Back in October, Frank Williams wrote a seminal piece for TTAG called Ban Everything. It was an important reminder that, well, let me put it this way . . . A cop comes across a man on his hands and knees underneath a streetlamp. “What are you doing?” he asks. “Looking for my car keys.” The cop looks around. “Where’s your car?” “Over there,” the man says gesturing at the darkness. “Why are you looking here?” “The light’s better.” Same story with gun control. Politicians and activists focus on firearms fatalities because guns are scarier than swimming pools. More singular than car accidents. More heart-tugging than heart attacks. Quick! What kills more people: ballistics gone bad or binge drinking . . .
More than 38 million U.S. adults binge drink an average of four times each month, according to a new report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency notes that the majority of people who binge drink are not alcoholics, but the trend is alarming because of the number of serious problems that can occur when people have too much alcohol, such as car accidents, violence and sexually transmitted diseases.
The CDC reports that too much drinking results in 80,000 deaths each year in the U.S., and cost the country more than $223.5 billion in 2006.
abc.com doesn’t offer a comparative analysis with firearms-related fatalities. The CDC’s funereal number crunching thingie (a.k.a., the Injury Mortality Report) puts the total number of gun-related deaths at 31,224 for 2007.
Remember: the stat includes a large percentage of gun-related suicides. Anyway, as callous as this sounds, call it good. Guns wouldn’t be effective for self-defense or hunting if they weren’t lethal, and lethality carries with it inherent risks. Besides, whatcha gonna do? Ban guns?
Prohibition didn’t saves lives. Tightening restrictions on U.S. gun ownership would have a similar non-impact. In fact, clocking crime in Chicago, LA, New York City and Washington, D.C., a compelling case can be made that less guns = more crime. More death.
If you see American firearms ownership in its proper perspective, you can see that banning guns for civilian use (the gun control advocates’ not-so-secret agenda) is as dumb as a box of rocks. The only way to evade the truth about guns is to willfully obscure the facts of the matter, or ban those who tell the truth about guns.
Go ahead. Make my day.