GOP Senator Lists Guns as Major Factor in Health Care Crisis
I want to thank Senator John Ensign of Nevada for speaking out about the importance of reducing gun violence as a means of addressing America’s skyrocketing health care costs:
If you take out accidental deaths due to car accidents,
and you take out gun deaths — because we like our guns in the United
States and there are a lot more gun-deaths in the United States [than
Europe] — you take out those two things, you adjust those, and we’re
actually better in terms of survival rates.
Sen. Ensign is right, “there are a lot more gun deaths in the United States” than in Europe. America suffers about 30,000 gun deaths every year, including more than 10,000 gun homicides and another 17,000 gun suicides.
By comparison, Germany sees less than 200 gun homicides each year, while England and Wales have less than 200 total gun
deaths in an average year, including about 60 gun homicides. That
puts America’s gun homicide rate about 13 times higher than Germany’s,
and almost 31 times higher than England and Wales’.
What is Europe doing that we in America aren’t? Sen. Ensign put his
finger on it: Europeans have reduced the costs of gun violence by
working to prevent it in the first place. If we in America take
meaningful action to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people,
then in Sen. Ensign’s words, we can “adjust” downward the obscene
number of gun deaths in our country. We can save lives and reduce the
costs that plague our health care system at the same time.
While he probably didn’t mean to do it, full credit goes to Sen.
Ensign for bringing this issue to the fore. Now, what can he and his
colleagues in the Senate do to help?
First, they could make it harder for felons, wife-beaters and the
dangerously mentally ill to hurt our communities by co-sponsoring Sen. Lautenberg’s bill
that requires criminal background checks for all gun sales at gun
shows. Countless firearms are bought and sold at these shows from
“private sellers” with no questions asked, making it easier for
criminals and gun traffickers to get their guns.
Sen. Ensign and his colleagues could also speak in favor of legislation to limit the sale of handguns in bulk that enable illegal gun traffickers to sell firearms to criminals on the street.
Finally, they could support legislation to strengthen Federal law enforcement and crack down on the 1.2% of irresponsible or corrupt licensed gun dealers whose businesses account for almost 60% of crime guns traced to crime scenes in America.
This week, Sen. Ensign may have accidentally shined a light on what
we at the Brady Campaign have known for decades: Gun violence not only
takes about 30,000 American lives every year, it also puts a heavy burden on our economy and our health care system, particularly when you add in the other 70,000 non-fatal gun injuries each year.
Now is the time for us to do something about it.
Sign up for the OV Daily Newsletter
OV Social
Either way, guns do not cause crime , but neither do they prevent it as much as they aggravate it. I firmly believe we should find a way to provide for each person and family a living wage, a fair shot at a place to live and a livelihood, and the basic civil services of modern society if we really want to end most of the crime in America. Too bad crime is such a big business in this country, or we might have had a chance at this. As is, it's too much to hope for universal health care , a living wage standard, and an end to the war on poor people, in my lifetime...
"Either way, guns do not cause crime , but neither do they prevent it as much as they aggravate it."
True, guns do not cause crime, just like spoons do not cause obesity .
If they aggravated crime, why do Peace Officers wear them? To aggravate crime? I contend that they are worn to help the officers protect themselves and others. It is easily argued that this tool is very effective in the hands of someone who knows how, /and when/, to use it.
The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'.
All that white collar stuff no one get's in trouble for since Dubya took office, they don't use guns , for instance.
But any crime going on will be made more dangerous, more damaging, and seductively easier to conduct.
I used a rifle to rescue a racoon once. You can use a pistol as a flowpot if you really want to.
But peace officers wear them in response to an escalation of force, and, to a lesser degree, as a deterrent. They do it to unaggravate the situation.
"But any crime going on will be made more dangerous, more damaging, and seductively easier to conduct."
I agree.
"But peace officers wear them in response to an escalation of force, and, to a lesser degree, as a deterrent. They do it to unaggravate the situation."
