We Don't Regulate Guns Like Cars Because Cars Are More Dangerous

It’s a common refrain from “progressives”: “Let’s regulate guns like we do cars!” The problems with this idea are manifold—but as Forbes’ Chris Conover pointed out Tuesday, the entire thing is based on a false equivalency.

In 2013, there were about 350 million guns in the U.S., and about 269 million vehicles. However, the total number of deaths involving guns and involving cars was roughly equal: About 33,000.

Eliminating suicides—as well as firearm homicides and their corollary, non-driver victims of drunk driving—reveals the number of accidental deaths. Here the differences are even more stark: 1.4 per million guns, and 36.2 non-driver accidental deaths per million vehicles. “In short,” Conover explains, “the typical car is 25 times as likely to kill someone accidentally as the typical gun.” 

So if gun-banners really cared about saving lives, they’d ask, “Why don’t we redirect the time and money we spend attempting to regulate and vilify guns, toward making people better drivers?”