In 2021, ~20,000 people died by homicide via firearm (another 26,000 died by by suicide via firearm, but that’s a completely different story…). The numbers have been rising dramatically since 2020, and even though the story linked above cites “systemic inequities” as a cause the solution the left proposes is – as usual – more gun laws. Because that, of course, fixes “systemic inequities”. In reality, the solution is to educate and elevate people so that they don’t want to kill each other, but hey – I guess making it harder for a law abiding citizen to protect themselves helps, too.
But I was surprised by another statistic – and by the response of the same left-leaning media pundits. In 2021 more than 106,000 people died of drug overdoses. The solution there, however, is not to make drugs harder to obtain; no, instead the solution is to make shooting up easier. Does this mean if we decriminalize gun possession and use by criminals that gun crime will drop, too?
In any event, 5 times more people died from drugs than homicide by firearm. Shouldn’t that help us prioritize our efforts onto the larger problem? Or is that just not politically correct these days?