Sunday, February 23, 2014

Guns To Surpass Car Accidents As Leading Cause Of Deaths Among Young People

Guns kill a lot of young people in the United States. Not just in school shootings or horrific “accidents” between toddlers that tend to garner the most media attention, but in every day shootings in communities around the country that result in the deaths of thousands of children and teenagers.
In 2010, 6,201 young people between the ages of 15 and 24 died by gunfire. Guns were a close second to the leading cause of death among this age group, car accidents, which took the lives of 7,024 young people that year. But, while car accident deaths among young people have been steadily declining over the past decade, gun deaths have remained relatively unchanged. And, as described in a new Center for American Progress reportreleased Friday, if current trends continue, gun deaths will surpass car accident deaths among young people sometime in 2015:
Gun deaths

18 comments:

  1. Lets say anyone would trust a report from the organization cited to be unslanted. Im curious if the teenagers "killed by guns" (inanimate object ftw), are part of the urban, socio-economic, "gang" subculture. If so, why should people be upset?

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  2. "Guns To Surpass Car Accidents . . . " Mikeb? Didn't you recently indignantly deny blaming the gun?

    I know you claimed that when you ("or any gun control person"--I guess you claim to speak for the entire wretched movement now) use the word "gun" in such contexts, you really mean "gun availability" or "guns in the hands of people," but shorten it to simply "guns," for the sake of brevity.

    But you could have said "Shootings To Surpass Car Accidents . . . " (I trust the one extra syllable doesn't tax your tired typing fingers too badly), or you could have stayed inaccurate, but at least have been consistent, if you'd said "Guns To Surpass Cars . . . " (which, by dropping "accident," would have helped with the brevity you cherish so dearly) but you did neither.

    You've given yourself quite a credibility problem, you know.

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    1. I copied and pasted the title of the post from the article I quoted. Only a fucking petulant baby like you would belabor the obvious meaning of those words. As I explained in the comment you linked to, everyone knows what's meant by the word "guns" in certain contexts just like everyone knew what was meant by "gun show loophole," but lacking any substantive argument, you guys seize on these minor discrepancies and pretend they're meaningful. They're not.

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  3. This doesn't break down the number into different categories, so we can't tell if we're talking about suicides, accidents, or homicides--though we know that accidents are a small part of the total. The number also lumps together too broad an age range for the ages we're talking about. There are significant differences among various teenage years and those of early adulthood. But this does suggest that we have a problem with teens and young adults. Rather than giving them an aspirin (deliberate reference there) and hoping symptoms will go away, why not work on the underlying causes?

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    1. Greg, I think we can safely assume the gun deaths include all types.

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  4. Actually it would be more accurate to compare unintentional deaths by firearms and compare them to auto accidents. When I say unintentional, I mean gun deaths that aren't suicides.
    When the term accident used in conjunction with auto fatalities, it is most often the result in some negligence on the part of a person. Much like when accident is used in conjunction with unintentional gun deaths.
    Removing suicides in the age group used above, unintentional gun deaths by firearms is 4,978 compared to 7,024 unintentional car deaths.

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    1. I disagree with the need to remove suicides. The fact that almost all car deaths are accidents and only a small fraction of gun deaths are, means nothing. In a report like this we take all gun deaths vs. all car deaths.

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    2. Just about every car death is an accident--though negligence is often involved. Two-thirds of all gun deaths are suicides, while few gun deaths are accidents. The point is that comparing car deaths to gun deaths isn't productive.

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    3. Ha. After years of using the car comparison to try to make your points, now all of a sudden it's not productive. "qual pium al vento" that's you, Greg.

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    4. If I make comparisons, they are about rights, ownership, and so forth. But when we're talking about deaths, we have to look at the types. As always, the complexities of data analysis are lost on you.

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    5. Not the car comparison our side has been making. We try for apples to apples comparisons--e.g. accident to accident, negligence law to negligence law, recklessness law to recklessness law, etc.

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    6. For years your side has been comparing gun deaths to car deaths. Only recently have you found it necessary to specify "accidents." That's because you guys are full of shit. You say anything that you think sounds cool, then you change the guidelines when called on your bullshit.

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    7. More projection and fabrication.

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  5. By the way, I just got the good news that Piers Morgan is getting cancelled due to low ratings. I wonder why...

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    1. I saw that too. I'll post something when I see a good report on it.

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    2. I saw it on the HuffnPuff, though any report is good news to me.

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    3. I'm especially pleased to see that Morgan, CNN, and the New York Times all acknowledge that Morgan's effete cheerleading for "gun control" played a significant role in his show's demise.

      Even so, though, I guess there are still some idiots who think that gun rights' fortunes are on the wane, while "gun control's" star is rising.

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  6. 70% of the accidents are caused on the roads and 20% on the workplace. If everybody follows safety precaution then they can prevent those accidents and live until they reach 100 :)

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