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A TTAG reader who’s currently serving in the military strolled into his base’s dental clinic where he found this poster on the wall. It provides a healthy bit of perspective on the primary causes of death and heartache in this country.
Taken together, the top five causes account for 950,000 annual deaths. That’s around 27 times as many as result from firearms. Not to mention that two-thirds of those firearms deaths are the result of suicides, which makes the extent to which they’re preventable highly questionable.
Far be it from us to tell others what they should eat, drink and smoke. We’ve been known to light up a stogie and enjoy a glass of brown liquor after enjoying a Porterhouse big enough to choke Rosie O’Donnell. All in the same evening.
The message here is that the furious efforts of all the assorted ninnies, nannies and nitwits in the media are drastically misplaced. No one doubts that the Parklands and Sandy Hooks are horrific. The fact that so many (most?) of these events were examples of law enforcement and institutional failures only make them worse.
But when was the last time high schoolers walked out of class to protest the sinister power of the National Beer Wholesalers Association after a car full of their classmates died after a kegger? Has anyone seen a snot-nosed urchin, assisted by a national cable network, accuse the Governor of North Carolina of having blood on his hands because he accepts campaign contributions from RJ Reynolds?
No? Go figure.
How long do you think politicians of either party would last if they lecture constituents about their their smoking, drinking and eating habits? Well, outside of California, that is.
And yet one major party thinks nothing of haranguing almost half the electorate over their embarrassingly déclassé desire to provide for their own defense. And a substantial number of them are brazen enough to advocate amending the Constitution in order to take that right away from Americans.
So the next time you’re accosted by someone who’s appalled that you’re a gun owner, keep that poster in mind. Ask him or her about what they’re doing to stop the death cult that is Northern California’s wine industry. Ask how they can sleep at night knowing their children will wake up the next morning and eat a bowl full of Cap’n Crunch soaked in fat-laden whole milk. Then walk away, smirking, as their mouth opens and closes silently, like a goldfish, as they contemplate the profound hypocrisy of their existence.