Originally Posted by
Woodhaven
Most of the 30,000-ish deaths by firearms are drug-related or suicide in nature. Feel free to look it up. Of course, I'll not argue that this is acceptable. Would these disappear if the guns did? Not likely. W
Gun homicide rate appears to be about 10k per year. Again, far too many. Wonder what the decriminalization of drugs would do to that number? Right. Much easier to talk about limiting magazine capacities. Anyone with any experience at all knows that mags can be changed in a second or so with some practice. If it would save one life, should we not proceed with it? That is a slippery slope, for sure:
You might be interested to know that over 100,000 of us die every year from bedsores in medical care facilities. Intentional? Probably not. Preventable? Yes. Worth more than a snippet on the evening news? Not when you can rile up emotions on both sides of the gun control debate and sell "product" to the audience, spreading a couple dozen funerals over a week's worth of evening news. It's obscene, out of scale, sensational. Tragic, no feeling person can deny.
Deaths by motor vehicle travel are also much higher at nearly 100 citizens a day (never mind the huge contribution alcohol makes to this statistic). Where is the outcry for regulation here? Shall we ask or allow our all knowing, all caring government to help us out of this jam by perhaps limiting vehicle power, weight, top speed, acceleration? Does anyone really need a sports car with over 600 horsepower capable of three times the speed limit? Why is this allowed to continue? Some people even collect these killing machines. Jay Leno should probably be institutionalized. Speed kills. It is obvious to most of us. What kind of an icky person wants the capability to go that fast where it is generally not possible or legal?
I can envision an Approved Travel regulation being promulgated that would help save our precious humanity from these killing machines whose sole purpose is to go faster than legally permitted and encourage our vulnerable citizenry to commit dangerous acts on the roadways we all must use to get to our next very important destination (Starbucks, Walmart, and such). Unnecessary travel (government should define and enforce) is a big contributor, here. How many trips do our citizens make that they could perhaps consolidate or do without? Perhaps walk or bike and go GREEN while saving a life. I don't own a fast car, don't feel like I need one, and I don't trust people who seem to have a fetish for them. Oh, and why such large capacity tanks on vehicles? Does anyone really need 18, 22, 30 gallons of low flashpoint, highly volatile flammable liquid strapped to the undercarriage of their conveyance. Government limit should be three gallons in the interest of fuel efficiency and traffic reduction. Inspections can be fortified to address owners who get a black market expanded fuel tank for their own convenience (which obviously increases the risk to all of us). I'd go on but I've lost interest. I'm off to dedicate my efforts to avoiding a hospital stay and the sixth largest leading cause of death: medical treatment screw-ups.
