Guns vs Health Insurance

Well, let's just crunch those numbers, shall we, my boy?

2017 US violent crime rate:

1,248,580 violent crimes (includes murder / rape / robbery / aggravated assault) or .003 (three out of every thousand citizens) of a population of 326,000,000

3,260 homicides or .000006 (six out of every million citizens)

2020 US cancer rate:

1,800,000 new cases or .005 (five out of every thousand)

606,520 cancer deaths or .001 (one out of every thousand citizens; actually the number is .0018 but I'm rounding down for everything)

When we look at the top 12 causes of death in the US (pre-COVID19) we find violent crime doesn't even make the list. Accidents of all kinds, including firearms (and technically there's no such thing as an "accidental" firearm death, there's homicide due to firearm negligence) are #3 on the list with falls, motor vehicle accidents, and accidental poisonings being the top three. Suicide is the #10 cause of death, and there are no firm numbers on how many are by firearm, but the number is pretty high, certainly higher than the number of firearm homicides each year.

But wait! There's more! Until the Affordable Care Act was passed, 30% of all personal bankruptcies in the US were due to health related bills! Since ACA was passed, nobody covered by it has gone bankrupt because they couldn't pay for a hospital stay.

So I'm sure the little boy John Wayne fantasy of being a rough, tough, rootin' tootin' cowboy is very appealing, but remember it wasn't a bullet that laid John out but cancer.

Learn how to adult.

© Buzz Dixon