FRIDAY FEBRUARY 4 2000
> Deaths by firearm rank low in U.S.
>
> ? 2000 WorldNetDaily.com
>
> To hear Handgun Control, Inc. tell it, guns –
>specifically handguns — are the worst killers of both children
>and adults since the birth of the modern American nation-state.
>But the reality of the issue is this: Guns, in all
>applications and under all conditions and circumstances, routinely kill far
>fewer Americans annually than a number of other unrelated
>causes.
> In fact, as Florida State University criminologist
>Gary Kleck has regularly proven, guns actually save about 2.5
>million lives a year.
> Yes, I know — what can we expect? After all, this is
>Handgun Control, Inc. and they have no compunction against
>telling the truth as they want it to be, instead of using
>documented facts — all of them — to present their case to
>their constituents and the American people in general. The establishment
> media has a large hand in perpetuating these lies and distortions of
>truth.
> Well, after becoming nauseated from reading so much illogical and
>incorrect hype regarding the “big scare” over guns, I decided to do what
>Handgun Control and a bunch of other liberal anti-gunners ought to do
>themselves — I did research.
>
> Imagine that. What I discovered was what I expected
>to find — and more. And it was easy; all it took was a little
>time. So, hopefully the next time an anti-gunner gets in your
>face about that Glock you’re packing underneath your coat,
>you’ll be able to halt him with facts and, with a little luck, even
>change his mind.
> According to the National Safety Council, in 1996
>alone, 120,000 deaths resulted not from guns but from
>accidental medical errors. In 1998, around 41,200 people were
>killed in automobile accidents; falls claimed 16,600;
>poisonings killed 8,400; about 4,100 people drowned; and some 3,700
>were killed in fires or from burns.
> These figures ought to be enough to get the
>litigation vultures on Lawyer Row in a tizzy thinking about what color of
>Jaguar to order next — or how many.
> To continue: Rather than guns being the leading cause
>of death in the home — accidental or otherwise — falls
>have that dubious honor. In 1998, home accidents in general
>accounted for about 28,200 fatalities, and about 6.1 million
>debilitating injuries. Of that figure, falls numbered 10,700. Most
>people who fell — more than 86 percent — were aged 65 or
>older. Falls are followed by deadly solid and liquid poisonings,
>fires and burns, and suffocation by ingested object as the
>leading killers in the home.
> Of “Deaths and Injuries in the Community,” the NSC
>said, “the five leading fatal causes are falls, drowning,
>water, air and railroad transportation.”
> From 1994-96, there were 129,536 deaths from
>automobile accidents and approximately 350,000 accidental medical deaths.
>This compares with 47,115 shooting deaths in the same period of time.
>Obviously we need to outlaw cars, hospitals and doctors as well as guns,eh?
> As for kids — the favorite “pull-on-their-heartstrings” line used by
>liberal anti-gunners — firearms are a child’s (or a parent’s) least
>serious worry.
> In 1998, motor vehicle accident deaths claimed the lives of 2,600 children
>aged 0 to 14; 200 suffocated to death;
>570 were killed by fire or burns; 850 drowned; 70 were
>poisoned, 160 died from falls; and 40 died from carbon monoxide inhalation.
>During the same period, guns “principally in recreational activities or on
>home premises” accidentally killed 110 kids aged 1 to 14 years. Other
>methods,
>including “medical and surgical complications and misadventures,
>machinery, air transport, water transport (except drowning), mechanical
>suffocation, and excessive cold,” killed an additional 500 children.
> So, as you can see, guns are not our biggest health
>problem in this country. As I measure it, liberal anti-gunners, who
>either lie outright or use only smidgens of fact to
>”justify” their anti-gun hysteria, are far more dangerous.
> For the record, yes — I agree that one child killed is too many when
>it comes to death by firearms.
> But I’ll tell you something as a parent: I have nearly lost children to
>common household accidents, and my kids would have been just as dead as if
>they’d shot themselves with a pistol by accident. Their loss would have
>been extremely painful, no matter the cause. I can take every single gun
>out of my house and out of my neighborhood, but as the statistics above
>show I am more likely to lose a child to another kind of accident in the
>first place.
>
> So what is the point?
>
> For parents who lose children to other “normal” everyday causes, their
>deaths are just as painful, as tragic and as unpreventable as any other
>cause. And we should grieve for them. If you’re a committed liberal
>anti-gunner, if you think banning every gun is a do-able task and will
>guarantee that your kids will survive their childhood — even in
>your own home — you’re deluded beyond help. Because the reality is, we
>cannot ban everything dangerous to our children or our society. If we do
>that, we’ll all end up living in empty rooms, in empty houses, and probably
>killing each other out of desperate boredom.
> Then we’ll have to ban ourselves from existence — which will include
>lawyers, judges and juries, so who will take,
>hear and decide our cases?
>
> Jon E. Dougherty is a staff writer for WorldNetDaily.
>