Fight the enemies of the people

Not sure why I am receiving this stuff, but I will pass it on.

The Cost of Gun violence

I was curious as to how much this "Freedom" and "right" costs the American public and found John Rosenthal's December 15, 2009 post Health Care Costs and Gun Violence. He's a businessman, not a public health professional, but even being in business would give him an ability to assess the costs. He gives the figure that:

On average, guns kill or wound 276 people every day in America. Of those, 75 adults and 9 children will die. In the US there are more than 30,000 deaths and over 100,000 injuries related to gun violence each year.

He also states that:

According to the Public Services Research Institute in 2008, firearm homicide and assault cost federal, state and local governments $4.7 billion annually including costs for medical care, mental health, emergency transport, police, criminal justice and lost taxes. They also state that when lost productivity, lost quality of life, and pain and suffering are added to medical costs, estimates of the annual cost of firearm violence range from $20 billion to $100 billion. According to the National Center for Disease Control, the cost of firearm fatalities is the highest of any injury-related death. In fact, the average cost of a gunshot related death is $33,000, while gun-related injuries total over $300,000 for each occurrence.

OK, That means firearms injuries cost the United States public between 20 and 100 billion dollars a year. Jens and Ludwig calculate the cost of gun violence at the higher figure ($100 billion). Fiscal Spending in the US was $2,979 Billion with medicare and medicade spending coming in at 23% at a cost of $682 Billion. That would make the cost of gun violence roughly 3 to 15% of the Medicare/Medicade budget. The 100 Billion figure puts the cost of gun violence at around 3% of the total US Spending figure.

To put this number into perspective, $100 billion could be used to cover nearly two-thirds of those in America who are currently without health insurance, or to pay college tuition at a good public university for 27 million people – roughly the entire population of New York and New Jersey combined. And this reflects the costs of gun violence for just one year.

Now, the fact that firearm injuries are preventable, which they are if we reduce the amount of firearms in circulation via registration and conditions on firearms' sales. Simply requiring a criminal background check for all gun sales would significantly restrict access to guns by those who historically misuse them without limiting the Second Amendment rights of law abiding citizens. Of course, firearms regulation is the bugaboo of the gun cretin crowd who would fill this blog with comments, if I allowed them. On the other hand, they remain mute about the cost to society of their "right". In fact, they scream loudly about rights, yet are not willing to show responsibility. Perhaps it is time to make them pay for their right!

Rights come with responsibilities. I think that the sale of firearms, ammunition, reloading supplies, and other gun related items should be heavily taxed to defray the cost to society since it is society that must bear the burden of their "right". But why should society be burdened and why has society allowed itself to be burdened by those who claim this right, yet are not willing to shoulder their responsibilities?

If they can't exercise their right in a responsible manner, then this right should not exist in the matter of public interest.

There is a God!

The Senate Tuesday afternoon voted 54-45 to kill Sen. Ben Nelson's amendment to the health-care overhaul legislation that would have banned the use of federal taxpayer money for abortions.

Thank you, Blue Gal for getting me the News about this!

Maybe the US isn't that far gone. Although, I have serious worries when I read the works of the keyboard warriors on the internet.

Why do I call them gun cretins?

Not all gun owners are gun cretins.

Take Me, believe it or not, I own guns and believe they are dangerous items that need to be regulated and work toward that goal.

On the other hand, there is a small minority of irresponsible idiots out there who see a hint of regulation and do all sorts of stupid things. For some reason "gun rights" is the ultimate wedge issue that can get people to support positions which are a threat to their economic interests.

It seems that the group Gun Owners of America has been hunting for a way into the health care debate for three months.

I have been waiting for that shoe to fall.

My predicition is that people will eventually get sick of all this talk of gun rights and irresponsible gun owners. It would be nice if this blog were a wake up call to the gun cretins, but that's hoping for way too much.

More likely this would be a resource to counter the "bumper Sticker" arguments along with Doug Henigan's book Lethal Logic.

"Gun rights" do not trump people's rights to live healthy and safe lives. Guns do not make a society safe.

