OT- Writer Mark Steyn Compares Gun(g) Ho America To "Civilized" Europe or Why Law Abiding Gun Owners Reduce Crime

Gunner quoted some canuck about burglary:

But who gives a s*it about burglary when:

"Firearm Injuries Scope of the Problem

Firearms are responsible for over 38,500 deaths per year. Injuries resulting from firearms are estimated to be 5 fold higher than deaths. Motor vehicle crashes, in comparison, result in approximately 42,500 deaths per year in the US. In 6 states firearm deaths exceed motor vehicle deaths and by the year 2003 firearms are expected to be the leading cause of injury death.

The epidemiological profile of firearm deaths varies by age, sex, race, region of the country and intent. National statistics for 1994 indicate that 52% of firearm deaths resulted from suicide, 43% from homicide and 5% were classified as unintentional. The majority of deaths are from handguns rather than rifles or automatic weapons. High risk groups for firearm homicide are young males between the ages of 15-34 with the 15-24 year age group at highest risk. The death rate for black males is over nine times that of white males. Suicide death rates are higher in white males with those over 85 years of age having the highest rates (60 per

100,000). Young males of both races between the ages of 15-24 have the second highest firearm suicide rate (18.8 per 100,000 for whites vs 17.0 per 100,000 for blacks). Unintentional firearm deaths occur mainly in young children. About 500 children die each year in the U.S. from "accidental" shootings and at least 5 times as many are wounded.

US rates for firearm homicide and suicide are far higher than in other countries. A recent CDC study indicated that American children are 12 times more likely to die from a firearm injury than children in other industrialized countries.

Cost of firearm injuries is estimated to be many billions of dollars. The direct cost of medical treatment and emergency services was $3 billion dollars in 1992. Much of this cost is paid by the public. The total increases dramatically if lost wages ($34 billion) and quality of life losses ($80 billion) are tallied."

Joe

No..firearms are used to injure..not responsible for. This includes police and citizens shooting criminals, suicides, accidents, murders etc.

Of course we all all know thats bogus as hell. See below.

2000, United States Unintentional Firearm Deaths and Rates per 100,000 All Races, Both Sexes, All Ages ICD-10 Codes: W32-W34

Number of Deaths Population Crude Rate Age-Adjusted Rate**

776 281,421,906 0.28 0.27

Accidental firearms deaths..all ages...776 hummmm Now you are aware that many suicides are listed as accidents, are you not? And you are aware that accidental firearms deaths are declining rapidly, even when firearms ownership is climbing....

Accidental motor vehicle deaths...45,200...

Yup.

Bogus figures. See data from the CDC supplied below.

Some countries yes. On the other hand suicides and homicides are lower than in other countries. Japan, has 9 times the suicide rate of the US, and few are by firearm.

The annual cost of motor vehicle occupant-related death and injury exceeds $25.8 billion for children ages 14 and under, according to the National Safe Kids Campaign.

Oh.Joe? Dont trust figures from sites with .edu and having antigun agendas. Use the CDC or Department of Justice figures..they are more accurate..

Firearms and Crime Statistics Firearm-related crime has plummeted since 1993 Nonfatal firearm crime rates have declined since 1994, reaching the lowest level ever recorded in 2002. After 1994, the proportion of nonfatal violent incidents involving a firearm dropped. According to the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) in 2002,

442,880 victims of violent crimes stated that they faced an offender with a firearm. Incidents involving a firearm represented 7% of the 4.9 million violent crime of rape and sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated and simple assault. The FBI's Crime in the United States estimated that 67% of the 16,204 murders in 2002 were committed with firearms. From 1993 through 1997, less than 1% of serious nonfatal violent victimizations resulted in gunshot wounds. The number of gunshot wounds from assaults treated in hospital emergency departments fell from 64,100 in 1993 to 39,400 in 1997, a 39% decline.

Gun supply and homicides/suicides

Thousands of children die annually in gun accidents.

