Coffee Shoppe

I posted this at topix last year, and some physicians got all jacked about it.... I guess they didn't realize it was tongue-in- cheek ..... This is done in syllogism form to show the logic of it

Doctors


(A) The number of physicians in the U.S. is 700,000.


(B) Accidental deaths caused by Physicians per year are 120,000.


(C) Accidental deaths per physician is 0.171.


-> Statistics courtesy of U.S. Dept. of Health Human Services.


Now think about this:


Guns


(A) The number of gun owners in the U.S. is 80,000,000.


(Yes, that's 80 million)


(B) The number of accidental gun deaths per year, all age groups, is 1,500.


(C) The number of accidental deaths per gun owner is .000188.


-> Statistics courtesy of FBI



Therefore, statistically, doctors are approximately 9,000 times more dangerous than gun owners.



So what do we take from this exersize? 'Guns don't kill people, doctors do.'



FACT: NOT EVERYONE HAS A GUN, BUT ALMOST EVERYONE HAS AT LEAST ONE DOCTOR.



Please alert your friends to this alarming threat.


We must ban doctors before this gets completely out of hand!!!!!


Out of concern for the public at large, I withheld the statistics on lawyers for fear the shock would cause people to panic and seek medical attention!

Too cool. I like that......

Funny. Makes a lot of sense in a skewed sort of way.

That's my motto: to make a lot of sense in a skewed kind of way

LOL. And you seem to do it soooo well........

At the very least there should be a three day waiting period before you can see a doctor.

Maybe we should have doctor free zones.

Yeah, but then they'll just start mobile Doctor shows, that as everyone knows doesn't fall withing the three day law

I have one in my basement. And I retreat to it quite often (I must say)

Everyone in the country should be required to have apples--because I understand that an apple a day, keeps the doctor away.

Maybe if we all just drank Coca Cola. Cause Coke adds life..............

Intrestingly enough, Coca Cola was first advertized as a medicinal elixer. I'm not going to go into the reason right now, but suffice it to say, one of the origonal ingrediants are illegal today

Top U.S. court strikes down gun ban

56pm EDT
FACTBOX: Reaction to Supreme Court gun ruling
4:31pm EDT
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Individual Americans have a right to own guns, the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday for the first time in the country's history, striking down a strict gun control law in the U.S. capital.

The landmark 5-4 ruling marked the first time in nearly 70 years the high court has addressed the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. It rejected the argument the right to keep and bear arms was tied to service in a state militia.

Justice Antonin Scalia said for the majority the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with militia service and to use it for traditional lawful purposes, such as self-defense in the home.

However, he said the new right was not unlimited.

The court struck down two parts of the country's strictest gun control law adopted in Washington, D.C., 32 years ago -- the ban on private handgun possession and the requirement that firearms kept at home be unloaded and disassembled or bound by a trigger lock.

The ruling marked the first time the court has struck down a gun control law for violating the Second Amendment.

The ruling won praise from President George W. Bush, Republican presidential candidate John McCain and Wayne LaPierre of the politically powerful National Rifle Association, who said, "This is a great moment in American history."

It drew fire from gun control groups, which warned of new legal attacks on existing gun laws, and some Democrats in Congress like Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who said the decision "opens this nation to a dramatic lack of safety."

The four liberal dissenting justices warned of the ruling's consequences. "The decision threatens to throw into doubt the constitutionality of gun laws throughout the United States," Justice Stephen Breyer said.

Although an individual now has a constitutional right to own guns, that new right is not unlimited, wrote Scalia, a hunter.

He said the ruling should not be taken to cast doubt on long-standing prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill or on laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in places like schools and government buildings or laws imposing conditions on gun sales.

The Supreme Court's last review of the Second Amendment came in a five-page discussion in an opinion issued in 1939 that failed to definitively resolve the constitutional issue.

In the 64-page opinion, Scalia said an individual right to bear arms is supported by "the historical narrative" both before and after the Second Amendment's adoption.

"What is not debatable is that it is not the role of this court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct," he said.

"Few laws in the history of our nation have come close to the severe restriction of the district's handgun ban," Scalia said.

GUN POINTED AT BURGLAR WHILE CALLING POLICE

Scalia said a citizen may prefer may prefer a handgun for home defense because "it can be pointed at a burglar with one hand while the other hand dials the police."

The justices split along conservative-liberal lines in the ruling, one of the most important of the court's current term, in deciding a legal battle over gun rights in America. The ruling came on the last day of the court's 2007-08 term.

Bush's two appointees on the court, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, both voted with the majority in finding an individual right to keep firearms.

Bush said in a statement he applauded the "historic decision today confirming what has always been clear in the Constitution: the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear firearms."

Republican presidential candidate John McCain applauded the ruling and criticized his Democratic opponent Barack Obama for comments he had made during the political campaign.

"Unlike the elitist view that believes Americans cling to guns out of bitterness, today's ruling recognizes that gun ownership is a fundamental right -- sacred, just as the right to free speech and assembly," McCain said.

