Here’s a CNN article on deaths by influenza in the US and worldwide.
From it we learn that according to the CDC the US has already experienced 13,000 deaths related to regular ‘ole influenza this year. Average is about 36,000 per year.
Those numbers are awfully close to something else: Deaths by gun in the US.
We get about 30,000 a year, over half of which are suicides. We end up with about 14,000 homicides and that’s lumping in justified homicides too.
So, if we lop off the folks that intentionally kill themselves with a gun while ignoring that of the remaining 14,000 deaths some were perfectly justified shootings by police officers and regular citizens, and we ignore that you’re more likely to die from the flu if you’re very young or very old, basically pretending that everything is random about these situations, you’re twice as likely to die from the common flu as you are from gun violence.
Every human, bird, and pig, is capable of carrying a virus twice as deadly to you as a gun, statistically speaking, but folks from the Brady Bunch don’t think me going through 40 federal background checks (at least) over the years, fingerprinting, and mandatory gun safety classes (for a CCW permit) is enough. They think I’m a danger to society when a snot-nosed 2 year old stands a far better chance of killing you than I do.
Simply amazing.
