A National Health Crisis or Propaganda?

On December 14, 2020, former Vice President Joe Biden stated, “gun violence is a national health crisis”. This was part of a larger statement (full statement available at the bottom of this article) released by him in reference to the shooting that took place at the Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, 2012. What happened there that day was a tragedy. Senseless acts of violence cannot be justified, and it is always sad and frustrating when it happens, especially when the lives of children are taken. Without a doubt, the events that took place there were and still are emotional, and it is important for us to remember the incident, celebrate the lives of those who were killed, and condemn the evil person who inflicted so much pain, suffering, and death on so many people. 
 
I am grateful that Joe Biden brought back to memory the people who were hurt and injured, along with the families and communities impacted by this shooting. It was also great that he did this on the eighth anniversary of the shooting so that people could pause and remembers all of those effected by this heinous act.
 
That is where my positivity towards Joe Biden ends. Since there is no real mention of people or celebrations of life for those who were lost, just more “calls for action”, I cannot help but think this whole statement might have more of an agenda than sincere words of comfort. I know, there is a very high probability Joe Biden did not or does not know all, most, some, or any of the people who were affected by this, therefore it is difficult for him to deliver a very personal message.
 
Having said that, it is my opinion that he (Joe Biden) or someone within his team or affiliated with him or whomever penned the words in this statement did so to capitalize on emotions to further push their ani-gun rhetoric. Again, this is just my opinion. I have formed this opinion based on past experience of politicians and other people highlighting or pushing certain topics using emotions and feelings to fuel the movement of their particular agenda.
 
Some additional factors that influenced my opinion about this were, but not limited to:

• References to other shootings within this statement (as a way to remind people how “frequent” mass shootings are)
• words such as, “collective” and “national heath crises” within this statement (way to remind everyone that “we’re all in this together” or that “gun violence impacts us all”)
• Use of a vague figures/statistic within the statement
• Call to action for more “common sense” reforms in reference to guns and/or gun rights within this statement
• Joe Biden’s previous anti-gun references before this statement also influenced my opinion

Is gun violence a national heath crisis? Depending on how you play with the definition it might be, but in my opinion, it is not, unless people are ready to reclassify many more types of death as a national health crisis.
 
Let us take a look at some numbers and see how deaths caused by guns compare to other deaths. Before doing that, it is important to remember, this cannot be a true “apples-to-apples” comparison because the only consistent factor within these comparisons is death, not situations, not cause of death, not the emotional mindset of the person at the time of death, ect. The numbers are approximations and some of the numbers are from different years, as those were more readily available and/or had more complete data associated with the numbers. Please do not just take my word for it though, look at the numbers for yourself. Reference links to sources used for these numbers can be found at the bottom of this article. Some of these links provide additional context for deaths and explanations for factors included in some of these numbers.

Deaths:

39,523 – Guns, 2019 (this includes homicides, suicides, mass shootings, unintentional and/or accidental shootings, etc.) [source 1]
38,800 – Motor Vehicle, 2019 [source 2]
64,070 – Unintentional Poisoning, 2016 (includes drug overdoses) [source 3]
3,873 – Unintentional Drowning, 2005-2014 (this is an average yearly death rate included boating related incidents) [source 4]
13,927 – Murder/Homicide, 2019 (of those, 10,258 were with a firearm, 1,476 with a cutting instrument, 397 with a blunt object, 600 with hands, fists, feet, or other classification of “personal weapon”) [source 5]
250,000 – Medical Errors (this is an estimated number per year and believed to be higher than 250K+ per year. The study/data covers deaths from multiple years) [source 6]
619,591 – Induced Abortions, 2018 [source 7]
647,457 – Heart Disease, 2017 (#1 leading cause of death in the United States) [source 8]
599,108 – Cancer, 2017 (#2 leading cause of death in the United States) [source 8]
169,936 – Unintentional Injuries, 2017 (#3 leading cause of death in the United States) [source 8]
160,201 – Chronic Lower Respiratory Disease, 2017 (#4 leading cause of death in the United States) [source 8]
146,383 – Stroke and Cerebrovascular Diseases, 2017 (#5 leading cause of death in the United States) [source 8]
121,404 – Alzheimer’s Disease, 2017 (#6 leading cause of death in the United States) [source 8]
83,564 – Diabetes, 2017 (#7 leading cause of death in the United States) [source 8]
55,672 – Influenza and Pneumonia, 2017 (#8 leading cause of death in the United States) [source 8]
50,633 – Kidney Disease, 2017 (#9 leading cause of death in the United States) [source 8]
47,173 – Suicide (#10 leading cause of death in the United States) [source 8]

