11/8/18: President Trump says he’s excited about the “complete victory” he scored in the midterms, pretty much all by himself. But there are still recounts going on and he’s not having it! Naturally, he has to tweet: “Law Enforcement is looking into another big corruption scandal having to do with Election Fraud in #Broward and Palm Beach. Florida voted for Rick Scott!”
(This claim will be badly undercut – by
Florida law enforcement officials – less than twenty-four hours later. They
say they’re not investigating.)
Meanwhile, we have 6,000 U.S. troops along the southern border, guarding against a “caravan” of “invaders.”
If Trump is to be believed the “caravan” includes 500 “Middle
Easterners” (also known as “500 terrorists”), 100 Mexican murderers, 350
dark-skinned rapists, an unknown number of smallpox carriers (see: 10/30/18), six dozen lepers, 1,200
members of the MS-13 gang, and clouds of miscreants who want to gain asylum by
lying about why they’re walking thousands of miles to safety.
 |
A "dangerous" immigrant from the Middle East. |
*
____________________
“We are not anti-gun; we are anti-bullet holes in our patients.”
Dr. Esther Choo
____________________
UNFORTUNATELY, the military won’t be able to protect people in a bar in Thousand Oaks, California. Late Thursday night, a shooter walks into a Country Western place and opens fire. Twelve are killed, including Ron Helus, a Ventura County deputy, the first officer at the scene. Helus bravely rushes in only to be shot dead by the killer.
CBS describes the bloodbath:
Nearly 200 were trapped as
celebration turned to chaos. A gunman, dressed in all black and armed with a
.45 caliber Glock handgun with an extended magazine, had stormed inside. He
first shot a security guard at the front entrance, then deployed smoke bombs
inside and opened fire, shooting at random.
Inside, 11 lay dead and panicked
patrons scrambled for safety. Some dived through windows while others hid in
restrooms.
“Our friends got the bar stools
and they starts slamming them against the windows so we could get out... Just
so we were able to get out,” one person said.
Naturally, the N.R.A. issues its standard boilerplate statement: Guns don’t kill people. People kill people. There’s no reason to ban guns. Rocks can kill, too! Rocks, paper, and scissors can all be deadly. Only a good guy with a gun (or scissors) can stop a bad guy with a gun (or scissors). And no, we do not want to make it harder for bad guys to get guns, which don’t kill people anyway. If we impose universal background checks the Second Amendment will be dead faster than you can list the dozen victims of this latest mass shooting.
Expanding on its usual “all kinds of guns for all kinds of Americans at all times and in all places” position, the N.R.A. decides that this would be a perfect time to criticize doctors for pointing out that guns are increasingly at the root of a public health crisis.
Response from the medical profession is swift. “We are not anti-gun; we are anti-bullet holes in our patients,” Dr. Esther Choo says.
“We take care of these patients every day,” Dr. Joseph Sakran, director of emergency general surgery at Johns Hopkins Medicine, replies. “Where are you when I’m having to tell all those families their loved one has died?”
Angered by the N.R.A.’s response to legitimate concerns,
doctors begin posting pictures of their bloody clothing after they have
operated on the latest in an unending parade of gunshot victims:
The Annals of Internal Medicine, journal of the American College of Physicians, which represents 33,000 members, pledges to urge members to talk to at-risk patients about gun violence.
Again, CBS notes:
Gun-related deaths are
on the rise in the U.S., bucking a decade-long decline, according to a new report from the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention. During 2015-2016, the federal agency says there
were 27,394 homicides involving firearms and another 44,955 gun suicides – the highest
levels recorded since 2006-2007.
In 2015-2016, the latest year
available, homicide was the 16th leading cause of death among U.S. adults and the third leading cause for children between
the ages of 10 and 19, according to the report. Guns were used in 74
percent of all recorded homicides, and used in 87 percent of homicides
involving youth.
“It is too soon to know whether
recent increases in firearm homicide rates represent a short-term fluctuation
or the beginning of a longer-term trend,” the CDC wrote in its report published
Friday. The report referred to firearm homicides and suicides as
“a continuing public health concern in
the United States.”
BLOGGER’S NOTE (5/24/22): A check for more recent
statistics proves confusing. The numbers cited above are correct, at least when
I go to the link I used in 2018. (See first
paragraph, after summary.) The numbers in the chart below are slightly different,
27,392 homicides, 44,950 suicides. (See Table.)
So, I made no mistakes.
Checking for current information, however, I find
that the total number of gun deaths in the U.S. for
2020 is 45,222, with homicides having increased by nearly 5,000, since 2019. That
total is said to be the highest since figures were first tallied in 1968. So
the chart I used in 2018 has to be messed up, or I was misreading it (I still
don’t see how.) My guess is that the figures provided were all homicides and
all suicides in 2015-2016, not just firearms related.
I happen to be on a call with my mobile phone
provider – a form of hell in itself – when I start checking. I don’t see totals
for 2021; but do find firearm mortality rates by state, according to CDC.
In 2021, Illinois had a rate of 14.1 deaths per
100,000, which I looked up first, because Ex-President Blubber repeatedly blasts
“Democrat-run cities” for the rise in
violent crime, in particular gun violence.
He does not anyone in Texas, a red state, with a
firearms death rate of 14.2, Oklahoma, also red (and bloodier) at 20.7, or, worst
of all, Mississippi, with a rate of 28.6.
New York, by comparison, has a 5.3 rate.
The top seven states – if you hope to remain
unpunctured by gunfire (including accidental and suicidal) – are blue.
1.
Hawaii 3.4 per 100,000
2.
Massachusetts 3.7
3.
New Jersey 5.0
4.
Rhode Island 5.1
5.
New York 5.3
6.
Connecticut 6.0
7.
California 8.5
8.
Minnesota 8.9
9.
New Hampshire 8.9
10. Maine 10.4
11. Nebraska 10.1
12. Washington 10.9
13. Iowa 11.2
14. Vermont 11.6
15. Wisconsin 12.2
16. Oregon 13.0
17. Virginia 13.4
18. Maryland 13.5
19. Pennsylvania 13.6
20. South Dakota 13.6
21. Utah 13.6
22. Florida 13.7
23. North Dakota 13.8
24. Illinois 14.1
25. Texas 14.2
26. Delaware 14.4
27. Michigan 14.6
28. Ohio 15.2
29. Colorado 15.4
30. North Carolina 16.0
31. Arizona 16.7
32. Kansas 16.9
33. Nevada 17.0
34. Indiana 17.3
35. Idaho 17.6
36. Georgia 17.7
37. West Virginia 18.1
38. Kentucky 20.1
39. Oklahoma 20.7
40. Montana 20.9
41. Tennessee 21.3
42. South Carolina 22.0
43. Arkansas 22.6
44. New Mexico 22.7
45. Alaska 23.5
46. Alabama 23.6
47. Missouri 23.9
48. Wyoming 25.9
49. Louisiana 26.3
50. Mississippi 28.6
Obviously, 13 of the 14 bloodiest states are red,
which should tell you something about blaming “Democrat-run cities.”
Why not blame “Republican-run states?”
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