Monday, September 17, 2012

Guns and Spinal Cord Injuries

We've often mentioned that the damage of gun violence is not only counted in deaths. But still we tend to underestimate the extent of the suffering and expense involved in serious injuries.

One way the gun-rights crowd attempts to side step this discussion is to say if we were really concerned about people and their suffering we'd be talking about cars or falls or swimming pools, which account for far more damage than guns.  This is an obvious attempt at obfuscation.  What we are talking about is gun violence, preventable gun violence for the most part.

Among the 100,000 people who are injured or killed by guns each year there are many thousands who suffer the kinds of injuries they never recover from.

This is the reality.  No amount of downplaying or trickery can diminish the seriousness of the toll gun violence takes on our society.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

6 comments:

  1. Auto crashes and motorcycles are separated in that chart, but they belong together. Those two and falls are still larger than the gunshot category. And in comparison to the total number of gun owners and guns in this country, the figure presented here is managable and small.

    You can't get around that latter statement. One hundred million gun owners and at least 300,000,000 guns are in this country. You always try to make things look worse than they are.

    ReplyDelete
  2. MikeB repeatedly suggests that the right gun control laws would seriously reduce the harm that firearms bring to society. Here is why MikeB's suggestion is incorrect.

    Starting with a breakdown of MikeB's number of 100,000 annual injuries or deaths where a person uses a firearm:
    42,000 attempted/successful suicides with firearms
    + 3,000 accidental gunshot wounds/deaths
    + 55,000 criminal gunshot wounds/deaths
    ------------------------------------------
    Total = 100,0000 annual gunshot injuries or deaths

    A person who is committed to suicide will be successful regardless of the methods available. The suicide rate in Japan is considerably higher than the U.S. and Japan is much closer to MikeB's vision of gun control than the U.S. could ever hope to be. Thus all gun control would do is change the method of suicide attempts. No annual savings of injuries or deaths in that category.

    I will concede that many of the annual accidental injuries and deaths from firearms could go away with MikeB's vision of gun control. That's an annual savings of up to 3,000 injuries or deaths.

    As for 55,000 annual deaths and injuries from criminals using firearms, there will be no savings in that category for several reasons. Criminals by definition do not obey laws: gun control laws are no exception and will not directly affect criminals. And gun control laws will not indirectly affect the availability of guns for criminals because there are countless ways for criminals to purchase, smuggle, steal, and even make their own firearms. Even if gun control laws did affect the availability of firearms for criminals, other weapon choices such as knives and clubs will always be available; at best some criminals would use those weapons in place of firearms and harm just as many people.

    So MikeB's idea of gun control might prevent on the order of 3,000 annual accidental injuries and deaths. How many more injuries and deaths would occur if citizens were almost universally disarmed? If you aren't sure about the answer to that question, just ask yourself what would happen inside a prison if the prisoners were free to roam anywhere and the guards had only their hands to defend themselves.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "A person who is committed to suicide will be successful regardless of the methods available. "

      Most of them are not committed. Most are trying a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

      " And gun control laws will not indirectly affect the availability of guns for criminals because there are countless ways for criminals to purchase, smuggle, steal, and even make their own firearms. "

      This is bad thinking on your part. Proper gun control will make it very difficult for criminals to get guns. Some, the determined ones, will seek out and find other sources, but many will not. The ones that resort to other weapons will do far less damage. The UK had a four times lower intentional homicide rate than the US, not just with guns but overall. That's largely due to gun control.

      Delete
    2. Mikeb, when are you going to answer the following points:

      1. The U.S. has far more guns, per capita and in total numbers, than the U.K. ever had.

      2. Those guns will not just disappear.

      3. We have long borders. Lots of contraband comes across every day. Guns are as easy, if not easier to transport than cocaine and certainly easier than smuggling human beings.

      Delete
    3. You thing guns are easier to smuggle then cocaine. I doubt that since they're made of metal and it's easily detected.

      My suggestions for proper gun control are not contingent upon doing anything with all the guns already in use, certainly it's not contingent upon registering all of them or getting rid of all of them.

      My suggestions would be applicable to newly bought guns and newly licensed gun owners and there'd be a gradual impact for the good.

      Delete
    4. Mikeb, cocaine can be detected by sniffer dogs. Can machines smell it? That wouldn't surprise me. But a gun, as you point out, is made of metal. How many machine parts cross our borders every day? How hard would it be to stick disassembled firearms in with crates of bolts?

      At least you now admit that your proposals would do nothing to the 300,000,000+ guns in this country. You say that there'd be a gradual effect? With a little care, guns can last for hundreds of years. That surely is more gradual than you can stand.

      Delete