Cause of Death

Every needless death is a tragedy.  Let me repeat and amplify that.

Again according to CDC’s Teen Drivers web page, seven teens age 16 to 19 years die every day in automobile accidents in the US.  “In fact, per mile driven, teen drivers ages 16 to 19 are nearly three times more likely than drivers aged 20 and older to be in a fatal crash.”

With deadly statistics like that, tell me again why we allow teenagers at the controls of automobiles?

Further, “Among male drivers between 15 and 20 years of age who were involved in fatal crashes in 2012, 37% were speeding at the time of the crash and 25% had been drinking.”

So why is it perfectly legal to produce an automobile capable of exceeding the speed limit when the technology to limit a car’s speed would be exceedingly easy to develop and would save so many lives?

Why isn’t it illegal for teenagers in this age group to consume alcohol?  

Oh wait!  In most places it already is.

Why isn’t it illegal for teenagers who drink to get behind the wheel of an automobile?

Oh wait!  It already is.

Clearly the only solution is to make automobiles illegal AND to make alcohol illegal.

That will solve the problem.

According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), 32,719 people died on American roads on 2013, 2155 of those being under the age of 20 which roughly coincides with the data from CDC on teenage highway deaths.   Also according to IIHS, a whopping 45 percent of fatal auto accident victims in 2013 weren’t wearing their seat belts.

So why don’t we pass a law requiring people to wear seat belts?

Oh wait!  Most states already have.

Am I beginning to make the point that passing a law does not create reality in the temporal universe?

In 2012, 40,600 Americans committed suicide, according to Lost All Hope.  About half of those suicide victims used a firearm.  The other half is mostly made up of “suffocation/hanging,” poisoning, falls (i.e. jump from bridge or tall building), and “cut/pierce” methods of suicide.

111 people died each day in 2012 intentionally, by their own hand.  That’s sad.  Let’s put a stop to it!

We can make suicide illegal!

Yeah, we already did that.

Regardless of one’s chosen vehicle to depart this world, it’s already illegal.

Yet all those people really do die.

We could eliminate half by making guns illegal!

Well yeah, I suppose we could if we accept the premise that people who can’t get ahold of a gun, and really want to kill themselves, can’t get ahold of a rope, prescription drugs, tall buildings and bridges, and knives.

So moving on to firearms deaths, let’s look at the statistics from the FBI Uniform Crime Reports.  For purposes of this article, I’m not considering any firearm deaths by suicide because I feel that’s a mental health issue and not really germaine to the discussion.  It makes no sense to me to assume that a genuinely suicidal individual will change their mind about ending it all because there’s not a firearm handy.

So according to the FBI,  69 percent of the 12,253 US homicide victims in 2013 were killed by a firearm.  That means the OTHER 3798 victims were NOT killed with a firearm.  1027 of the total victims were under 18 years old.  Extrapolating from these two pieces of data, we can estimate the number of victims killed by a firearm who were under 18 to be around 700.  Of the more than 130,000 accidental deaths in the United States each year, about 600 are attributed to firearms.

We can all agree that any amount of murdered children is unacceptable but do we have the right to disagree and debate on methods of reducing or eliminating the problem?

Or do we just have to accept whatever solution the LOUDEST lobbyists are clamoring for, simply because, “It’s for the children!”???

One problem with human thinking is that if we perceive a problem and craft a solution but the solution doesn’t have the desired effect, we seldom think that we chose the wrong course of action.  Instead of thinking that that whatever we tried was not the solution, we assume that we  simply didn’t try it ENOUGH.  We didn’t do it quickly enough, loudly enough, violently enough, etc..  

Picture the “Ugly American” trying to communicate with a Frenchman in Paris – “I SAID, ‘WHERE IS THE BATHROOM?  ARE YOU DEAF?'” and you’ll get the picture.

Sorry.  I digress.  So let’s look at some potential for saving lives.  In order to shorten this discussion a bit (this article is already way out of my comfort zone for length), let’s lay down what will seem to many, some slightly overoptimistic premises:

• Every death has one main “evil” cause that if we could make that “evil” disappear, the corresponding number lives would be saved.
• We can actually make the cause disappear through legislation
• Circumstances will not allow any other cause to intervene and prevent our work from protecting the victims.

