One instructive way to think about gun control is to consider it a public health/consumer safety issue. So, to further show how America has lost its mind about this issue, consider the following facts:
Between 2000 and 2010, 32 infants or toddlers were accidentally strangled by drop-side cribs. This grim fact led to government warnings going out nationwide about the proper use of such cribs. Then, between 2005 and 2012, over 7 million cribs were recalled. That's right, the government mandated that unsafe cribs be disposed of or returned to their sellers and not be manufactured or sold any longer. Something was unsafe, and the government did something about it.
Each of these deaths was a tragedy that scarred a family forever, and it's the government's job to try to keep us all safe and to minimize such tragedies.
The United States experiences epidemic levels of gun violence, claiming over 30,000 lives annually, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For every person who dies from a gunshot wound, two others are wounded. Every year, approximately 100,000 Americans are victims of gun violence. In addition to those who are killed or injured, there are countless others whose lives are forever changed by the deaths of and injuries to their loved ones.
A handful of tragic deaths each year in unsafe cribs results in government action; 32 dead children, 7 million cribs recalled. But 30,000 dead from gunfire every year is the acceptable cost of our sacred Constitution in action. America is crazy.
And given the Gun Nuts and their fantasies of protecting themselves from government usurpation of their rights with their stockpiled weapons, I'm kind of surprised that the NRA didn't call on Americans to rise up and defend themselves from tyrannical government seizure of the recalled cribs.
