The importance of how you die

In 2017, approximately 72,000 people died of drug overdoses. That’s approximately 197 people a day. We kill one person every 16 minutes on U.S. highways. That’s approximately 37,000 per year. Of those, 8,000 are between 16-20 yrs old.

While the deaths of those 31 people in El Paso and Dayton and the injuries to many others are indeed tragic, why do they rate more notice than the drugs or traffic deaths? Why is there a knee-jerk reaction for immediate and radical change in gun laws and not an equal cry for auto and drug reform?

The number of firearm-related deaths varies by what study you look at but it seems to be approximately 35,000. But the one thing the CDC and most studies seem to agree on is that approximately 60% of these deaths are suicides not murders. Is it because they happened in a group at the same time?

Just like an airplane crash is sensationalized because large numbers of people die at the same time, there are political and social aspects to gun violence that cloud and confuse the issue rather than help the search for rational, legal and truly effective measures to help mitigate the problem.

Jerry Paulin

Spokane