With most of the above-mentioned deaths totals, there are other numbers and considerations to take into account for better context. For instance, out of the 39,523 deaths caused by guns [source 1], approximately 24,090 of those were suicides. So approximately 60.9% (24,090) of that “gun violence” figure has deaths associated with it, even though a large percentage of those same people would have probably still taken their own life using another method if they did not have access to a gun. Point being, the gun was not necessarily the only reason or the only factor as to why someone died, it was just a method used by someone who already wanted to die. It is safe to assume that comparing gun deaths (39,523) to motor vehicle deaths (38,800) [source 2], suicide would have a much lower consumption of percentage of the overall motor vehicle death number.
 
I would not necessarily classify suicide by means of a gun (handgun, shotgun, or rifle) as “gun violence”. The end result is violent due to the force of impact and often times exit of the bullet, but no more so than suicide through the means of one jumping off of a building/bridge, or by laying down in front of a train. If we are going to classify suicide by gun as “gun violence”, then it is only fair to classify suicide by jumping from a building as “falling violence” or suicide by train as “train violence”.
 
To break the “gun violence” numbers down even further, after factoring in the suicide numbers, you are left with approximately 15,433 deaths caused by guns. Within these numbers are murders/homicides (which would account for approximately 66.47% of the overall 15,433 number), but you also have accidental/unintentional shootings and defensive use shootings, along with other categories.
 
Approximately 33.5% (5,175) of the remaining 15,433 deaths caused by guns were of an accidental/unintentional and defensive use nature, along with other categories, leaving approximately 10,258 deaths caused by guns that are classified as murder/homicide [source 5]. To me, this is a more accurate representation of the true “gun violence” term used. So Approximately 25.95% of the overall 39,523 death caused by guns in 2019 were used to commit murder/homicide. Another way of saying it is, out of the 39,523 deaths caused by “gun violence” in 2019, only about 10,258 (25.95%) of those were what could really be classified as “gun violence”.
 
It should be noted, a substantial amount of the approximately 10,258 murders/homicides would involve gang shootings. Certainly, and unfortunately, innocent people are killed due to gang related shootings, but this is also something that needs to be considered when looking at “gun violence”. Chances are that these gang members were going to commit murder with or without a gun.  
 
In 2019, the approximate population within the United States was 328.2 million people [source 11]. Murder/homicide deaths by gun were 10,258 people. That is approximately .003126% of the population. I’ll give Joe Biden and others the benefit of the doubt here and lump all deaths by guns into that “gun violence” term. Doing that, the 39,523 deaths by gun were approximately .01204% of the population.
 
If a .01204% of the United States population’s death (39,523) is caused by guns and that then therefore is classified as a national health crisis, then it is only fair to clarify the deaths (38,800) caused by motor vehicles as a national health crisis because it killed .01182% of the United States population last year too, unless Joe Biden's label of “national health crises” only applies to deaths that are above .01200% of the nation’s population. This is what I meant at the beginning of this article when I stated, “unless people are ready to reclassify many more types of death as a national health crisis.” It is all or none Joe, you cannot just pick and choose topics and throw attention grabbing labels on them because it furthers your anti-gun agenda when there are many other things that have similar or higher deaths associated with them that you let slide. 
 
I know, “gun violence” does not necessarily apply to just deaths, it also applies to injuries as well, but if “gun violence” is a national health crisis because so many people are being hurt and killed by guns, then maybe we should have a call for action against motor vehicles too because in 2019 it is estimated that approximately 4.4 million people needed medical attention due to motor vehicle crashes [source 9]. 4.4 million people injured on top of another 38,800 people killed seems like a large number for “motor vehicle violence”. At the time of writing this article, I could not find definitive data showing the approximate number of people injured in 2019 due to guns, but there were several articles and/or figures that gave an estimated yearly average. These numbers ranged from approximately 85,000 people to 115,000 people a year. These numbers include injuries and deaths from guns. [source 10]
 
It seems like people who are hurt and/or die from guns is far less than those who are hurt and/or die from motor vehicle crashes/incidents and other causes of injury and/or death. It also seems that many other categories have large death rates associated with them but have not received the Joe Biden label of “national health crises”.

