No it's not 'just' an 'X does more Y than Z'. There's more that's implied.

i.e., there's a Z which does Y, and it's a tiny, tiny problem that nobody considers to be an actual threat. e.g., toddlers murdering people.

And then there's an X, which is even less dangerous than that, namely terrorism.

And then there's a response to this X, which has trampled on basic civil rights, privacy and the constitution in the form of mass surveillance, and shows few signs of slowing. Further, there's another response which is inciting hysteria, fear, ignorance and increasingly racism towards a minority who hate terrorism as much as anyone.

That's what this article implies, and it's completely true. It presents an absurdity of threat vs response that has lost all sensibility, an absurdity that, though has been mentioned before many times in various articles, still hasn't resonated with the general public and media.

I think most of these articles are trying play the emotional card and most people ignore facts like:

- higher gun ownership rate does not cause higher gun related homicides (check Switzerland or Finland compare to US) - lower gun ownership rate does not cause lower mass shootings (http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201...)

I don't understand why people try to make these conclusions.

Here is the list of gun ownership broken down by countries:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_c...

Firearm related death by countries:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-r...

Not that this will change your opinion, but Switzerland is not that great of an example to support your "fact" (and even if it was - a few outliers don't prove the lack of an correlation).

For starters it has fairly strict gun laws (essentially no carry permits, gun safes, etc.).

Second the reason for the high gun ownership is the mandatory military service (no standing army) - you can purchase your service weapon at the end of your service period. And for the service weapon the ammunition is stored at the armory - not at home. And without ammunition I would think killing someone with a gun is much more difficult.

> For starters it has fairly strict gun laws...

Hmm what you are saying is that gun laws have an impact on gun related death? I totally agree. Lets create a study that tells us how can we drive down the gun related death in the US by better laws. That has all of my support.

The rest I agree.

Perhaps if HIV was endlessly highlighted by government and the media as a major problem in Sweden your analogy might have made some sense. In my opinion your post exemplifies the antithesis of a decent argument or even legitimate criticism.

Okay, try this: far, far more people die in the US in car accidents than are shot. More people die because of DUIs than because of guns. Yet guns are endlessly highlighted as a major problem and the talk is constantly about making it harder to attain them and yet few people are ranting on about the dangers of automobile or licquor.

Indeed, the original article dismisses drunk teenagers as a non-threat. Drunk teenagers almost certainly kill more people than toddlers with guns.

IIRC US road deaths and shooting deaths are about even (around 30k each), although the gun figure includes suicides

You seem to be right about that. Thanks.

Traffic fatalities: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_i...

Gun fatalities: http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/united-states

Suicides do appear to be about 2/3 of the gun fatalities.

Funny eh? Not wearing your seat belt is probably more of an issue than guns, but that doesn't make for dramatic headlines

Maybe because taking away cars has more downsides than taking away guns?

Nah... fuck cars. Ride a bike!

Why is any of these claims nonsensical? They seem reasonable to me.