These days, not too much time passes without Josh Sugarmann, formerly of the National Coalition to Ban Handguns, blurting out some nonsense on the Huffington Post website. Not too much time at all. Usually just enough for him to photocopy a bunch of ads from The Shotgun News , slap them together with a few paragraphs of inflammatory rhetoric that he has used a dozen times before, call the half-asked effort a "study," and run down to the bank to deposit another six-figure check from the Joyce Foundation.
However, in his latest Huffington screed , Sugarmann says that in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia combined, the total number of motor vehicle accident deaths has fallen below the aggregate of firearm suicides, murders, self-defense homicides and accidents. "That's according to a new analysis by my organization, the Violence Policy Center," he says. (Translation: Sugarmann had one of his miniscule "organization's" go-fers spend five minutes on the internet downloading the numbers from the CDC's Wisqars website .)
Sugarmann says that because vehicle deaths are down, more gun control laws should be imposed, including "Detailed and timely data collection on gun production, sales, use in crime, as well as analysis of the types, makes and models of firearms most associated with injury, death and criminal use; Implementation of minimum safety standards for firearms (i.e., specific design standards and the requirement of safety devices); Ban certain types of firearms that have no sporting purpose such as 'junk guns' and military?style assault weapons; Limit the firepower of firearms available to the general public, e.g. restrict ammunition magazine capacity;" along with "restrictions on the carrying of loaded handguns in public spaces" and "public education campaigns that communicate the extreme risks associated with exposure to firearms."
Sugarmann has long thought that since the American people and majorities in Congress don't support banning guns, the way to get guns banned is to give the BATFE the authority to do it through regulations. So, in his latest Huffington noise, he says "The long?term decline in motor vehicle deaths is the result of a decades?long public health?based injury prevention strategy--centered on safety?related changes to vehicles and highway design informed by comprehensive data collection and analysis."
But there's just a slight problem, there. After dropping from about 51,000 in 1981, to about 41,000 in 1992, the annual number of motor vehicle accident deaths rose to about 45,000 from 2002 through 2006, dropped only slightly in 2007, fell to just under 40,000 in 2008 when the current recession began, and then dropped to 36,000 in 2009, and 35,000 in 2010, coinciding with the sharp rise in national unemployment figures . People who are stuck at home out of work aren't very likely to die in motor vehicle crashes, after all.
Furthermore, according to a recent Brookings Institution report , "Americans have simply been driving less, when considering both historic growth rates and the most recent annualized measures of vehicle miles traveled. At the same time driving has declined, transit use is at its highest level since the 1950s, and Amtrak ridership just set an annual ridership record in 2008." America continues to become more urbanized and, as the report notes, "Urban residents are more likely to use alternative modes of transportation than automobiles."
And there's more. The District of Columbia and Baltimore now have the fourth and sixth highest percentages repectively , among cities of 100,000 or more population, of households not owning cars.
So give it a rest, Josh, or you're going to drive yourself crazy one of these days. Pun intended.
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People Are Driving Less! Ban Guns, Magazines and Privacy!
Posted on October 12, 2012
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