Are we there yet??? Yes, dear, we are . . .
For more than 60 years, car crashes were the number one cause of death for people between the ages of 1 and 24. But since 2017,the top cause has been firearm injuries, according to an analysis of CDC data by Boston-based researchers. “The crossing of these trend lines demonstrates how a concerted approach to injury prevention can reduce injuries and deaths — and, conversely, how a public health problem can be exacerbated in the absence of such attention,” the authors write. “As the progress made in reducing deaths from motor vehicle crashes shows, we don’t have to accept the high rate of firearm-related deaths among U.S. children and adolescents.” Related from The Trace: In January, we reported on CDC data that found gun violence deaths eclipsed 45,000 for the first time in 2020, and that firearm injury was the 13th leading cause of death for all Americans — ahead of fatal car crashes for the fourth straight year.
At last we're here. For decades the gun culture has said that we should 'look over there' at auto deaths instead of gun deaths (and injuries) as if we can't walk and chew gum. Well, that argument is now gone. It isn't just that gun deaths are rising--they are!--but car deaths are falling because cars are more safe every year and guns are, well, guns. There are more than 40 mandated safety features in the passenger compartment of a car yet guns aren't required to have a manual safety to prevent accidental firing. Unless it's a military gun. Who would have thought that the entity charged with tearing things up and killing people would have a higher safety standard than the civilian market?
Not that the technology doesn't exist, the Armatix IP1 was introduced years ago and it surpasses the durability standard of the firearms industry, works in the rain, soaked in oil or blood and can only be fired by the one user. BUT the gunners found a weakness: if an assailant were to wrestle the gun from the user and had a large magnet that he held in his left hand which crossed over the pistol to the right side of the gun it would override the electronic safety, Total failure to the point that the one gun store that carried it got death threats!! Hmm, what is the likelihood of an assailant having a magnet and forcibly taking the gun then placing the magnet in the precise place while under duress and in a physical altercation so he could defeat the electronic safeguards and shoot you? So that's why we can't have nice things . . .
Still only a small group want less gun regulation, about 9% of voters. If you want your voice heard you need a megaphone made of MONEY. You and I can't do it alone. It takes many voices giving few dollars each. [link:https://blog.greatnonprofits.org/9-organizations-making-progress-towards-gun-control/|Talk to these organizations.
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We need to back public officials who are trying to pass laws and regulations pertaining to firearm possession and their negligence. Because the gun lobby sure as shootin' (no pun intended) has their flying monkey brigades on a hair trigger (again, no pun intended), ready at a moment's notice to some screeching out of the woodwork with the same tired excuses, nostrums and threats. When the gun lobby targets (really, I don't mean this to be punny, but that's how inundated our society is in the culture of the gun) an elected official, we the people need to have their backs (Again?!).
"Everybody knows" you're supposed to drive on the right side of the street, but we still have a law saying that. Repeal that law, and tomorrow some yahoo is going to be in the wrong lane because "there's no law against it." We need laws against negligent owners of firearms. You know, the ones who get caught with a loaded handgun in their carry-on luggage because they just forgot it was there. Or the folks who don't secure their weapons and it gets stolen and used to kill someone. Or it gets picked up by the five-year-old who shoots his toddler little sister. Even though Daddy told them NEVER to touch his piece!
Because what we're doing now (which is "nothing"
isn't working.
This situation will continue.
It's up to us to stop the gun industry from buying our so-called representatives.
And it needs to be treated like such. I'd even dare use the G word to describe what our lust for guns is costing us. We may not be at that level yet but we're getting there. 
