Special United States! Look at how tiny the scroll bar is on the School Shootings in the US page! And that page is just tables! It’s not even any descriptions! We’re so special we get our own page when it comes to school shootings.
Anyway, so I’m on twitter today looking at some of the #UCCShooting tweets since yet ANOTHER school shooting happened. Here are some good tweets:
And two of my favorites from twitter (that have been said in may different ways):
- How come baking a cake is participating in gay marriage but selling a gun to someone ISN’T participating in murder?
- One Mexican kills someone = DEPORT THEM ALL; Twenty angry white dudes commit mass shootings = LET’S NOT RUSH TO JUDGEMENT.
I have these pages bookmarked on my phone just in case I get into a debate with a right wing nut job over guns:
Everybody thinks the US is a first world country. However some things in this country make it less than great. I think that America isn’t really a first world, but somewhere between second and first. We show a lot of the same behavior or characteristics of a country that isn’t first class. Here are some examples:
Healthcare
We’re way behind a lot of other countries who are not first world; like Cuba. The Affordable Care Act did great things but we’re not there yet. Every citizen isn’t guaranteed healthcare yet. Our life expectancy (#51) and infant mortality rates (#50) are still higher than a lot of other countries. Even some which we consider worse.
Women In Power
According to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the US is 80th in the world in women in parliaments. There are only 20 senators who are women and 79 (or 18%) are in the house of representatives. We still haven’t had a female vice president or president. Even the Philippines has had a women president.
Incarceration Rate
We’re number one in prisoners per capita at 716 per 100,000 population; behind Russia at 490 per 100,000 population. We blow Mexico out of the water. They only have 209 per 100,000 population. We’re less than 5% of the population yet we have almost 25% of the prison population of the world. First world countries start around 100 on the list, but we’re number one in incarceration rate.
Birth Rate
We still have a lot of kids in this country which isn’t like a first world country. And it’s really funny too. Other countries have a lot of incentives for their citizens to have kids, but not in the US. We don’t even get paid maternity leave. The only thing guaranteed for us is under Clinton’s FMLA; and that’s unpaid.
Guns
We have the highest number of guns per capita (and the highest gun deaths). We have 88 guns per 100 people and 10 gun deaths per 100,000 population. Switzerland is behind us with less than half our number (45.7 per 100 people).
Income Inequality
We’re not doing well here either. We’re worse than countries like Egypt, Niger, Iraq, Iran. Even India and Ethiopia have better income equality than we do. Our gini coefficient is at 40.8.
Military
The United States is always high when it comes to military expenditures. We’re number one in defense spending. In fact, according to the World Bank, we spend 4.2% of GDP on military. We’re in the company of all third world and below nations. The UK, only 2.4%.
As we prepare to enter or affect yet another region in the middle east, it’s nice to know that after 150+ people died at the hands of an evil dictator the US will be there… Never mind that when thousands upon thousands were being killed by genocide in Darfur we didn’t go in or try to help them but whatever.
I guess we never crossed some “red line” with the number of deaths via gun violence in this country to warrant something to actually be done.
The right likes to use that argument for gun violence “guns don’t kill people, people kill people”. How about for chemical weapons… “chemical weapons don’t kill people, people kill people”?
Maybe is it that chemical weapons don’t give us more freedom but guns do?
Or how about “the only way to stop a bad guy with a chemical weapon is with a good guy with a chemical weapon”?
I’m confounded.
Before I start this post which I’m sure a lot of people would say I’m wrong on… I would like to say how pathetic it is that our Senate couldn’t pass one of the poorest, weakest gun control bills ever. And, no offense, how stupid some people are who believe the lies from the NRA. It’s daft that a bill that could have saved some lives couldn’t get passed in our country.
Anyway, to start my thoughts about what happened in Boston… I understand this was a terrorist attack but I’m shocked that the explosion that happened in Texas didn’t get covered. In Texas, one of their fertilizer plants exploded and killed 14 people and injured 200. Five times the amount of people were killed in Texas than were killed in Boston. And twice as many were injured in Texas than in Boston… Yet the media, all they covered was Boston.
It’s very sad to hear in our country of business’ not being regulated enough that something happens which costs people their lives. The last time the fertilizer plant in Texas was inspected by Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) was in 1985. Almost thirty years ago.
Due to them not being inspected regularly, the plant could get away with having crappy safety standards, or no safety standards at all. This happens a lot in coal mining and oil. They either pay the fine or don’t do anything at all. The fines are less expensive than to actually implement safety standards for their employees. We saw another example of this recently with the pipeline explosion in Arkansas.
I can’t understand anyone being against this kind of regulation. I can’t understand how anyone can argue on the side of the business. We all want clean water, we all want safe cars, police, etc. We all don’t want to see people or animals hurt or killed. It’s just sad.
It makes me angry that these kinds of things can be prevented. It also makes me sad that more people died from a lack of government regulation than from a terrorist attack; however we’ll always remember Boston. Will anyone remember Texas?
I find it interesting that very few gun companies are publicly owned. In fact, out of the most popular gun manufacturers only a few are publicly owned and traded.
Most of the companies you’re hard pressed to find information about the actual person(s) who own them. They seem to want to keep their lives very private; especially after tragedies like the one that just happened in Connecticut. Come on, what can they say? Their product was used to kill 20 innocent kids.
I’ve said on my twitter that I’m sick of this gun debate. I’ve said what I had to, quoted statistics about guns, etc. At this point I think no guns for anyone except law enforcement… And even there that may be a stretch considering police used 90 rounds to take down a teenager in Los Angeles.
I hope Obama is true to his word in what he said last night. This debate has been over. The fat lady has sung and is well on her way back home now. The time for action is long overdue.
Australia
– 11.5% of homicides by firearm
– 30 homicide deaths by firearm
– population: 21,262,000
– homicide deaths by firearm per 100,000 population: .14
Canada
– 32% of homicides by firearm
– 173 homicide deaths by firearm
– population: 32,731,000
– homicide deaths by firearm per 100,000 population: .53
Germany
– 29.9% of homicides by firearm
– 188 homicide deaths by firearm
– population: 81,799,000
– homicide deaths by firearm per 100,000 population: .23
Japan
– 1.8% of homicides by firearm
– 11 homicide deaths by firearm
– population: 128,057,000
– homicide deaths by firearm per 100,000 population: .01
United Kingdom
– 6.6% of homicides by firearm
– 41 homicide deaths by firearm
– population: 61,827,000
– homicide deaths by firearm per 100,000 population: .07
United States
– 60% of homicides by firearm
– 9,146 homicide deaths by firearm
– population: 307,007,000
– homicide deaths by firearm per 100,000 population: 2.98
Statistics from United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (2009 data)