It has never been about doing what is good for our society as a whole or doing things that make common sense.
It is always about doing what will win Politicians votes from the knee-jerk reactionaries.
It is always about protecting the job (of graft).
If this wasn’t the case we would have ended the drug prohibition and increased the tax base from sales a long long time ago and put and end to the weapons violence of of all black-markets.
Citizens also vote for real freedom with dollars they are willing to pay for goods or services denied them mainly by Laws establishing religious created black-markets.
Injecting religion into secular Civil Law creates Black-markets, crime and its associated gun violence.
Thank You Jesus!
Glad ÿõú started writing again.
If you read the Newtown stuff I wrote on Lydia’s site, I won’t repeat myself…
Powerless to change anything in the face of seemingly unsolvable problems. Knowing the answers only makes me more unhappy… now I have to live with knowing there’s little to nothing we can change… just an honest opinion. I work to change what’s around me, but it’s really pointless so much of the time and just makes me crazy. I’m a gun owner. I lived in Newtown. His mom could have done more, but this was mental illness… it’s sick and sad but he killed those kids, not guns. Lock down? sure, but most gun owners are as sickened by what happened as everybody else.
Hey Dawson