Is it really that much of a stretch to see that even in a citizen's hands a firearm can deescalate a situation?
Setting: Bar-
Guy A punches guy B in the nose.
Guy B pulls a knife.
Bartender racks the slide of a pump shotgun, shouts at guy B to drop it. He does. Bartender calls the cops. The jukebox plays in the background but nobody seems to hear it...
Situation defused.
The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'.
Probable?
My Grandma's tended bar in Texas for some 50+ years and all she's ever needed was a holler and a stern look.
Ideally, society will evolve to a point where not only will violence be an unacceptable means of accomplishing things, but also we will have conditions that mitigate the social factors of crime and level of awareness and selfcontrol that eliminates crimes of passion.
I don't offer this as a reason for gun control or not, but an obvious but often ignored alternative to the rugged each-for-his-own pragmatism that is usually the basis for the "need" for private gun ownership.
In other words, our goal is not the proper balance of weapon distribution, but a society where they are irrelevant in most if not all settings.
This may never occur. When we get to that bridge, I'll cross it with you, but the facts on the ground are mighty different now and for the foreseeable future.
The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'.
I suppose I should be more proactive, being in the military , but I am torn.
For instance, as Gen Powell has declared, the US battle plan should always be to blitz with overwhelming numbers of the highest trained personnel armed with with superior technology . This should ensure minimal time and resource commitment and minimal allied casualties. I think this is ideal (in context of war) and certainly feasible ( we have the numbers, training, and weapons).
But we keep screwing it up anyway. So even from the tip of the spear, military isolation is looking much better, and not just in hindsight.
This allegory does not describe a view of intercitizen ROE. It's just my attitude on what the better of all options seem to be when cornered by pragmatism and compromised ideals.
There's two arguments: Should there be prolific private gun ownership at all, and Should local, county, state and national governance be allowed to limit it variously.
The former seems more principled than not. I am not impressed by any arguments aiming to establish firearm ownership as a personal right as important as any other in the DoI, Constitution, or its amendments. But that's mostly because however slight the margin of innocent lives lost to accidents, negligence, or misuse by legal owners, its still too much to pay for the abstract value a gun represents for deterence or militia value. Personally, I think it's pragmatic to allow most adult's to own and carry pistols, but not because of important rights or universal justification.
The second argument is the one that involves all the statistics, and around the world I think this one ends up going to the gun control side for utilitarian reasons, but even so, it is not feasible to get rid of all the extant guns . So no fiat prohibition of them will work.
It's just something we will have to mature out of, someday. And the comparison to Germany is poor. It's closer to Georgia's size, but has millions of people, while Montanna is HUGE and has almost no one.
"I am not impressed by any arguments aiming to establish firearm ownership as a personal right as important as any other in the DoI, Constitution, or its amendments."
This is because you refuse to understand or unable to understand the Framers' intent and mindset. They wanted to create a nation wherein liberty was sacrosanct. They knew from experience what lack of liberty felt like in a way most Americans can only read about. They came to America and started their own country /because/ of a lack of liberty. They knew what powers to deny the government , and what rights to protect. Freedom of speech , freedom from government sanctioned religion , freedom to spread ideas, freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, etc. They also knew, as documented in many papers, quotes, and arguments, that if the People were to keep the power, they had to have the ability to do so. Enter guns . They were used to grant liberty and they are used to ensure it.
The real reason for the Second Amendment is not for hunting or sport- shooting , but for overthrowing the government should it become oppressive beyond suffering.
This is the bottom line. The Second Amendment guarantees that the rest of them will not be trampled upon.
The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'.
It's no longer relevant.
Our government has enough conventional weaponry to end the world, and then a few hundred times more with CBR weapons.
The framers intent is often full of inner conflict, compromise, and other anachronisms. It's not really practical to rely on it.
Today, it just does not seem as important as Freedom of Speech or Due Process, etc.