Guns, Deadly Pillows, And How The Media Manipulates Your Emotions

Time for a rant (it's been a little too long anyway)...

I saw a news article today from NBC News asking us to consider that since Sandy Hook (emotional trigger) an American child has been killed (emotional trigger) by a gun (HOT topic) every other day. 555 kids in three years is 185 per year.

I am not minimizing the loss of life. Life is precious. Nor am I entering a the gun debate. Your mind is probably already firmly made up on this issue anyway!

I am taking up some other numbers backed life saving causes and need your help...

Lets begin with drowning (4500 lives lost per year in the US). I think its time we had legislation to fill in these killer pools with dirt. Plus the water savings is good for the environment too. This will save 24 TIMES the number of lives in the NBC "cause" and I like winning!

Next on my attack list is natural gas and propane. Accidental inhalation in the home claims 700 lives (small numbers but still 3.8 times NBC) each year. It is time to return to heating and cooking with wood as our forefathers did. And while we are returning to the past, electrocution claims 400 lives each year. Electricity has got to go. Machinery kills another 350 per year (including 13 each year by vending machines). Clearly these "advancements" are dangerous. Don't even get me started on motor vehicles with their whopping 43,000 accidental deaths per year. Horses are clearly better.

Now with some momentum on our side, it is time to tackle the big issues. Pillows. That's right. I said it. Pillows are the leaders in accidental suffocation which claim 3300 lives per year (17.8 times NBC and most of these are children). Pillows are seductive, comfortable, and LETHAL. We have got to do something about this!

And now time for a controversial one.

Clumsiness. Specifically falling which claims 15,000 lives per year. We need to legislate walking and improve the safety of stairs immediately! Perhaps that is too big for us to tackle or just too personal as so many of us are afflicted with bouts of clumsiness. So lets just focus on falling out of bed which kills 450 per year. Much like pillows, beds are killers. Time to sleep on the ground again. It's probably better for your back anyway.

Now let's get weird for a moment. Autoerotic asphyxiation kills 1000 per year in the US.  (If you don't know, Google it.) Weird, yes. But it is still over 5 times the number that NBC cares about. Or do some lives count more than others?

While you are pondering the use of numbers to jerk your emotions around, consider that there are 319 million people in the US and 2.6 million die each year. Focusing on 185 deaths as a major cause for action is silly, especially when there are still pillows in every home (perhaps a march on Washington?). Regardless of the issue, we need to keep numbers in perspective or arguments get preposterous.

One more thing. Remember to keep an eye on the family pet. Dogs kill 34 every year. If they ever got organized...