False. Gun accidents involving children are actually at record lows, although you wouldn't know it from listening to the mainstream media. In

1997, the last year for which data are available, only 142 children under 15 years of age died in gun accidents, and the total number of gun-related deaths for this age group was 642. More children die each year in accidents involving bikes, space heaters or drownings. The often repeated claim that 12 children per day die from gun violence includes "children" up to 20 years of age, the great majority of whom are young adult males who die in gang-related violence. 15 Leading Causes of Death in the U.S., 2001 Leading causes of death differ somewhat by age, sex, and race. In 2001, as in previous years, accidents were the leading cause of death for those under 34 years, while in older age groups chronic diseases such as cancer and heart disease were the leading causes. The top three causes for males and females?heart disease, cancer, and stroke?are exactly the same. However, suicide and chronic liver disease ranked 8th and 10th for males but were not ranked among the ten leading causes for females. Similarly, Alzheimer's disease ranked 7th for females but was not among the top ten for males. For white males aged 15?34, the top two causes were accidents and suicide, while for black males in the same age group, the top two causes of death were homicide and accidents.

Rank1 Causes of death Number Deaths per

100,000 population All causes 2,417,798 849.0

1. Diseases of heart 699,697 245.7
2. Malignant neoplasms (cancer) 553,251 194.3
3. Cerebrovascular diseases 163,601 57.4
4. Chronic lower respiratory diseases 123,974 43.5
5. Accidents (unintentional injuries) 97,707 34.3
6. Diabetes mellitus 71,252 25.0
7. Influenza and pneumonia 62,123 21.8
8. Alzheimer's disease 53,679 18.8
9. Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis 39,661 13.9
10. Septicemia 32,275 11.3
11. Suicide 29,423 10.3
12. Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis 26,751 9.4
13. Homicide 19,727 6.9
14. Hypertension and hypertensive renal disease 19,054 6.7
15. Pneumonitis due to solids and liquids 17,392 6.1 All other causes 408,231 143.3

1. Rank based on number of deaths. Source: U.S. National Center for Health Statistics, National Vital Statistics Report, vol. 51, no. 5, March 14, 2003. Web:
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   .

1998 US Motor Vehicle Fatalities and Injuries by Type of Crash Type of Accident Deaths NonfatalInjuries FatalAccidents InjuryAccidents AllAccidents

Collision with- Pedestrian 5,900 84,000 5,800 50,000 145,000 Other motor vehicle 19,500 1,700,000 15,000 1,010,000 8,980,000 Angle collision 9,900 900,000 7,400 540,000 4,550,000 Head on collision 6,600 61,000 5,000 36,000 190,000 Rear end collision 2,300 695,000 2,000 413,000 3,700,000 Sideswipe and other two-vehicle collision 700 44,000 600 21,000 540,000 Railroad train 400 2,000 200 1,000 5,000 Pedalcycle 700 49,000 700 40,000 110,000 Animal, animal-drawn vehicle 100 10,000 100 9,000 520,000 Fixed object 10,500 260,000 10,200 235,000 2,590,000 Noncollision 4,100 95,000 4,000 55,000 350,000 TOTAL 41,200 2,200,000 36,000 1,400,000 12,700,000

*********************************** Hummmmm....2 million, 200 thousand injuries by motor vehicles.....

A motorist is 40 times more likely to die in a crash involving a train than with another motor vehicle. In 1998, 14 were killed and 37 were injured in 136 highway-rail crossing crashes across the state. Nationally 422 fatalities and 1,270 injuries were associated with 3,446 such crashes. An additional 514 pedestrians were killed along US railways, including 14 in Ohio. (Ohio Department of Public Safety)

Looks like we need to ban trains......more people get killed by trains accidently than by firearms accidents by some goodly amount.

The annual cost of motor vehicle occupant-related death and injury exceeds $25.8 billion for children ages 14 and under, according to the National Safe Kids Campaign.

In 2000, 1,654 children ages 14 and younger died in motor vehicle crashes. In 2001, an estimated 228,000 children ages 14 and under were injured in motor vehicle-related crashes. Among children who died in

2001, 55 percent were not using safety restraints at the time of the collision.

The greatest number of recreational injuries to children in 2000 occurred while the child was riding a bicycle. Although most of these

415,000 injures were bruises (contusions), broken arms and wrists were also common. There were more than 125,000 fractures among bicycle riders. Falling off the bike and colliding with a fixed object such as a wall or with another bicycle were the most common causes of injuries.

Basketball is the most popular team sport in high schools and the leading cause of all sports-related injuries. In 2000, children aged 5 to 14 years had more than 407,000 muscle and bone injuries while playing basketball. Although boys and girls at this age have similar injury rates, the rate for knee injuries increases significantly for young women aged 15 years and older. Girls also have more ankle sprains than boys.

