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I totally disagree. The sooner we can get humans out from behind the wheel, the better. Driver error (for reasons you cite and many more) are at the root of the overwhelming majority of traffic accidents.

It's ridiculous that we must risk our lives (car wrecks are the leading cause of death for people in my age group) just to go somewhere, when there's other modes of transportation that are obvious and are being done well in nearly every other first world country besides the USA.

The state should stop wasting money on new highway projects, return extraneous bypasses to nature, and build bike infrastructure in the cities and competent passenger rail between them. It's cheaper both in dollars and human cost than to keep on with what we're doing, but very few places are bothering to try.

How about using real actual statistics rather than anecdotes?

Motor vehicle accidents are the #1 leading cause of accidental death in the US, and the #7 leading cause of all death. (citation) About 1/3 of those are alcohol-related (a href="http://www.co.larimer.co.us/compass/fatalities_h_aod.htm">citation). So attempting to put a stop to drunk driving is in fact a perfectly rational societal goal.

Now, one could reasonably argue that sobriety checkpoints aren't the most effective way of reaching that goal, or that the tradeoffs are more important than that goal.

Why does that statistic even matter?

Because statistics are fun!

If it happens even once, it's too often.

It's risk(cost)/benefit. People die in car accidents more than once and it sucks but we don't give up driving.

If it happens due to Sony's negligence, it's too often.

Fair enough for the consumer but from Sony's standpoint it's back to cost/benefit.

Arming home-owners just means a simple property crime turns into a shootout. It'd be like in America where people shoot suspected trespassers, like some kid coming round to get his ball, or some minority you thought walked over your lawn. The problem with everyone carrying guns in a violent society is that every small incident escalates into a shootout as everyone instinctively pulls out their guns and starts shooting wild west style.

Wow, this is probably the dumbest thing I've read on slashdot all day. Congrats.

I'm from a state and culture that is BIG on gun ownership and usage. I'd say I'm pretty familiar with the habits of gun owners, considering that I know many of them, including my own father who has quite a collection.

You think that just because someone owns a gun, they're liable to just fire it off randomly for any reason at any person who annoys them?

You think that a typical petty criminal who breaks into a home and hears a shotgun being cocked, or has a firearm pointed at him, is going to stand and try to fight it out?

How unbelievably stupid.

And since we are considering how many accidental shootings there are in America...just how many ARE there, any way? According to this link showing the most common causes of death in the US, accidental shootings are in last place with a grand total of 776 in the year sampled, trailing far behind motor vehicle accidents, falls, poisoning, drowning, exposure to fire/smoke/flame, and complications of surgery/medical care.

Intentional firearm deaths are also dwarfed by cardiovascular disease, malignant neuroplasms (whatever the hell that is), lower respiratory disease (i.e. smoking), diabetes, flu, alzheimers, motor vehicle accidents, renal failure, and septicemia. These intentional firearms deaths also include gang warfare (criminals killing criminals), self defense shootings (guns being used as intended), and criminals being killed by police.

You sir, may not be an idiot, but you are EXTREMELY naive and ignorant.

I find so many problems with private cars I think they should be outlawed. Risks is one of them. http://www.the-eggman.com/writings/death_stats.html

My fat ass googled it.

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/FASTATS/lcod.htm
http://www.the-eggman.com/writings/death_stats.html

Found a bunch of other charts too. FBI wasn't in the early results and my fat ass is too lazy to click the first "o". I would ask for a link but why would I look to the FBI for information about the leading cause of death in the US?

BTW, guns only make 1 of the 2 lists above and it's the last thing. Oh, also, besides cancer the top causes of death are from being a fat ass. Health care coverage isn't going to change that.

Ignoring your fear mongering, equivocation, and poor attempt at equating healthcare in a completely different (both socially and scientifically) era to today's era, the only argument of substance in your post is the claim that we need to help sick people because they can infect non-sick people. First of all, that would only be true for communicable diseases. This clarification alone eliminates 97% of the most common causes of death. As for communicable disease, individual property rights are enough to counteract unintentional outbreaks. In emergency situations, the government would be able to quarantine infected individuals. If an infected invidiual trespasses onto your property without your consent, they can be prosecuted. If someone you come into contact with misinforms you about their infection status, they too can be prosecuted. This serves as a deterrent and a retroactive means to compensation.

"I find it amusing how you and your ilk tout the wonders of the free market, without ever realizing that what you propose is neither free nor market-driven."

In what way is a society in which people are free to give their earnings to whoever they want not a free society? In what way is a society in which people compete to provide what people want at the lowest price possible not market driven?

"You're just demanding that someone else pay the bill for you, whether through taxes or charity."

Where is that even close to being implied by what I said? Can you please clarify how I am demanding someone else to pay my bill when I say that I should be able to pay my own bill and not pay others' bills?

I hate articles like this...doesn't anyone actually use, you know, MATH to quantify terms like "safe" and "unsafe", without just throwing around FUD like this? BY FAR, the most dangerous thing we all do everyday is drive our cars around, which account for 44.3% of all accidental deaths in this country. This is followed by "Unspecified non-transport accidents" at 17.6%, and Falls at 13.6%.

Death stats found here http://www.the-eggman.com/writings/death_stats.html.

Aircraft deaths do not even make the list. How can something that accounts for less then 0.1% of all accidental deaths be called "unsafe"?

