As tragic as the shooting event in Connecticut was, when you actually look at the data on US Deaths, you can plainly see the totally overblown, reactive tizzy that the American Liberal community, and their lapdogs, the mainstream media, have themselves in.
Using official CDC data, guns are not nearly our biggest problem….
US Deaths in 2009: 2,437,163
Deaths related to injuries: 177,154 (7.3%)
Of these injury-deaths, Poisoning/Drugs accounted for 23.5%, Motor Vehicles 19.5%, Firearms 17.7% (31,347), and Falling (yes, “Falling Down”) 14.4%.
Before going any further, let me point out the obvious fact that….
92.7% of all annual US deaths are NOT caused by “injury”. Further, firearms deaths are third from the top of that mere 7%, behind Motor Vehicles, yet Liberals mysteriously continue to press for new assault weapons bans, every time some Prozac-riddled Goth loner decides to act out his Hollywood/XBox-induced fantasies of glory and immortality. Then again, you cannot impose complete tyranny over the population of the greatest nation in the world by taking away their cars.
Continuing on, it is VERY critical to point out the nugget of truth (which you will not hear anywhere) that 64% of these 31,347 firearms injury-deaths were attributed to SUICIDE, the remainder attributed to homicide.
We now have a total of 12,539 US deaths in 2009 related to firearms. As tragic as they all were, this is less than 1% of all US deaths (actually, 0.51%).
Taking this exposure of absurdity one step further, 25% of all US deaths are attributed to HEART DISEASE and another 24% are related to CANCER.
So, let’s start a dialog of the REAL problems we are facing in our “gun crazed” wild-west of a nation (the view from prostrate Europeans) – we have tens-of-thousands of kids taking anti-depressants, eating genetically-modified foods (not to mention the high fructose syrup addiction we have), while playing ever-increasingly realistic violent video games in between their trips to the movie theater, watching movies geared to and glorifying dark violence, murder, and all-around bad behavior.
As a society, we have gone to the “sick” level, simply because we accept all this without challenge. We buy it all up, and we feed it to our kids. We have allowed our government, and the entertainment, sports, and media industries to forge an environment void of accountability, consequences, or morality. We have ingrained a general dependence on a soulless State and have starved true charity and community at the hands of a fat, hungry government.
Am I wrong?
If you want to fix this, make the responsible adult choice and demand better from Hollywood. Refuse to buy violent, depraved, or gratuitous products for your children, and teach them why you choose to take this difficult stand. And demand a smaller government, allowing you more local control and to keep more of your hard-earned money, giving to meaningful charities instead of a bloated Federal monster.
And to NYC Mayor Bloomberg: You should sit down, shut up, and mind the business of NYC, not the rest of the nation. Oh, and if you truly do want to ban guns, start with your own security detail. We dare you.
Update: I read this powerful piece after I posted. Add another reason.