Richard Nixon a liberal?

What is the US becoming? Somehow the topic of US health care came up at dinner last night. It seems that Richard Nixon proposed a comprehensive health care plan in 1974!:

Now it is time that we move forward again in still another critical area: health care.

Without adequate health care, no one can make full use of his or her talents and opportunities. It is thus just as important that economic, racial and social barriers not stand in the way of good health care as it is to eliminate those barriers to a good education and a good job.

Three years ago, I proposed a major health insurance program to the Congress, seeking to guarantee adequate financing of health care on a nationwide basis. That proposal generated widespread discussion and useful debate. But no legislation reached my desk.
--Richard Nixon

I found it worrying when I watched a documentary and saw some of the programs Nixon brought about, such as the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act, which would now be decried as socialist!

What is going on with United States Politics?

The US Health System Is Way Better Than Europe's -- If You Don't Count Gunshots and Auto Accidents

Ever wonder why those people are showing up with firearms at meetings where Health Care reform is being discussed?

No phrase is bandied around more in the gun debate than “freedom of the individual”. When it comes to most dangerous products such as handguns, automatic weapons and other things specifically designed to kill people, I believe control is necessary, not least because the failure to deal with such violent devices often means that other freedoms must be curtailed.


TPM LiveWire
Ensign: Our Health System Is Way Better Than Europe's -- If You Don't Count Gunshots and Auto Accidents
Rachel Slajda | September 29, 2009, 12:48PM

In the Senate Finance Committee debate on health care reform this afternoon, Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) brought up what he thought was a very good point: If you don't count injuries from guns or car accidents, the U.S. health care system actually provides better outcomes than those in European and other industrialized countries.

"Are you aware that if you take out gun accidents and auto accidents, that the United States actually is better than those other countries?" Ensign said. Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) had been citing the health care systems of France, Germany, Japan and Canada as more effective, but with lower costs.

"But that doesn't have anything to do with health care. Auto accidents don't have anything to do with h--," Ensign said, cutting himself off. "I mean we're just a much more mobile society. ... We drive our cars a lot more, they do public transportation. So you have to compare health care system with health care system."

"The level of gun ownership world-wide is directly related to murder and suicide rates and specifically to the level of death by gunfire." From International Correlation between gun ownership and rates of homicide and suicide.' Professor Martin Killias, May 1993.

Gun Deaths - International Comparisons

from The Gun Control Network
Gun deaths per 100,000 population (for the year indicated): SROLL DOWN AS I CAN'T FIGURE OUT TABLES!

	Homicide	Suicide	Other (inc Accident)
USA(2001)	3.98	5.92	0.36
Italy (1997)	0.81	1.1	0.07
Switzerland(1998)	0.50	5.8	0.10
Canada(2002)	0.4	2.0	0.04
Finland (2003)	0.35	4.45	0.10
Australia (2001)	0.24	1.34	0.10
France (2001)	0.21	3.4	0.49
England/Wales(2002)	0.15	0.2	0.03
Scotland(2002)	0.06	0.2	0.02
Japan(2002)	0.02	0.04	0

Data taken from Cukier and Sidel (2006) The Global Gun Epidemic. Praeger Security International. Westport.


Figure produced by IANSA (International Action Network on Small Arms) and taken from their recent presentation Gun Violence: The Global Crisis.

An Interesting take on healthcare

I'll be the first to say that there should have been some form of single payer health care in the US for a long time. Not having health care has been an economic drain that I would say has contributed to the collapse of the US economy along with the debt based economic system.



I have to admit a great frustration with US politics. It seems that the lunatics have taken over. Although, I would argue that happened with the reaction to the Revenue Act of 1764.

The United States is a Democracy in the most perjorative form of the word.

From this view of the subject it may be concluded that a pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert result from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions. James Madison, The Federalist No. 10, 22 Nov 1787

Rep. Barney Frank addressed this situation quite eloquently "it is a tribute to the First Amendment that this kind of vile, contemptible nonsense is so freely propagated. Ma'am, trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table. I have no interest in doing it."

Frustrate their politics!