"I have always believed that the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to bear arms," Obama said, "but I also identify with the need for crime-ravaged communities to save their children from the violence that plagues our streets through common sense, effective safety measures."

The United States is estimated to have the world's highest civilian gun ownership rate. Gun deaths average 80 a day in the United States, 34 of them homicides, according to Centers for Disease Control data.

The ruling was a victory for Dick Anthony Heller, a security guard who lives in a high-crime neighborhood and who wants to keep a handgun in his home for self-defense.

For decades, the meaning of the Second Amendment has been at the heart of a political and legal debate debate over gun control. People have argued whether it guarantees the right to bear arms to individuals or to citizens in a militia.

Written more than 200 years ago, the amendment says, "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

In a dissent, parts of which he read from the bench, Justice John Paul Stevens said the court left for future cases the formidable task of defining the scope of permissible gun regulations.

"I fear that the district's policy choice may well be just the first of an unknown number of dominoes to be knocked off the table," Stevens said.

(Additional reporting by Jeremy Pelofsky; Editing by Deborah Charles and David Wiessler)

I never understood why all the other rights listed in the bill of rights were considered individual rights--and there was concern over this one.

You know there is celebrating at our house over this one.

I never understood why so many people who are such vocal supporters of the first ammendment reject the second ammendment entirely......

And the second amendment is what protects their rights to the first amendment....

erm............ Because they're liberal crackpots who pray to Dagon for a one world government but don't realize what comes part-and-parcel with the fruition of that apoctoliptic dream

If you'll notice, I said allof that in one breath

A condrum, wrapped inside a puzzle with a paradox for a lock

I did notice that, and I am suitably impressed.

Exactly. I know lots of guys that are glad this first hurdle is over. I'm sure this is only going to lead to more court cases.

Surprising fact: Half of gun deaths are suicides
By MIKE STOBBE | AP Medical Writer
9:18 PM EDT, June 30, 2008
ATLANTA - The Supreme Court's landmark ruling on gun ownership last week focused on citizens' ability to defend themselves from intruders in their homes. But research shows that surprisingly often, gun owners use the weapons on themselves.

Suicides accounted for 55 percent of the nation's nearly 31,000 firearm deaths in 2005, the most recent year for which statistics are available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

There was nothing unique about that year -- gun-related suicides have outnumbered firearm homicides and accidents for 20 of the last 25 years. In 2005, homicides accounted for 40 percent of gun deaths. Accidents accounted for 3 percent. The remaining 2 percent included legal killings, such as when police do the shooting, and cases that involve undetermined intent.

Public-health researchers have concluded that in homes where guns are present, the likelihood that someone in the home will die from suicide or homicide is much greater.



Studies have also shown that homes in which a suicide occurred were three to five times more likely to have a gun present than households that did not experience a suicide, even after accounting for other risk factors.

In a 5-4 decision, the high court on Thursday struck down a handgun ban enacted in the District of Columbia in 1976 and rejected requirements that firearms have trigger locks or be kept disassembled. The ruling left intact the district's licensing restrictions for gun owners.

One public-health study found that suicide and homicide rates in the district dropped after the ban was adopted. The district has allowed shotguns and rifles to be kept in homes if they are registered, kept unloaded and taken apart or equipped with trigger locks.

The American Public Health Association, the American Association of Suicidology and two other groups filed a legal brief supporting the district's ban. The brief challenged arguments that if a gun is not available, suicidal people will just kill themselves using other means.

More than 90 percent of suicide attempts using guns are successful, while the success rate for jumping from high places was 34 percent. The success rate for drug overdose was 2 percent, the brief said, citing studies.

"Other methods are not as lethal," said Jon Vernick, co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research in Baltimore.

The high court's majority opinion made no mention of suicide. But in a dissenting opinion, Justice Stephen Breyer used the word 14 times in voicing concern about the impact of striking down the handgun ban.

"If a resident has a handgun in the home that he can use for self-defense, then he has a handgun in the home that he can use to commit suicide or engage in acts of domestic violence," Breyer wrote.

Researchers in other fields have raised questions about the public-health findings on guns.

Gary Kleck, a researcher at Florida State University's College of Criminology and Criminal Justice, estimates there are more than 1 million incidents each year in which firearms are used to prevent an actual or threatened criminal attack.

Public-health experts have said the telephone survey methodology Kleck used likely resulted in an overestimate.

Both sides agree there has been a significant decline in the last decade in public-health research into gun violence.

The CDC traditionally was a primary funder of research on guns and gun-related injuries, allocating more than $2.1 million a year to such projects in the mid-1990s.

But the agency cut back research on the subject after Congress in 1996 ordered that none of the CDC's appropriations be used to promote gun control.

Vernick said the Supreme Court decision underscores the need for further study into what will happen to suicide and homicide rates in the district when the handgun ban is lifted.

If a person has decided to commit suicide, not having a gun is not going to stop them.

Thats quite true. What I find interesting is that gun deaths are usually assumed to be homicides,or tragic accidents.Both of those rate high on most peoples "Give a darn" meter. Most people (myself included) care far less about suicides.