Thread by @MorosKostas

It's really bizarre how one of the main tactics after a mass shooting is to try to shame gun owners and make them feel guilty for not wanting to surrender their rights to stop crime. Nobody shames anyone for having the occasional drink when a drunk driver kills people.

The comparison to alcohol is mocked, but it's actually pretty relevant. Alcohol-related causes kill about twice as many people per years as gun-related causes do, even counting gun suicides. This includes around 10,000 per year killed by drunk drivers, and 5,000 people under 21.

That last figure is actually more than the recently-touted stat that "firearms are now the largest killer of children in America". Of course, they define children as up to 19 or 21yo (depending on the measure). But even so, those homicides added up to around 4,500 in 2020.

While people often need guns for defense, nobody "needs" a drink. There is far more grounds to ban alcohol than there is firearms, especially given it has more than double the total death count. Yet we don't, because liberty matters too.

People scoff at this comparison, but they shouldn't. If 40,000 gun deaths per year are a national emergency even though most are suicides, then why wouldn't twice that amount of people drinking themselves to death/killing others with drunk driving also be one?

Moreover, if you commit a serious crime, even one not involving a gun, you can lose your right to have one. But if you have a prior DUI, any liquor store or bar will still sell you alcohol. And while there is an age minimum, it's among the most flouted laws in the country.

We of course tried banning alcohol before, and it was a disaster that fueled several decades of organized crime that persisted even after prohibition ended. It won't go any better for excessive firearms restrictions.

99,000 alcohol related deaths in 2020, vs 45,222 gun deaths, including suicides. So just over twice as many.

And unlike guns, where some unknown number of lives were saved by guns, I doubt anyone's life was saved by alcohol.

webmd.com/lung/news/2022…

I really hope no one takes this as me endorsing an alcohol ban - absolutely not. It's just making the point about the hypocrisy and hysteria over guns, when alcohol is statistically way more deadly but way more socially accepted.