Football is a collision sport. In 2000, doctors treated an estimated

389,000 musculoskeletal injuries due to football in children 5 to 14 years of age. More than 100,000 injuries involved a fracture, although sprains, strains, and bruises were also common.

Roller sports include inline skating, skateboarding, scooters and roller skating. This category accounted for 297,000 medically treated musculoskeletal injuries among 5-to 14-year olds in 2000. More than

125,000 of these injuries involved broken bones, primarily among children under 10 years of age. Fractures due to skateboarding were more common among older children (11 to 14 years old). The forearm and the wrist were the most common fracture sites.

In the United States, there are approximately 15 million school-age students and 100 to 200 reported pediatric sudden deaths per year, roughly calculating to one to two children per 100,000 annually. Sudden cardiac death during sports typically occurs in healthy, previously asymptomatic children and young adults.

Yet the Center for Disease Control, which tracks all causes of death, reports only 86 accidental deaths in kids aged 14-years-and-under in the year 2000, and 110 suicides, for a total of 198. Not exactly 1,800. (Even if Dr. Phil intended to include homicide and undetermined intent, the total of kids aged 14-and-under killed by firearms in 2000, according to the CDC, was 435.)

By contrast, the CDC reported 943 accidental drownings of kids aged

14-and-under, 593 deaths from accidental exposures to smoke and fire, and 2,591 killed in motor vehicle accidents. Surely one child dying through handgun violence -- or any kind of violence -- is one child too many, but we should not lose perspective.

************

Looks like we need to ban water and fire.....

CDC Report on Gun Control Confirms Laws Don't Work Says Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms

10/3/03 5:43:00 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To: National Desk

Contact: Alan Gottlieb or Joe Waldron, 425-454-4911, both of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms

BELLEVUE, Wash., Oct. 3 /U.S. Newswire/ -- A report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showing that there is no conclusive evidence that gun control laws contribute to decreases in violent crime or suicide "proves what we have been saying for years," the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA) said today.

"For years," said CCRKBA Executive Director Joe Waldron, "anti-gun groups, often citing the CDC's earlier biased research, had claimed more gun laws will reduce violent crime and suicide. CDC stopped conducting advocacy research in 1996 by order of Congress. Now, according to more balanced research, the CDC is basically acknowledging that its earlier efforts, and those of extremist gun grabbers, have been all wet."

Yet the CDC, evidently unhappy with the available research, wants to study the issue more, arguing that there is "insufficient evidence to determine the effectiveness of any of the firearms laws reviewed for preventing violence." Waldron rejected that as more partisan politics.

"Because the CDC could not reach yet another anti-gun conclusion," he said, "they want to study some more, at least until they come up with a report that squared with their long-standing anti-gun agenda. That doesn't wash. For the first time, CDC has had to acknowledge that gun control doesn't work."

The report brought an incredulous comment from Peter Hamm with the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence: "It's hard to study whether gun control laws work in this country because we have so few of them."

CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb offered this blistering response: "Hamm is half-baked. Gun ownership in this country is heavily regulated by a Pandora's Box of federal, state and local gun laws, many which often conflict with one another to the point that private citizens cannot know whether they are obeying a law while breaking another. The CDC report seems to confirm what we've been saying all along. Gun control laws have no impact on criminals, only law-abiding citizens who don't commit crimes. To suggest we need more laws when the ones already passed as successive panaceas apparently haven't worked is ludicrous.

"The CDC's suggestion for additional studies, simply because they don't like the results of their own research, is like treating a patient with drugs that you know aren't working, so you give him more of the same drugs," Gottlieb observed.

So Joe..your rightious indignation is a bit misplaced. I suggest you ban bicycles, swimming pools, motor vehicles, trains, abusive parents (whom shook or beat to death many thousands more childen than they shot), food (more choked to death on food than died by firearms accidents), all sports, and pets.

Oh..you may want to ban all agriculture as well

Chuckle

Work on it..someday you may get something right.

Gunner

"Aren't cats Libertarian? They just want to be left alone. I think our dog is a Democrat, as he is always looking for a handout" Unknown Usnet Poster

Heh, heh, I'm pretty sure my dog is a liberal - he has no balls. Keyton

I don't see the 40 times in the figures above, gunner. Granted they're a bit scrambled, but I read according to the legend at the top, that the 'fatal accidents' number should be the third one from the right. So 'train' would be 200, and 'all other motor vehicle' should be 15,000.

