Alphecca

Cars Deadly To Cops

First, the widely reported story, this version from the Evening Sun:

...The incident is part of a worrisome trend in law enforcement -- more officers are being killed in traffic accidents. Twice in recent years -- 1999 and 2003 -- car crashes topped guns as the No. 1 killer of on-duty officers.

While year-to-year variations are common, the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, which tracks fatalities, said the trend becomes apparent when the numbers are spread over many years. For example, in the decade ending last year, 477 officers died in auto accidents. That was up 29 percent from the 369 of the previous decade and 40 percent from the 342 killed the decade before that.

There's no single reason for the increase. Some is due to more police cars on the roads -- 52 per 100 county and city officers in 2003 compared with 49 in 1997, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. There also are more deaths from high-speed chases.

Advocacy groups say there are other reasons too.

Suzie Sawyer, executive director of Concerns of Police Survivors Inc., believes more criminals are using their vehicles to run down officers, though she has only anecdotal evidence. Her group provides emotional support for relatives of police officers killed in the line of duty.

A report from MSNBC Tuesday that “more officers are being killed in traffic accidents” than by guns leaves the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) wondering, “Where’s Ted Kennedy on this threat to the police?”

Senator Kennedy was pointman during recent debate on gun legislation in the Senate, arguing for more restrictions on firearms and so-called “cop-killer bullets.” That legislation, to protect gun makers from frivolous junk lawsuits, passed despite the senator’s hysteria-laden rhetoric.

“As recently as 2003,” said SAF Founder Alan Gottlieb, “more cops were killed by cars than guns, according to the MSNBC report. Where’s Ted Kennedy and why isn’t he demanding that auto makers be sued into financial oblivion, the same way he wants America’s gun industry to be devastated?

“If anybody is an authority on lethal car crashes,” Gottlieb said, “it would be Ted Kennedy, whose carelessness in July 1969 cost the life of Mary Jo Kopechne, a passenger in the car that Kennedy drove off of a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island. She drowned, and Kennedy fled the scene. It’s no wonder why so many gun owners in this country have bumper stickers affixed to their cars and trucks declaring ‘Ted Kennedy’s car has killed more people than my gun’.”

Should we ban cars? After all, there is no Constitutional right to have one, as there actually IS with firearms. Banning cars would save 45 thousand lives every year and reduce public expenditures on roads and highways, accident and traffic violation investigations, medical costs caused by automobile accidents, not to mention cleaning up our air, water, and reducing our dependence on foreign oil. Of course, folks would then have to live within walking or biking distance from where they work but after all, isn't a death one death too many? Isn't being forced to live where you work a small price to pay to eliminate all auto deaths? Don't the ends justify the means?

People die while playing sports, skiing, swimming, even cheerleading? Don't we, as a civil society, have the duty to eliminate all possible risks to ourselves? Shouldn't heart-busting food such as potato chips and ice cream and french fries be banned? Or should we, as liberals would pine for, simpy regulate them or litigate them out of existence?

Naturally, I consider the answer to my questions to be a resounding, "NO!".

I could turn the "equation" around and ask, "If one person is able to save his life or his loved ones' lives, isn't the right to bear arms justified? After all, isn't a life saved worth preserving the ability to permit others to potentially save lives?" A life saved is certainly as compelling as a life lost.

The freedom to pursue happiness, the freedom to own what you want to, and even the freedom to live where you want are not actually "free". Neither are Constitutionally protected freedoms. If we attempt to regulate "free-speech" so no one is ever offended (as is attempted on liberal college campuses today), I suspect we'd all be bored to death within a few weeks. Certainly we bloggers would be out of a hobby.

The right to bear arms is much like that. Yes, we could all turn in our guns. Then only criminals would still have them and the killings would continue unabated. In fact, they would probably increase as they have in England and Australia. Never mind the usefulness of guns for hunting and sport. Defensive uses (most of them just "showing" the gun) prevent countless crimes everyday. You would never know that if your sole source of news comes from Mainstream Media such as the New York Times and the Washington Post and TV networks such as CBS and ABC.

Knives are used to murder. Should all knives be banned as they would like to do in England? Would you all be willing to only eat hamburger instead of steak?

Despite the failure of Prohibition, shouldn't we continue to try to ban all alcohol and it's consumption? How many car crashes, illnesses, medical expenses, lost days at work, spousal abuses, et al, not to mention the staggering costs of all of these, would we save by banning booze? Trust me when I tell you it would dwarf the cost of allowing the Second Amendment to survive.

Now, do we blame the booze companies and car companies for making potentially deadly products because some fools will misuse them? I'm tempted to say, "Of course not!" again but we all know that greedy trial lawyers are working just towards those ends. The perpetrator, the misuser isn't to blame since if the product wasn't "made" than the crime or abuse wouldn't have happened, right?

That was the purpose of the bill the Senate recently passed; to protect gun makers and sellers from frivolous lawsuits. The bill would still allow civil suits if either of them (maker and seller) was negligent. But if all they did was manufacture or legally sell a firearm, then that is not enough to hold them liable if some mutant commits a crime with one. My hope is that such legislation will be duplicated to encompass more products. Put the blame for abuse back on the shoulders of the abuser.

And I actually thought I was going to save my breath...