I want to thank Senator John Ensign of Nevada for speaking out about the importance of reducing gun violence as a means of addressing America's skyrocketing health care costs:
If you take out accidental deaths due to car accidents, and you take out gun deaths -- because we like our guns in the United States and there are a lot more gun-deaths in the United States [than Europe] -- you take out those two things, you adjust those, and we're actually better in terms of survival rates.
Sen. Ensign is right, "there are a lot more gun deaths in the United States" than in Europe. America suffers about 30,000 gun deaths every year, including more than 10,000 gun homicides and another 17,000 gun suicides.
By comparison, Germany sees less than 200 gun homicides each year, while England and Wales have less than 200total gun deaths in an average year, including about 60 gun homicides. That puts America's gun homicide rate about 13 times higher than Germany's, and almost 31 times higher than England and Wales'.
What is Europe doing that we in America aren't? Sen. Ensign put his finger on it: Europeans have reduced the costs of gun violence by working to prevent it in the first place. If we in America take meaningful action to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people, then in Sen. Ensign's words, we can "adjust" downward the obscene number of gun deaths in our country. We can save lives and reduce the costs that plague our health care system at the same time.
30,000 vs 200? And these Republicans supporting less gun control are supposed to be pro-life? They complain about the 40,000 abortions a year yet don't think about the gun deaths caused by our pathetic gun control and enforcement in America?
