Cars kill more people than guns

To The Eagle:

Last week's Eagle letters were dominated by the AARP, in this case standing for the Association of Alternative Reality Proponents. Much ado was made about "mitigating the slaughter" by guns. Cars kill more people than guns. Gun suicides kill more people than gun homicides. The majority of suicides are old white males. Eighty percent of black homicides are committed by angry young black men. So you could mitigate the slaughter by disarming sad old white men and angry young black men, but neither of those categories raise red flags in background checks. The government is reducing the car slaughter by killing the petroleum industry, forcing us to buy electric cars that don't work at prices we can't afford, pushing us into public transportation that doesn't exist.

In "Trump's armed insurrection" the only arms present were held by capitol police; the only shot fired was by a policeman shooting Ashli Babbit; three others died of natural causes. The latest three riot inspiring incidents include two police actions that were egregious but unintentional, and one heroic rescue that's been entirely skewed by the media. The results in all three cases will sadly be influenced more by mob rule than due process.

In Portland and Seattle, disarmed business owners watched their enterprises looted and burned by government protected rioters while our police are being disrespected, defunded, and demoralized. In our nation's capitol, barbed wire fences and National Guardsmen defend against non-existent right wing threats, while on our southern border, fences are coming down to admit drug dealers, human traffickers, terrorists, and Covid carriers.

Thomas Jefferson had it exactly right: "Laws that forbid carrying of arms . . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes . . . such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve to encourage rather than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."

Howard Brawn

Puget Island