[ExI] Upon pondering your freedoms

The Avantguardian avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com
Sat Jul 5 22:42:57 UTC 2008


--- Gary Miller <aiguy at comcast.net> wrote:

> I disagree if your suggestion was taken up the worst that could happen is
> that the number of accidental firearm deaths in the United States would rise
> sufficiently to outnumber the deaths ever incurred by terrorist.
> 
> http://www.gunpolicy.org/Topics/Accidental_Shooting.html

In 2005, according to the CDC, there were 30,694 total gun-related deaths from
all causes i.e. violent crime, accident, and suicide.

http://webapp.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate10_sy.html

In that same year there were 45,520 automobile related deaths from all causes.
Both are out of a population of 296,507,061. That would mean that guns are
safer than automobiles. Would you take away my car next? Or is getting to work
more improtant to you than keeping what you earn?
 
> Based upon these statistics I fail to see how having a gun in everyones
> house makes us any safer.

Safety and freedom are sometimes mutually exclusive. And even in halls of the
mighty, security is for the most part a comforting illusion. Freedom is nothing
if not the freedom to takes risks because every free being is responsible for
the consequences of its own choices. In a universally-armed society violence is
self-limiting by natural selection. The violent will die out and only
well-armed pacifists will remain to bear children to compete with one another
at business, soccer, and math. It's just nature, dude. :-)


Stuart LaForge
alt email: stuart"AT"ucla.edu

"In ancient times they had no statistics so that they had to fall back on lies."- Stephen Leacock


      



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