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Geographic ‘hot spots’ for cigarette and firearm deaths in the U.S.

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Re: Geographic ‘hot spots’ for cigarette and firearm deaths in the U.S.

#141
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Neither do anything to reinforce either right when they control a majority of the branches of government. Unfortunately "control a majority of the branches of government" isn't enough to get legislation passed. You need control of house, senate, and presidency. The senate is particularly difficult because of filibusterers, so you need 60% votes, not a simple majority.

Read: they aren’t willing to spend the political capital. Which shows how much they truly value the issue. Much easier to bolster the status quo. Bonus: when that issue is under attack, you can rally the troops by saying “see? They’re coming after us!”

Obama said Sandy Hook was the worst day of his presidency, and his biggest regret was not being able to change US gun laws[1], being blocked by congress. He did spend a lot of the Dem's political capital in the first term fighting for better healthcare/Obamacare.

[1] https://www.skynews.com.au/world-news/united-states/former-p...

Re: Geographic ‘hot spots’ for cigarette and firearm deaths in the U.S.

#142
post #39

Some random observations on this... 1. The suicide difference between the Mountain & Basin West vs the Great Plains surprises me. I would have expected Wyoming and Nebraska would have been more similar. 2. The gradient across Texas is interesting, particularly the lack of both suicide and smoking death in the southwest part of the state compared to the northeast. 3. Rural Nevada counties, except the northernmost two,…

Given suicide is relatively rare, I am wondering if this might be an artifact of low absolute population?

Yes, it jumps out that a lot of the county-level, patchwork pattern exhibited in the firearm-suicide data may be an artifact of the very low populations in many of those Western counties: https://medium.com/@uwdata/surprise-maps-showing-the-unexpec...

Re: Geographic ‘hot spots’ for cigarette and firearm deaths in the U.S.

#143
post #81
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the paper is purely political. Alcohol causes 140k deaths per year, and if there were any scientific goal here they would have included alcohol before including firearms.

Alcohol notably tends to quietly kill only yourself. Smoking affects everyone around you, firearms too. Alcohol related non-drinker fatalities would be the relevant measure (and still too many, since it's going to be drink driving largely).

Nah. alcohol correlates heavily, like HEAVILY, for domestic abuse, rape, murder, assault, industrial accidents, and car-related fatalities.

nothin quiet about it. I can walk away from second hand smoke, but I can't just shrug off a drunk driver t-boning me.

Re: Geographic ‘hot spots’ for cigarette and firearm deaths in the U.S.

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I don't think it's true that a majority of Americans want stricter laws. The majority of Americans want fewer mass shootings of random individuals out in public.

Which politically viable law would mitigate this problem?

An extension of the "politically viable" law that was previously in place, the federal assault weapons ban.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Assault_Weapons_Ban

Re: Geographic ‘hot spots’ for cigarette and firearm deaths in the U.S.

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't effectively freedom. It's just seemingly freedom. In the end people end up with an addiction and aren't able to release themselves from it, thus it isn't freedom for them. This logic is simple and coherent.

By that logic we should ban anything remotely pleasurable.

No, because usually other pleasurable things do not harm other like smoking does.

I wouldnt be smoking hater if it had no impact on me.

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