Is That a Gun in Your Pocket?
November 6th 2007 00:24
The National Security Council of America has on its website a list of statistics detailing the various ways in which people die each year in the United States. These range from murder to drowning to poisoning to bee stings, as well as just about any other means of death you care to imagine. As well as listing the total number of people killed in the US by each of these things in 2003 (the most recent year for which there are statistics), they also show the probability of dying from any of these causes. At the risk of sounding morbid, the results are fascinating.
For example, in 2003, some 17,732 people died in the US due to assault, including 11,920 from assault by firearm. This translates to odds of one in every 16,403 people in the US dying from assault, and one in every 24,400 people being killed by a firearm.
Whilst these figures seem disturbingly high, almost twice as many people (31,484), died due to “intentional self harm,” including a whopping 16,907 from intentional self harm by firearm, or roughly one in every 17,000 people.
One of the most common arguments used to defend the right of American citizens to have a firearm is that of self-protection. I will be less likely to be attacked, goes the argument, if I am carrying, or at least have near to hand, a firearm. And if I am attacked I am more likely to survive, so they say, if I have a weapon to defend myself.
This is all well and good, but looking at these statistics perhaps a more pertinent question would be, who is going to protect us from ourselves? It’s not so much the big bad world around us that you need to worry about, it’s the potentially much more dangerous world inside your head. I say, throw away your damn gun. You might not have much protection from robbers, murderers and things that go bump in the night, but you’ll be a hell of lot better protected from yourself!
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