Whether you are for, against or not sure on guns, here are some stats (mostly from the CDC) that must be considered to ensure factual context in this debate. I think many people will be surprised by the actual numbers. In my opinion they raise some big questions about the role of the press, what is really going on and why.
Number of deaths for top 10 annual leading causes of death in the US (from the CDC website):
Heart disease: 659,041
Cancer: 599,601
Accidents (unintentional injuries): 173,040
Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 156,979
Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 150,005
Alzheimer’s disease: 121,499
Diabetes: 87,647
Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 51,565
Influenza and pneumonia: 49,783
Intentional self-harm (suicide): 47,511
Do you notice what is not on that list?
All Firearms deaths total are at about 39,707 a year. That is for accidental death, suicide and murder. That is roughly the same as the number of deaths from motor vehicle accidents.
Also ranking above all firearms deaths: Poisoning 75,041, Blood Poisoning 40,922, Parkinson's Disease 31,963, Liver Disease (chronic and alcohol related) about 40,000, Kidney disease and many other causes. I saw one stat saying that nearly 50,000 a year die from some aspect of opioid use.
All Firearms homicides rank about 31st on the list of all causes of death in the United States, at about 14,000 a year. 64% of those use handguns. Just 4% are from all rifles, including "assault rifles". So roughly 560 homicides a year are caused by all rifles, and some percentage of that number of 560 used "assault rifles". Some estimate the number of deaths from "assault rifles" to be roughly equal to Joe Biden's preferred firearm, the shotgun (at 2%). In 2018 373 people died in what are classified as "mass shootings" which I believe is any shooting in which 4 or more people are killed, be that domestic violence, gang shootings, workplace violence or the much sensationalized mass shootings we see on TV. You would think that millions were killed each year in mass shootings.
There are more than 328,000,000 people in the United States. 373 die each year from mass shootings. 560 die each year from all types of rifles, including "assault rifles". That is .000001 % of the population.
Any death that can be prevented, or any death rate that can be reduced, should be. I am by no means making light of a single death. We should be continually striving to improve life in every way possible. However, the priorities should be right and the focus, energy, PR, etc should be on the actual top causes of death and quality of life issues first.
Death in general cannot be prevented. Nor can a Utopia be created in which everyone always does good and nobody ever does bad. People are people and you cannot control or stop everyone from doing something bad, no matter what you do, no matter how many laws you enact, etc. Even if you could (you can't), that would mean zero freedom. Is zero freedom worth anything (not to mention that countries in which the populations are controlled the most tend to be murdered far more by their own governments).
So the Democrats and the President of the United States are prioritizing a "public health crisis" of guns, with a clear goal of taking guns away from the population at some point, if they can figure out a way to get there. The majority of the press supports this (why?) and pushes hard a false and sensationalized narrative, and does not share the types of facts listed in this post.
Despite their efforts, so far the public is not in favor of the kind of gun control they want to enact, but a slight majority is in favor of stricter gun laws, whatever that means. Presumably this support is at least significantly a result of the way the media reports on gun violence and not knowing what the actual stats are.
All this emotion and effort is being put forth for gun control and there is a heavy push to ban "assault rifles". Again, All firearm homicides are at about 14,000 a year from all causes (presumably the majority of these are perpetrated by criminals and not by law abiding citizens that legally own guns). 64% of those are handguns. Again, 560 die each year from all types of rifles, (.000001 % of the population) of which "assault rifles" are included as some percentage of that 560.
Meanwhile, about 660,000 people die each year from Heart Disease. 600,000 a year from Cancers. Those are over 2,000X greater causes of death than all rifles.
Why is this such a critical agenda item for the Democrats? Are they stupid and don't know the actual statistics?
That seams highly unlikely. Or are they smart, and figure that you and most Americans are completely oblivious to the statistics? And if that is the case, then why is this such a major issue? If they know the stats, and are pushing this hard despite the stats, what reason is there? Why so much effort, lies and sensationalism to get American's to give up a right that is the second amendment the Forefathers put in the US Constitution?
Meanwhile, what if they spend as much energy on real public health emergencies like Heart Disease, Cancer, Stroke, Diabetes, and all the other diseases that do far more damage and thousands upon thousands times the number of deaths. What if they were as aggressive with the Pharmaceutical industry, or the junk food industry, or the alcohol industry, or any other industries that directly and indirectly cause far more deaths, far more health issues, and far more costs. Heck, what if they forced the auto industry to build safer cars that would save a larger percentage of the 40,000 Americans who die in auto accidents each year (71X more than die from all rifles each year).
If you like emotion and especially the emotion of fear, then guns and assault rifles are the top problem in the United States. Ignore the facts. If you are 100% committed to a political dogma and don't care if it is based on truth or lies, don't care if it is actually good or not, and you are committed to hold to that dogma no matter what, then at least admit that. Certainly don't hold your politicians accountable to the truth or to actually doing something about causes of death such as Heart Disease and Cancer which account for over 1.2 million deaths a year. 1,250,000 vs. 14,000 vs. 560.
If you support gun control when all the other causes of death are being proportionally ignored, they you are being played by a government that does not care about you and is not working in your best interest. It's a shell game and you are oblivious and as long as you don't do anything about the game being played on you, they will definitely keep playing it.
Cure Cancer, Heart Disease, Diabetes, Stroke, Lower Respiratory Disease, Parkinson's, Kidney Disease, Liver Disease, Pneumonia, and a lot of other diseases. Make motor vehicles safer. Clean up the pharmaceutical industry.
Deal with mental health issues that are the actual cause of most violence (the gun doesn't kill people, the mentally ill person that has possession of that gun does). Reform the criminal justice system while still dealing strongly with crime. Then, when you've done all that at the very least, then come talk to me about the dangers of firearms. Before then it is just a smoke and mirrors plan to remove your rights.
(By the way, it is estimated that there are over 393 million civilian held firearms in the United States as of 2020, which is almost certainly lower than it really is. There are well over 100 million people in the United States that own a firearm. In 2020, over 5,000,000 Americans purchased a firearm (about 23,000,000 firearms sold in 2020), an estimated 40% (2,000,000) of which were first time buyers. So far in 2021, January 2 million firearms sold, February 1.5 million firearms sold, March 4 million firearms sold [which puts us over the 400 million mark]. Two thoughts. First, for the number of firearms owners and the number of firearms in the US, the number of deaths and homicides is comparatively very low. Second, how would you remove all those, and what percentage of well over 100 million people would even hand them over, or worse? For many people, removal of the second amendment is the same as removal of the entire constitution.)