The headlines scream, “Gun deaths overtook car crashes as leading cause of trauma death in the U.S., study shows,” but what does it really mean?

It means that a group of progressive virtue-signaling physicians has published another nonsensical paper trying to distort the facts to pursue a gun control agenda. Even worse, they introduce a meaningless metric called “years of potential life lost,” which is a reductio ad absurdum result, the disproof of a proposition by showing that it leads to absurd or untenable conclusions. Especially if one applies that years of potential life lost metric to the number of children aborted each year or the deaths caused by heart disease, cancer, or other medical conditions.

The study details are published in Trauma and Acute Care Open journal.

Why I think this paper is politically motivated…

“Previous studies have shown that firearm ownership, mass shootings, injuries, and death are more of a problem in the USA as compared with other developed countries.”

[OCS: There can be no comparison to other countries as the United States is unique given its size, structural freedoms and governance, population diversity. And reducing numbers to per capita metrics is statistically questionable when one considers underlying confounding factors, components of a study that make it difficult or impossible to isolate the effect of the variable being examined.]

“The demand for total freedom and the second amendment have resulted in high access to firearms in this country and this is undisputable. The main argument is that the right to bear arms to prevent injury or to defend against aggressors may result in a small number of preventable deaths is a plausible theory, however, the data reveal that the resulting access to firearms has equated to magnitudes of death due to firearm suicides in the same individuals demanding access to firearms. Effective suicide prevention efforts should include limiting access to all methods of suicide—including firearms—for at-risk populations.”

I am confused. Isn’t this the same group that demands freedom and “body sovereignty” when it comes to abortion while demanding total obedience to state mandates when accepting medical treatments with questionable efficacy and potentially life-threatening side effects in some cohorts?

There is no effective method, short of incarceration, that limits access to all methods of suicide for at-risk populations. And, as Jeffrey Epstein demonstrated, even close-watch incarceration may not be enough.

Bottom line…

Another bullshit study. It is little more than a trivia item that total gun deaths have overtaken car crashes as the leading cause of trauma death in the United States.

The findings that “suicides among older White men account for a large share of the problem” and “deaths in the black male population due to firearm homicide was significantly less than the total number of white male suicides” might be interesting but not really actionable. It is statistical bullpucky to note, “For each death, on average, black male homicides accounted for 50.5 YPLL, whereas white male suicides accounted for 29.1 YPLL.”

The truth is simple. Given the number of gun deaths in the U.S. population, as a percentage of the total population, the number is insignificant except as a political talking point. Instead of attempting to disarm the entire law-abiding population of gun owners, merely enforcing the gun laws on the books without favoring minorities or allowing plea bargains and curbing gangs would solve the majority of the homicide-related problem.

We are so screwed when you realize the regime wants to take away your guns as an effective method of resisting government tyranny – the original purpose of the Second Amendment.

-- steve