|
|
|
|
|
|
by literallycancer
3245 days ago
|
|
|
>But cars are useful and, on average safer, for many / the majority of people that use them. Guns are, on average, not so useful / safe. Note that I'm averaging this across the planet, not just across one small (5% of global population) country with a lot of strong opinions on the matter. Do you have the numbers to back that up? |
|
|
Seriously?
Do you mean car .vs. gun, or gun harm/death differentials between countries with (broadly) different attitudes towards gun ownership and use?
The latter is pretty easy to find numbers. Wikipedia [1] (sort by last column) for countries by fire-arm death, or [2] estimated number of guns (ownership) per capita. Comparing gun deaths around the world, humanosphere[3] has some nice stats (from 2016-06) dispelling the 'other countries without so many guns just use knives' argument. Actually, that article has some hugely sobering comparisons with some highly risky parts of the planet. CBS posted an article in 2016-02 [4] comparing gun deaths in the USA with other countries - quoting a study published in the AMA earlier in the year.
If you mean the former - that's a trickier thing to evaluate. Less people have access to a gun than a car, for starters, and most people use a car much more often than they use a gun. Cars are designed to transport people and goods - guns are designed to cause damage - so defining 'accidental use' of both is an interesting question. A bit of quick googling comes up with some numbers, suggesting guns are now - in absolute terms - the cause of death for more USA citizens than cars ... but naturally there's some dispute about how those numbers are determined, and some strong interest in not comparing those stats to other countries.
On the other hand, if you think gun ownership should be legal, popular, loosely regulated, and enshrined in law, then you're probably well prepared to disregard any argument to the contrary. Any 'but people die from car accidents' rebuttal <sic> is pretty disingenuous.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-r... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_guns_per_c... [3] http://www.humanosphere.org/science/2016/06/visualizing-gun-... [4] http://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-u-s-gun-deaths-compare-to-ot...