So you are probability of dying in a car/train wreck would be around one percent of dying in a MV/MV crash - according to those numbers.

Jim

================================================== please reply to: JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com ==================================================

Bullshit re. the cost of firearms injuries! Imagine a society in which there was total zero firearms. All the sickos, criminals and otherwise plain killers would have to resort to a less efficient way to prey upon the decent element of society (that's me and you). So you'd have even higher costs than are now being generated by those that seek to kill us. The gun is an efficient killing device. The bad guys are smart enough to know that. I plan to always have one on hand to defend myself. I'm less likely to be injured by a gun than I am with some sicko wielding a knife - esp. if I am able to land the first chop, errr, shot.

Bob Swinney

I would have to mix salt peter, sulfur and charcoal.

On 7 Jan 2004 05:43:51 -0800, jim rozen brought forth from the murky depths:

19,500/8,980,000 = 0.002 = 0.2% fatality rate. 400/5,000 = 0.08 = 8% fatality rate.

0.08/0.002 = 40x difference, Jim.

That's if the stats showed all 1998 train wrecks, not just those involving automobiles.

========================================================= The Titanic. The Hindenburg. +

The Clintons. + Website & Graphic Design =========================================================

I think it boils down to the difference between comparing two different numbers. On one hand is the probability that a motorist will die in a wreck with another motor vehicle, vs in a wreck with a train.

On the other hand is the *total* probability of dying in various kinds of wrecks, train vs another car.

Because train/car wrecks are so infrequent, the second number is very low. But if you look at the fatality rate for train crashes vs other car crashes, of course the train one will be much much higher. I thought gunner was implying that the first type of comparison was large - which it isn't.

I also don't understand the difference in the stats quoted, between "fatal accidents" and "accident deaths."

Jim

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On 7 Jan 2004 12:39:10 -0800, jim rozen brought forth from the murky depths:

Hmmm, I'm feeling a little PSA here. I think that one went over my head. ;) (You lost me there.)

Ayup, whoever wrote that questionnaire/database didn't know what they were doing. Dat's fer sher.

========================================================= The Titanic. The Hindenburg. +

The Clintons. + Website & Graphic Design =========================================================

What are my chances of dying in a crash, with another car? Sort of high, right? Because most of what I encounter when I drive, is other cars. What are my chances of dying in a crash, with a train as the other vehicle? Overall pretty low - because I don't encounter many trains on the road, as a rule. So it's safe to say that, overall, dying by getting in a car/train wreck is about a percent or less of teh chance of dying in a car/car crash for me.

But, if one says, take all the folks who get in car/car crashes, and see how many die, and compare that number to the folks who die in car/train crashes, well - the train always wins. I'm suprised the ratio is more like 90 percent, rather than 40!

Jim

================================================== please reply to: JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com ==================================================

A coach crashes of a bridge.... 1 fatal accident... 40 accident deaths.

I assume "fatal accidents" is the number of incidents resulting in one or more deaths.

Ned Simmons

There were 40 fatalities in that one deadly accident?

How about a ten-car pile-up where one person dies - would that then be 10 fatal accidents, and one accident death?

Just seems to me that the defintions (and the formatting!!) of those statistics presented left a *lot* to the imagination.

Jim

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Or how about the bus involved in an accident: No fatalities, however 40 people complaining about whiplash... Weird is that according to the bus driver he had only 28 passengers when the accident happened.

Im always fascinated by folks who think the genie can be stuffed back in the bottle. Or worse.."feel" the genie can be stuffed back in the bottle.

Never happened, never will.

Gunner

"Aren't cats Libertarian? They just want to be left alone. I think our dog is a Democrat, as he is always looking for a handout" Unknown Usnet Poster

Heh, heh, I'm pretty sure my dog is a liberal - he has no balls. Keyton

Take it up with the insurance industry....

Gunner

"Aren't cats Libertarian? They just want to be left alone. I think our dog is a Democrat, as he is always looking for a handout" Unknown Usnet Poster

Heh, heh, I'm pretty sure my dog is a liberal - he has no balls. Keyton

Ha ha. The minute the bus crashed, a dozen more folks jumped on board!

Jim

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Not to mention the lawyers.

Greg H.