The trans-fat ban will actually serve to make food taste better and as a kicker lowers the risk of coronary heart disease, albeit potentially making food a tad more expensive.

The public area smoking bans have obvious health benefits for bar room staff and patrons alike, and also mean that if I spend 30 minutes in a bar my jacket, shirt, pants and hair don't reek of cigarette smoke until I wash them.

Compare the impact on our civil liberties from these bans (we can still smoke, just not in a room with other people, and why would you want to eat trans-fats??) with the infractions listed in TFA while considering the comparative risk of dying by heart disease and dying by terrorist attack.

6873

That's the number I get from adding up the number of casualties listed, although I ignored the couple dozen assassinations, because those are, well.. assassinations. Of course, it's not (and doesn't claim to be) an exhaustive list, and some of the numbers are "at least," so we'll generously double it and say ~14,000 people died worldwide as a result of terrorism from 1961-2003.

That's about 318 per year (at double the available statistics)

In an average year, in the US alone:

360 people are struck by lightning, about 90 fatally.
120 people die in airplane crashes
776 people die from the accidental discharge of firearms
3,840 people drown
12,760 people are poisoned
15,000 people are murdered
16,250 people are killed by a fall
40,000 die in car crashes
936,923 die from heart disease

(Sources: http://www.nsc.org/lrs/statinfo/odds.htm, http://www.the-eggman.com/writings/death_stats.htm l)

That's not to say that we should ignore the threat of terrorism. However, the threat should be kept in perspective, and our response should be measured accordingly.

This stinks. I never thought I'd see the day in America when a STUDENT couldn't write or say what they wanted.

Man, you haven't been paying attention for a few years, have you? That day has come and gone, a LONG time ago.

These days, if a first grader makes a gun out of his thumb and index finger and "shoots" another kid during a schoolyard game of cops and robbers, he's likely to be labelled a potential Harris or Klebold. If a teenager has a violent dream and writes about it in a school assignment, the school goes into lockdown and the police get called.

If you think what happened to this Marquette student is absurd, wait until you read some of the stuff at that link. And those are mostly in public schools. Bastions of free speech and thought, my ass.

~Philly

Sooo... flying from NY to say London and going over that "nice warm" North Atlantic Ocean is soooo much safer..

look at the odd's , crunch the numbers.

the USA has about 40K ppl die per year from car crashes, and about 25 - 30 K from assaultings ( shootings , stabbings etc )

http://www.the-eggman.com/writings/death_stats.htm l

** snip **
In the US, each year there are about 40,000 deaths per year in automobile
accidents vs. about 200 in air transport. To put this in perspective, the
chance of dying in an automobile accident is about 1000 times more than
winning a typical state lottery in a year.

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/gen99/gen998 45.htm

Sooo yeah .. you have a greater chance of dying by "driving your car" to the airport, than you have of dying by the plane falling out of the air.

but even with that said, if you did go down in the North Atlantic, at least you wouldnt have to worry about the pain for more than about 3 or 4 mins.

Yes, you're right. Except for the part where you're completely wrong.

I am not more likely to hurt myself or an innocient bystander. There are irrefuteable statistics gathered by the government - not a partial agency - which support this.

From the US DOJ:

On average in 1987-92 about 83,000 crime victims per year used a firearm to defend themselves or their property. Three-fourths of the victims who used a firearm for defense did so during a violent crime; a fourth, during a theft, household burglary, or motor vehicle theft.

This, despite the fact that according to the CDC (here's a Google cache) says that accidential firearm deaths are decreasing.At the same time firearm ownership is on a greater increase per capita in the US than it has been at any other time in history (for the last 20 years).

Actual accidential death counts make you appear to be a complete idiot, I might add. In 2002, there were 776 accidental firearm deaths. Contrast this to the 3,059 deaths due to medical care/surgery, the 3,377 due to exposure to smoke, fire, or flames, 3,842 drownings, 12,757 accidental poisonings, 13,322 accidental deaths from falls, or 43,354 accidental motor vehicle accidents. You are over 40 times more likely to die of Septicemia (?!) or renal failure than of accidental firearm discharge.

If you want to just look at the total firearm death rate, you're still looking at a very rediculous disproportion that points out your childish fears: 28,663 firearm deaths total, which is still less than Septicemia (which I just found out is blood poisoning) and renal failure (kidney failure). This is further marginalized if you're a convicted criminal, as the majority of firearm deaths are perpetrated by such people, against such people. (Sorry, but about 5 minutes of googling didn't turn up this information; if you're interested in the topic, however, I'm sure you'll find it, as I did at one point. It was an FBI-released document, if I recall correctly, composited from all US police precinct data.)

Seriously. Don't buy into the media's perpetration of firearms as a great evil. Don't fear guns in and of themselves: they're just tools. Fearing an inanimate object is just irrational emotionalism - not something I'd hope an educated citizen (as opposed to an uneducated consumer: someone that doesn't value their rights, know what they are, etc.) would fall prey to willingly.

Man, that's HARDLY putting it into perspective.

Death Stats

An American is about FIFTEEN TIMES more likely to die of renal failure than terrorism. TEN TIMES more likely to be killed by a gun than die of terrorism. About four times more likely to die from falling (ahem, presumably this doesn't count falling off the WTC). An American is statistically more likely to drownd than die of terrorism, and yes that includes people living in the desert.

If you're going to put it into perspective, use some hard evidence. ;)