How about accidents?

[Frosty]

I copied this from an article by John Gaver of Action America www.actionamerica.org The article itself is to lengthy to post. I would like to see a current updated version since the last one is 7 yrs. old.

The National Safety Council Report titled, "What Are the Odds of Dying?" for 1998 reveals that you are almost twice as likely to die from natural environmental factors (1,521 deaths), such as injuries caused by animals, plants or exposure to the elements than from an accidental gunshot (866 deaths). Think about it. The same report shows that you are more likely to choke to death on a piece of food (1,147 deaths) or die from falling down stairs (1,389 deaths) as to die from an errant bullet. You are four times more likely to die in a fire (3,255 deaths) or drown (3,964 deaths). The simple fact is that there are many things that we take for granted in life that are much more dangerous than guns. In 1998, there were 43,501 motor vehicle deaths, 10,255 poisoning deaths, 3,228 deaths from complications or misadventures of surgical or medical care and 16,274 total falling deaths - maybe we should ban ladders.

Get this! In 1998, there were 723 persons killed by falling objects. Compare that to 866 gun related deaths. So, using the logic proposed by the anti-Second Amendment types, our lawmakers should require us to wear helmets at all times.

To put this all into perspective, according to the National Safety Council, in 1998, of the 150,445 total deaths due to injury in the United States, the total number of accidental deaths was 97,835. That means that the 866 accidental gun related deaths amounted to far less than 1% of all accidental deaths. In other words, the anti-self defense crowd's accidental shooting argument is nothing but smoke and mirrors.