These new bills do everything from expanding background checks to include personal transactions to limiting who can have guns in the first place to empowering authorities to take more guns away from more Americans. Also, there is a bill to reverse an existing law that protects gun manufacturers from being sued if one of their firearms are used in a crime — a law Republicans managed to get passed during George W. Bush’s administration because Democrats wanted to give their left-wing voters the opportunity to put gunmakers out of business for the ‘crime’ of making a legal product.
Imagine if the same law were to apply to Toyota, Chevrolet, Ford, Chrysler, Jeep, Hyundai, or any other carmaker manufacturing vehicles in America: Nearly overnight all of those companies would cease operations in the United States and probably wouldn’t even export vehicles to American markets any longer.
With these things in mind, it’s important to put it all in perspective: Guns are not the number one killer of Americans, cars, trucks, and SUVs are — by far, according to the most recent National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration figures.
According to a press release from the National Safety Council:
For the first time since 2007, preliminary data from the National Safety Council show that as many as 42,060 people are estimated to have died in motor vehicle crashes in 2020. That marks an 8% increase over 2019 in a year where people drove significantly less frequently because of the pandemic. The preliminary estimated rate of death on the roads last year spiked 24% over the previous 12-month period, despite miles driven dropping 13%. The increase in the rate of death is the highest estimated year-over-year jump that NSC has calculated since 1924 – 96 years. It underscores the nation’s persistent failure to prioritize safety on the roads, which became emptier but far more deadly.
An estimated 4.8 million additional roadway users were seriously injured in crashes in 2020, and the estimated cost to society was $474 billion.
“It is tragic that in the U.S., we took cars off the roads and didn’t reap any safety benefits,” said Lorraine M. Martin, president and CEO of the National Safety Council, in a statement.
“These data expose our lack of an effective roadway safety culture. It is past time to address roadway safety holistically and effectively, and NSC stands ready to assist all stakeholders, including the federal government.”
Eight states experienced 15 percent increases in automobile deaths in 2020, and the problem appears to be bipartisan, so to speak, because they occurred in red and blue states and enclaves, according to the NSC: Arkansas (+26%), Connecticut (+22%), District of Columbia (+33%), Georgia (+18%), Mississippi (+19%), Rhode Island (+26%), South Dakota (+33%) and Vermont (+32%).
Meanwhile, gun deaths each year average about 35,000, far fewer than:
