~a column by Colleen O’Brien
According to CNN, there have been 47 mass shootings since March 16.
Statistically, about 109 people a day die from guns in the U.S., close to 40,000 a year. These figures are from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Daily deaths due to heart disease were 2,353 a day in 2017.
Daily deaths by COVID-19 range from 790 to 1,133 to 2,776 a week ago. As you can see, the stats are all over the place.
So, no wonder we don’t seem to care how many die from guns – 109 a day compared to 1,133 Covid deaths? Ten times?
That the average death by gun is twice as high for Blacks than Whites is the problem, but because there are more white people than black people in this country, that fact could have something to do with the reluctance to deal with the gun issue, Whites’ track record in protecting or helping Blacks being what it is.
When 20 white children between the ages of six and seven years old get shot in their grade school in 2012, however, nothing happened then, either. The U.S. Senate one month later voted down by 60 to 40 a ban on automatic rifles, partly on the theory that the guns are already on the street, so banning their purchase would be pointless.
Gun ownership and gun regulation are the most often debated subject in the U.S. Doing nothing about our gun problem, censured in the rest of the world, remains low on the agenda. This is the definition of “Talk’s cheap, takes money to buy whiskey.”
Mortality by disease, obesity, opioid overdose, gun violence, suicide, smoking, road accident and infant death is higher in the U.S. than in other wealthy countries. Researchers on these numbers blame the rural-urban divide, the racial divide and the economic divide in the United States.
So, living in America is more dangerous because of too many guns and too little universal of health care.
The middle class and upper-class White majority continue to think well of ourselves, consider our country better than any other and love living here.
I love living here, and although I’ve learned that many things are better in other countries, I was taught that part of the joy and comfort of this beloved existence was related to how well we took care of the least among us.
Calvin Coolidge, President of the U.S. from 1921-1929, said, “The business of America is business.” We took it to heart, to the serious detriment to ourselves.
My interpretation of his statement has come to mean that our “business” would be best off if we dealt more with humans and less with stuff. I’m not saying that commerce and commercialism are not important, just not the most important.
