Originally Posted By: dnewton3
Originally Posted By: surfstar
dnewton3 - if I am not sick, I have a near 0% chance of being killed by a medical mistake. Going about my daily life, there is a very small chance of being randomly shot, but it still is there.
I believe that modern medicine saves quite a few more lives than gun ownership does.
First of all, your statement presumes that all medical deaths only happen to "sick" people. That is not true at all. There are many different causational events that would put you into the medical profession; illness is only one of them. Uncontrolled accidents and even planned events also put you there. So for you to state that you have "0% chance of being killed by a medical mistake" is patently false. If you were struck by a vehicle, and lived to make it to the hospital for surgeory, but died on the table, that most certinaly is not "0%" chance, just because you were not sick. Clearly, you're not willing to look at this through anything but rose-colored glasses. You seem to want to allow bias that would justify your cause, rather than simply look at facts from an overall viewpoint.
Secondly, if you'd like to have a conversation about how many lives are "saved" by medicine and guns, that is a completely different topic, but I can assure you the data is very positive on both fronts. I suspect you have a very limited, or tainted, view of how many guns save lives. If you wish to have that converstaion, then start a new thread. But I assure you I will be there with real facts and data to bolster my position; what are you going to bring to the conversation? I will bring data mined from the CDC, AMA, BJS, FBI, OJP, etc. To date, in the topic of gun deaths and crime, you've brought zilch to support your portion of the debate. Will this proposed topic be any different?
Now, I completely agree that modern medicine can help do things that were impractical or impossible decades ago. But just as gun ownership is a double-edged sword, so is medicine. I never said we should abondon our medical system; that's plain silly. I use the medical systems that are in place here, just as most others do. I appreciate that we have some of the best care in the world, and it does offer opportunities that never existed before. I support the use and advances of modern medicine. But I do so while acknowledging the inherrent risks therein. In fact, the more specialized our medical world becomes, it can not only provide ever greater opportunities, but also greater risks, as minute interactions of all manners can have dire, deadly consequences. Some prescription medicines that didn't even exist years ago, can save lives today, but also are so similar and easily mis-spelled, that one wrong interpretation of a script can lead to death. That is just ONE example of how great medicine ends badly.
The FACTS show that far more people die from iatragenisis every year than from guns; way, far more. As my data shows, you are more than 9300 times more likely to die from interaction with the medical profession than being shot by accident. And even when murder is added into that statistic, you're still thousands of times more likely to die from a visit to the doctor or hospital or pharmacy.
And, statistically, Surfstar, you will become sick many times in your lifetime. While you may be healthy now, the long term running averages continually increase as does your age. You will, most certianly, have multiple occasions to come in contact with the medical profession throughout your lifetime. In fact, you're FAR more likely to have a major medical event in your life than experience violent crime. If you recall as my data shows, violent crime has been going down for more than two decades, whereas medical visits continue to rise each and every year. Medical "events" so grossly overshadow crime it's nearly impossible to conceieve a reasonable ratio of one to the other. Each and every visit to a medical entity is a possible death waiting to happen, just as every step into the local bar may result in your being killed by a gun, a knife, a broken beer bottle, or bar stool upside your skull. But that's just how we live our lives; we accept that all things have risk.
So once again, you seem to ignore factual data and live by tainted perception. You feel as though you're not at medical risk, but the reality is you are; you will end up at the doctor's office or hospital at some point, and as you age, that propensity will become ever greater. What is ironic is that you believe there is risk in "going about your daily life" by being shot, but somehow there is no risk of you ever needing medical intervention, which could come from an accident that you have no control over, just as you claim when it comes to being shot. No one wants to get hit by another car any more than they want to be shot. Both represent risk.
But the risk of death is FAR GREATER when you have a medical event. NINE-THOUSAND-THREE-HUNDRED times greater.
Again - I am not trying to be rude or mean and imply you are stupid; that's not my intent here. But I'm trying to get you to apply a fair, conscionable sense of acceptance to facts, rather than simply hoping your view is true. The very statement of yours above shows that you are not applying equal opportunity to the potential of events. You believe you have no chance of dying from a medical event, but you somehow seem to think you may be shot. And yet you are super-duper-way-more likely to die from medicine than bullets.
FACTS DON'T LIE.
It seems that your FACTS show that having a gun isn't likely going to help you at all, unless you can carry into the operating room...
Or, on average, everyone would be better served by not spending their money on guns, but on better health insurance to get into a better hospital.
Don't get me wrong I like guns, but mine stay at home ready to dispatch a predator, or put some meat on the table.
