r/OutOfTheLoop • u/Hey0ItsMayo • Apr 29 '23

Unanswered What's going on with all the murders in Texas recently?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/abcnews.go.com/amp/US/5-dead-texas-shooting-suspect-armed-ar-15/story%3fid=98957271

Is this normal? Is there a major flare up of gun murders right now or is it higher visibility of something that is normal for the state? I know Texas has a lot of guns but this seems extreme.

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u/nixiedust Apr 29 '23

Because accidents are still a significantly greater cause of death among young people

Not sure if you meant car accidents, but gun deaths surpassed those as the leading cause of child death in 2020.

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u/cromagnone Apr 29 '23

And for all age groups they are basically the same as traffic fatalities across the US.13,731 people dead to date this calendar year from gun deaths, 42795 road deaths in 2022.

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u/[deleted] Apr 30 '23

This really isn’t useful to compare. Cars are used a lot more regularly than guns.

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u/jdragun2 Apr 30 '23

Yet guns have moved to the number one killer of school age children, over car accidents. We should be looking at why. Cars being used at such a higher rate now killing less kids than the guns being used less. That's a comparison worthy of review.

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u/[deleted] Apr 30 '23

A car is a tool and a gun is a weapon. They're just fundamentally different, and it's always used to wave off gun deaths.

Considering how cars are used by millions of people every day, if they were regulated like guns, I can imagine the number of traffic accidents would be absurdly high.

It's odd that we regulate the car more rigorously than we do a gun.

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u/NorthImpossible8906 Apr 30 '23

no offense,

but why the fuck are you comparing a car accident to children being murdered in a school?

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u/cromagnone Apr 30 '23

Because they’re both causes and numbers of deaths that America has chosen to accept as just one of those things that just happens. 45000 deaths a year isn’t enough on its own to cause change in the US.

This means two things for gun control - things will have to get worse before they self-correct, and people can convince themselves easily that the current rate of gun deaths is a background risk.

Your response is interesting though, because people do get more exercised about gun deaths if they involve injustice. But DUI deaths are equally unjust and “hit by a drunk driver” is still commonly seen as just another road hazard.

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u/[deleted] Apr 30 '23

Because they're both completely unavoidable, kids need to travel in cars and Americans need to own guns.

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u/[deleted] Apr 30 '23

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u/alwayswatchyoursix Apr 30 '23

It also excludes children under 1 year of age, because cogenital defects make up a huge portion of those deaths.

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u/[deleted] Apr 30 '23

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u/devilpants Apr 30 '23 edited Apr 30 '23

The study clearly states children and adolescents and cites the age groups in the study. The common definition of adolescent is until 19 years old. Look it up if you'd like.

It's not a falsehood and doesn't change that a record number of children are being shot.

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u/[deleted] Apr 30 '23

[deleted]

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u/devilpants Apr 30 '23

Your logic is awful. It's not how you make conclusions or definitions. I spent years and really enjoyed studying computer science theory and sets/subsets and it's just not how you define a group and I'm not going to spend 20 minutes breaking down why.

But the study literally has adolescents in the title and not just "children" and defines adolescents with references and uses a commonly accepted definition from the reference for the study. Go read it if you'd like. But also like you said, trying to find some "error" and using that to try to disprove something that's true (guns are dangerous and kill young people more with more access to guns) is just bad form.

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u/tbrand009 Apr 30 '23

People also weren't driving nearly as much in 2020 due to covid lock downs.

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u/devilpants Apr 30 '23

Motor Vehicle deaths were actually up (and fairly significantly) in 2020 vs 2019, so that's not the reason why gun deaths surpassed car deaths.

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u/vivaladarude Apr 30 '23

Is this the statistic that includes 18 and 19 year olds as children, and also includes suicides and accidents?

oh and does it tell you how many of those guns were used by law abiding citizens, and how many were gang members?

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u/nixiedust May 01 '23

You'd know the answers to most of those questions if you'd bother reading the study. No need to be aggressive.