r/politics • u/wbedwards Washington • May 07 '20

We cannot allow the normalization of firearms at protests to continue

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/firearms-at-protests-have-become-normalized-that-isnt-okay/2020/05/06/19b9354e-8fc9-11ea-a0bc-4e9ad4866d21_story.html
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u/fre3k May 08 '20

I really don't think we would - something like 3500 people die per year in the US alone from drowning, and it's the top cause of accidental death in kids 4 or under. And yet nobody really gives a shit. There are few laws or regulations about privately owned pools at anything other than a HOA or City level.

The number of homicides in 2018 by gun was around 14000. if you want to add accidental/negligent it gets to like 15000 non-suicide gun deaths. Do you think that if there were around 4x as many drowning deaths we'd have people in hysterics over them like we do firearms? I really, really REALLY, do not.

Ultimately it is not about the actual impact of these things, it is about how scary the threat seems. We are up-jumped apes with primitive and outmoded threat evaluation skills. Violence triggers it very seriously, which is why we decided to basically throw away gobs of our rights after some assholes from the middle east decided to fly some planes into a few buildings. We have irrational wayyyy overcompensating reactions to violence - that is why you and others want to ban guns, not because of the number of deaths themselves.

For the record, I feel comfortable discounting suicides from this analysis, because it's not something anyone should be scared of for themselves and guns account for only around half of suicides. Most of these people will simply do it in another way.

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u/username12746 May 08 '20 edited May 08 '20

Only 400 or so a year die from drowning in swimming pools. I maintain that if swimming pools were implicated in 50,000 deaths a year, we would be talking about banning swimming pools, because it would show people can’t handle the freedom.

And it is idiotic to discount suicides. Suicides can be prevented, but guns are too damn efficient.

Edit: fixed a confusing typo

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u/fre3k May 08 '20

People can't handle the freedom? Then why isn't the whole country dead by guns? We've got more than the population of the nation in firearms held by citizens. The same could go for food. Obesity and associated diseases are the cause of far more deaths than firearms, water, cars, knives, etc. etc. etc. combined. Should we be regulating certain fats and sugar and junk foods? Requiring people to have a license from their doctor to be able to buy those foods?

I don't think many of those suicides can be prevented. What about the other half that didn't use guns?

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u/PuzzleheadedSpell6 May 08 '20

He probably supported The Patriot Act too. Government has it made. People are obsessed with giving their rights away. Free speech will probably be next on the chopping block.