Firearms not the biggest danger to human life in U.S. or Canada
By Lethbridge Herald on July 8, 2022.
Editor:
While reading the Lethbridge Herald on Wednesday, June 29, I turned to my favourite page “Readers’ Forum. What caught my attention right away was the cartoon, not sure if that is what you should call it, definitely not funny. The caption read “Guess which one the U.S. Supreme Court deems more dangerous to human life.”
Two pictures below the caption, on the left a firearm and on the right a very innocent looking woman.
I am guessing that with the present situation in the U.S. with the Supreme Court overturning, Roe v Wade and the always present gun violence, that the correct answer would be “firearms.”
If you made that guess you would be wrong. I looked up a couple of examples. In 2020, in the U.S. there were 45,222 deaths due to firearms. Consisting of 24,292 from suicide and 19,384 to homicides with 1,546 listed as others. I was surprised 54 per cent were suicides. In 2020, in the U.S. there were 930,160 abortions.
Since I am also guessing that none of the unborn children (fetus) made the decision to end their own lives, the numbers would suggest that in 2020 in the U.S. the picture on the right is almost five times more likely to end human life.
In Canada in 2020, there were 743 firearms homicides and 74,155 abortions or one hundred times more abortions than firearms homicides.
I also looked at 2010 in the U.S. on the same subject. Firearms deaths 31,672 with 19,392 being suicide and 11,078 being homicides. Abortions accounting for 765,651 deaths.
Now I know as a guy, men have no say in whether a woman should have an abortion or not, as it is their body. However, as a member of society do we have the right to express our concerns regarding the numbers of abortion? On the other side, I am a legal firearms owner, and I am tired of firearms and firearms owners always being the bad guy, especially in Canada.
In any case, The Readers’ Form asked the question, and I provided a possible answer.
Barrie Orich
Lethbridge
13-12
OMG Barrie you realize you have made yourself a huge Bullseye here for the radical “Progressives!”
Legal gun owners are not the target, but concealed weapons and automatic assault rifles are. Nobody “needs” to own a military assault rifle, they are simply too dangerous in the wrong hands. And stepping up the process to determine who should own a firearm simply makes good sense.
Playing the “I’m just a guy” card seems a little pathetic don’t you think? Men can have an opinion on abortion, but at the end of the day it is women who are forced to carry and deliver a baby that they have decided is not in their best interest to keep, for a many reasons. So in the end, it really is a woman’s decision to choose.
Well said Bill. Too bad these brainwashed Reform Party fools who find it smart to hurl sarcastic comments at anyone who doesn’t think like them don’t get it. My American relatives are sick and tired of the Republican’s attitude of the Right To Bare arms while people in grocery stores and children in classrooms are being gunned down.
excellent reply, bill m.
we each must have the final say with regard to our body, our opinions, thoughts and conscience, with the line drawn at heeding the rights of another.
as for the concern that the loss of lives due to guns is lower than the number of abortions, the writer has presented a nonsense equation: a living person killed by a gun, and a fetus that requires the consent of the host body in order to emerge as a living person.
Hahaha. I guess you don’t understand sarcasm dude! The answer to the cartoon question is not guns, it is women. The point of the cartoon is that the Supreme court considers abortion more deadly than gun violence. Try to do better next time, OK.
Once I got over the goof up in your answer to the cartoon question, I read the rest of your post. Abortion is not murder so guns kill hundreds of thousands of people and abortion kills NO PEOPLE! Why rednecks think it is so important to have a gun is beyond me.
Are you kidding, Sharkmeister? The irresistible scent of Hoppes in the morning. Seven inches of large bore steel heavy and stiff in your pants. Fondling another guy’s pistol in the basement. It’s obvious.
all culminating in the explosion…and then a smoke?