My Conclusion

The data does not support his claim that “gun violence is a national health crisis”. Joe Biden is using attention grabbing verbiage on the heels of a pandemic and other emotional situations to spue false information about guns in an attempt to restrict our Second Amendment rights.
 
It is my opinion that he is not “protecting people from gun violence” out of the kindness of his heart. It is also my opinion that the majority of these politicians who seek to impose even more restrictions when it comes to gun laws do not have the best interest of people at mind. Their goal is to disarm Americans and the data would support that clam. If gun laws worked so well to save lives, then in these large cities where they have very strict gun laws, they would have little to no “gun violence”, but it is actually the larger cities with the most restrictive gun laws that tend to have the highest amount of “gun violence”.
 
The term “gun violence” is thrown around by politicians and ani-gun people, groups, and/or organizations because it is a very captivating title and at first glance of the numbers, they appear to be accurate. Once you get past the “feelings and emotions” of it all and logically examine the data, it becomes obvious why those same anti-gun people want all gun related deaths lumped together. Because the real “gun violence” numbers are much smaller and would not garner as much attention and create as much emotion, thus not furthering their agenda.   
 
One of the easiest ways for anti-gun politicians to further infringe on our constitutional right to keep and bear Arms is for them to convince people that it is too dangerous for us to continue to have this right. The Second Amendment is our (the peoples) means of protecting all of our other rights guaranteed to us by the United States Constitution.

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Sources

1. Gun Death Numbers: CLICK HERE FOR SOURCE
2. Motor Vehicle Death Numbers: CLICK HERE FOR SOURCE
3. Unintentional Poisoning: CLICK HERE FOR SOURCE
4. Unintentional Drownings: CLICK HERE FOR SOURCE
5. Murder/Homicide: CLICK HERE FOR SOURCE
6. Medical Errors: CLICK HERE FOR SOURCE
7. Abortions: CLICK HERE FOR SOURCE 
8. 10 Leading Causes of Death in the United States: CLICK HERE FOR SOURCE
9. Motor Vehicle Injuries, 2019: CLICK HERE FOR SOURCE
10. Average Number of People Injured/Killed by Guns: CLICK HERE FOR SOURCE
11. United States population in 2019: CLICK HERE FOR SOURCE 
12. Joe Biden's Written Statement: CLICK HERE FOR SOURCE  *original link to statement has been modified/changed by user/host

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Written Statement Release by Joe Biden

"To the grandparents, parents, siblings, children, spouses, and fellow broken and healing hearts of Sandy Hook, I know. No matter how long it’s been, every time you talk about it, you relive it as though you just heard the news. Eight years later, I know the pain never fully heals.

I think about how that day eight years ago was the saddest day we had in the White House. Twenty first-graders. Their six educators. And I think about the time we have spent with each other grieving since then. I remain in awe of you. I have heard from and watched as so many of you turned pain into purpose, working to change our laws and our culture around gun violence and how we protect and nurture our children.

I know it can feel like an impossible task. Since this December day eight years ago, your nightmare has been felt by thousands of other families in our country who have lost a piece of their soul in other schools, a shopping mall, a movie theatre, a club, a house of worship, in their neighborhoods, and in their homes. Some of these tragedies make national headlines, so many more do not. Every year, more than 30,000 people die from gun violence across America — a statistic we would associate with war in a far-off place. Countless more are left with a lifetime of injuries and trauma.

But in this collective pain, you’ve helped usher in a collective and growing purpose. You’ve helped us forge a consensus that gun violence is a national health crisis and we need to address its total cost to fully heal families, communities, and our nation.

Eight years later, there have been plenty of thoughts and prayers, but we know that is not enough. Together with you and millions of our fellow Americans of every background all across our nation, we will fight to end this scourge on our society and enact common sense reforms that are supported by a majority of Americans and that will save countless lives.
​
Jill and I send our love to you and we pray for the twenty-six angels in heaven and in our hearts."

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