Are trauma surgeons one of the reasons that Americans don’t care more about gun violence?
Murder statistics go down year after year. Some of that is a legitimate decrease in violence. Some of it is the fact that a lot of people who would have been dead are now being kept alive by virtue of very skilled doctors. There’s a statistic I use in the book that says that if you held the level of medical care constant at 1960 levels, we’d have 75,000 homicides every year in the United States, and we have 12,000. It’s a huge difference. I don’t think we would be as blasé about homicides if there were 75,000 of them every year.
— Belinda Luscombe in Malcolm Gladwell on Why We Need More Cops and Why Assault-Rifle Bans Don’t Work
Follow the link to read the full interview. Gladwell has some, let us say, interesting assertions. One of his believes is the real purpose of the Second Amendment was so slave owners could suppress a slave uprising.
Well, the guy’s a Canuck, and writes for ‘The New Yorker’, so . . .
To BPjester
It is always very uncomfortable for me, to read someone who knows far less about the subject that they are talking about. Compared to my vast knowledge of the subject matter.
And the number of PhD types who talk about guns and crime, show their complete ignorance of the entire subjects.
We’re pretty blasé about heart disease that kills 680,000 each year.
Hell, we basically encourage it with all the crap food, endless consooomerism, stationary past times and labelling fitness a a neo-fascist pursuit of white supremacy.
This is like whiners bitching about surveillance all while carrying a phone everywhere they go.
Get America to stop encouraging or at least stop excusing factors that lead to heart disease then maybe, just maybe, I’ll entertain your homicide concerns.
1. The gun community isn’t “blase” WRT homicides. In a country of almost 400M people, even 75k would be an anomaly (0.02%).
2. Something like 75-90% of homicides occur in a handful of zip codes. This is not a universal problem across America.
The article states: The overwhelming amount of gun violence is young people arguing with each other and using guns to resolve some grievance or exact revenge (as opposed to committing a crime)
Presuming for a moment that “young people” are younger than 18 (the age at which you become an adult..), there are already “laws” prohibiting possession by a minor (which could be Consitutionally questionable), thus the crime has already been committed…
This is like saying an “illegal immigrant has broken no laws”.
He thinks you’re “blasé” about it because you disagree with his “commonsense” gun reg approach. I think he’s “blasé” about it because he probably isn’t interested in criminal deterrence, criminal justice, the destruction of the nuclear family, or the degradation of society. We keep talking about these things and Dems keep covering their ears while trying to ban ARs.
Good points, but they don’t fit well on a bumper sticker. 😏
“There’s a statistic I use in the book . . .”
– Malcolm Gladwell
“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. ”
– Attributed to Benjamin Disraeli by Mark Twain
And, if we removed the Top 5 Democrat-controlled cities from the statistics, America would be views as the “safest” country on earth. But, alas.
[Left wing self-admitted trans “they/them furry”] Thomas Matthew Crooks claims last victim as Jim Copenhaver dies after complications from being shot during Butler, PA assassination attempt.
ht* tps://thepostmillennial.com/thomas-matthew-crooks-claims-last-victim-as-jim-copenhaver-dies-after-complications-from-being-shot-during-butler-pa-assassination-attempt?utm_campaign=64470
Gladwell is a smart guy, but he is also a “British-Canadian” which precludes a true understanding of individual liberty versus the “collective good” as defined by the King (or Queen).
A PhD will never voluntarily spend the weeks and momths. That I or ever a teenager has spent. Learning about 2A history. And the history of guns.
But the PhD will spend a great deal of time studying the sexual habits of monkeys.
Over thirty years ago I came to believe that most people with a PhD or even a masters degree, are just highly educated BS artists.
They and their schools got a lot of federal tax dollars. President Eisenhower is spinning in his grave.
How come no mention of the 100,000 or more deaths caused by doctors and surgeons through malpractice? And negligence?
“Common sense” tells me to ignore folk such as Malcolm Gladwell.