Now these premises are purely arguendo (for purpose of discussion or “for the sake of argument”).  I’m not pretending they’re possible to achieve (although clearly some folks believe they are), I’m just trying to get to the logical conclusion if they were actually possible.  So here we go:

1. Completely outlaw and eliminate Tobacco and save nearly 150,000 lives per year and save 4.6 million of today’s youth from an early death from smoking related illness.
2. Demand perfection from the Medical Community and hold Doctors, Nurses, and Hospital Administrators responsible for their mistakes, the same way police and airline pilots are held responsible for theirs, and we could save at least 200,000 people each year.
3. Eliminate Teen Driving and save at least 6000 teenagers every year.
4. Eliminate Alcohol and save our nation from the agony of over 10,000 automobile deaths each year and countless other deaths from alcohol and alcoholism related illness.
5. Eliminate speeding by requiring speed regulators in cars and save at least another 10,000 lives each year.
6. Completely eliminate Firearms and save nearly 8500 Homicide victims each year, 700 of them teens and children.  An additional 600 firearms accident related deaths would also be eliminated.

Of course, in the temporal universe, aka “The Real World” we are assuming the impossible.  It’s not possible for us to completely eliminate tobacco, alcohol, firearms, or even teen driving, despite the obvious (to some) benefits of doing so.  Indeed to believe this is to use the same kind of logic that assumes if we make schools “gun free zones” that no guns will enter the schools.

Is there a loud and boisterous lobby screaming from the rooftops about prohibiting the use of tobacco when each and every day some 400 people die from disease related to tobacco use?  No.  Too many people profit from this business and it’s very conveniently taxed.

Is there an uproar and grass roots movement to eliminate careless and negligent medical care each day when nearly six hundred people each day fall victim to this largely preventable tragedy?  Nope.   Waaaay too many people profit from the medical business and the very people with the most access to accurate data aren’t likely to start sharing data which shows their own mistakes…

We could save more than 16 teenagers per day if we simply outlawed teen driving.  Is there well-funded lobby groups beating down the doors of congress to enact a law to save all these children?  Nope.

27 people die from alcohol-related auto accidents every day in this country.  Do we clamor to make it illegal?  Well we tried that once, even amended our Constitution to do it.  It didn’t work out so well.  A lot of people died fighting about it.  Few people quit drinking.  Eventually we, as a nation, gave up on the idea and repealed prohibition.  Too many people profit from the business and alcohol is very conveniently taxed.  Even if there was a benefactor with deep pockets willing to support a movement, they’d never be able to outspend the entrenched liquor industry.  Besides, what right does the government have to tell me I can’t drink a beer once in a while?

The technology to prevent cars from exceeding the speed limit has been with us for 40 years or more.  Why isn’t it installed in cars?  Well, really because WE THE PEOPLE don’t want it.  When a restriction like this infringes on our FREEDOM TO DRIVE LIKE WE WANT and live with the consequences, we’re ready to revolt in order to prevent it.  There is no coherent lobby demanding speed regulators in cars, even though it would clearly enhance safety and save as many as 10,000 lives each year, because there is no profit in it for anyone or any re-election prospects for a politician who votes for it.

So why is it that there are multi-squillion dollar foundations demanding that firearms be outlawed?  Is it REALLY for the children?  While I don’t doubt the sincerity of the average on the street citizen who gets the heebie jeebies thinking about guns, and believes we both can and should make firearms disappear from our lives.  I think the big money behind the movement has a more sinister objective.  A disarmed populace is much less dangerous to a tyrannical government than an armed one.  This article is too long already so I won’t go into it now, but suffice it to say that statistics don’t support the premise that fewer guns = less crime.  Not in the UK or Switzerland and not in the US (Chicago and Washington, DC are two examples) where so many states have finally begun once again to recognize an individual’s right to keep and bear arms.

And that brings us to the real question:  What is the difference between numbers one through five and number six?  Only number six is specifically mentioned in the US Constitution as a right not to be infringed.  I know there’s a lot of debate about what the Founding Fathers meant and about that I will just say this:  If you want to understand the intention of the Founding Fathers, you must understand their thoughts (i.e. what they wrote elsewhere) as well as understand the language of the day.  In my lifetime, the word “regular” has referred to clothing sizes, gasoline, and bowel movements but “Regular” (the root of “regulate) in 1776 had a completely different meaning.  If you want to know the truth, do some research.  If you don’t care about the truth, then keep arguing that the words meant the same over 200 years ago as they do now.  But consider this:

Just 40 years ago, if you said, “He’s so gay.” you meant he was a happy guy or he was in a cheerful mood.

Today, it could get you charged with a hate crime.

It’s been said that Isoroku Yamamoto, Commander in Chief of the Imperial Japanese Navy in World War II was against an invasion of the United States because his forces would find “a rifle behind every blade of grass.”  

As an American veteran and son and grandson of veterans, I like hostile countries  and potentially hostile countries/peoples to think like this.  I want want THE WORLD to consider attacking the United States to be a very dangerous endeavor.

With the current brutal threat from ISIS, I think this concept is even more important.

Thanks for reading.