
Barack Obama: Guns Are Our Shared Responsibility - ust
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/08/opinion/president-barack-obama-guns-are-our-shared-responsibility.html
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lsh123
"30,000 Americans have their lives cut short by guns"

To put it in perspective
([http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm](http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm)):

    
    
        Heart disease: 611,105
        Cancer: 584,881
        Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 149,205
        Accidents (unintentional injuries): 130,557
        Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 128,978
        Alzheimer's disease: 84,767
        Diabetes: 75,578
        Influenza and Pneumonia: 56,979
        Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 47,112
        Intentional self-harm (suicide): 41,149
    

Note that Accidents or Unintentional Injuries include
([http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/accidental-
injury.htm](http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/accidental-injury.htm))

    
    
        Unintentional fall deaths: 30,208
        Motor vehicle traffic deaths: 33,804
        Unintentional poisoning deaths: 38,851
    
    

Overall, I think we need to have Executive Order to cure Heart diseases and
Cancer before we go after the guns.

~~~
zarify
To give more consideration to that argument than it's worth for a second, is
there no government funded medical research into these medical issues in the
US then?

Add to the fact that you'd be talking about prevention, not cure for it to be
a parallel to the gun issue.

Shame that no government can try to do something about more than one issue at
once, though. Imagine what it would be like if we could keep dangerous drivers
off the streets, give those with mental illness the treatment they deserve,
conduct medical research into preventing and curing life threatening
illnessess, and stop deadly weapons from getting into the hands of those who
would use them to harm others, but all at the same time!

~~~
lsh123
"federal funding for cancer research is at the lowest point in decades..."

[http://www.asco.org/sites/www.asco.org/files/cancer_resarch_...](http://www.asco.org/sites/www.asco.org/files/cancer_resarch_threatened_small.pdf)

~~~
DrScump
That page doesn't give cancer research spending, just overall NIH budgets, and
it ignores cancer research spending from outside of the NIH budget.

------
DrScump
The problem that the media utterly ignores is that the Obama administration
_does nothing with the failed checks it has NOW._

In 2010, for example, there were over 73,000 gun purchase attempt denials[1],
of which _over 48,000[1] were known to be felons and /or fugitives from
justice [2]_). The number the Obama administration _attempted any prosecution_
of? 44. [1]

Just think: in the first two years of the Obama administration (the most
recent data in the WP article), there were _over 25,000 fugitives_ that were
identified trying to purchase handguns and _over 67,000 felons_ trying to
purchase handguns... and the Obama administration only even _attempted_ to
prosecute 121 of the total 92,000+.

Note that fugitive number: that's 25,000 fugitives that could have been caught
and taken off the street _just by having law enforcement show up_ at the gun
store when the would-be buyer attempted to get a handgun.

\--

1\. Washington Post Fact-checker blog, 4/11/13

2\. NCJRS

------
Mendenhall
My personal favorite line was the president of United States calling it a
democracy.

It is a republic as written in constitution. The framers of constitution wrote
much about the dangers of democracy, and here we are, where presidents call
the United States one.

