Applying for a Driver's License

[NeilTheCop]

Because the laws don't allow for the seizure of vehicles, perhaps?

But they do.
If caught drunk driving one of the essential pieces of evidence is the vehicle itself and just like if a bottle of alcohol found inside the vehicle both should be booked into property as evidence until the case is adjudicated. Only after that they can get both the alcohol and vehicle returned.

 

[quincy]

But they do.
If caught drunk driving one of the essential pieces of evidence is the vehicle itself and just like if a bottle of alcohol found inside the vehicle both should be booked into property as evidence until the case is adjudicated. Only after that they can get both the alcohol and vehicle returned.

The vehicle is generally not an essential piece of evidence. Alcohol found in the vehicle would be.

 

[Taxing Matters]

If only that were true, but considering that in 2017 there were 10,497 fatalities from drunk driving in the US I have my doubts.

And how many millions of people went to bars and restaurants that serve alcohol in 2017 and did not create a DUI fatality? Yes DUI driving is a problem but as a percentage of the total number of people going to bars and restaurants the number of DUI fatalities is very, very low. DUI fatalities were less than 1 death per 100 million vehicle miles traveled (VMT) in 2017. The vast majority of bar and restaurant patrons are not the problem here. So why shouldn't bars and restaurants have parking lots to serve their responsible customers?

I'm all for taking away the licenses of DUI drivers, especially repeat offenders. Deny them the right to drive. But I won't support denying them the right to own a car so that someone else may drive it. It isn't ownership that is the problem; it is use of the car (driving it) while under the influence that is the problem.

And note this: The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reports that there were 36,252 deaths by firearm in 2015 and 36,151 total vehicle accident fatalities that same year, and that's all accidents, not just DUIs. DUI fatalities are approximately 29% of all vehicle accidents. This means that about three times as many people die from guns every year than are killed by DUI drivers.

 

[Zigner]

It isn't ownership that is the problem; it is use of the <thing> ...

Exactly. Ownership isn't the problem.

 

[PayrollHRGuy]

From that same CDC report.

Motor vehicle traffic deaths

• Number of deaths: 36,161
• Deaths per 100,000 population: 11.3

All firearm deaths

• Number of deaths: 36,252
• Deaths per 100,000 population: 11.3

Take into account that some not insignificant number of deaths were in fact legal shootings.

 

[Taxing Matters]

Take into account that some not insignificant number of deaths were in fact legal shootings.

Some deaths were legal shootings, but the CDC data shows it to be a very small portion of the firearm deaths in 2015. Considerably more of those deaths were from suicides and homicides. The CDC reports that for 2015 there were 12,979 firearm homicides. Firearm suicides were 22,018. Thus, the total firearm deaths caused by suicide and by homicide were 34,997 of the total firearm deaths of 36,252. By contrast the CDC reported that year 489 unintentional firearm deaths, 484 legal intervention/war deaths (and considering the U.S was not at war within our borders in 2015 the war part of that is pretty much nil), and 282 firearms deaths were "undetermined". So the CDC data shows that out of the 35,970 firearm deaths that the CDC was able to classify, only 484 of those were legal shootings (if we assume war deaths to be zero), which means only 1.3% of the total firearm deaths were legal shootings. And I'm guessing most of those shootings were by cops. I'm not seeing the data supporting a lot of legal use of guns in self-protection by civilians.

The CDC table breaking this down is found here: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr66/nvsr66_06.pdf

 

[Zigner]

To be honest, and this is not to lessen their impact, but I don't feel that it's valid to include suicides in this argument. If you take out those 22k, then the numbers paint a different picture.

 

[Taxing Matters]

To be honest, and this is not to lessen their impact, but I don't feel that it's valid to include suicides in this argument. If you take out those 22k, then the numbers paint a different picture.

And the reason why you feel that deaths by suicide are not valid? It's still death by use of a firearm, right? Are you saying that death suicide by using a car would not be fair to include in motor vehicle death stats, too?

But all right, even if you take out the suicides, that's 35,970 total firearms deaths that CDC classified- 22,018 deaths by suicide = 13,952 nonsuicide deaths to firearms that the CDC was able to classify. Of those, 12,979, or 93%, of the deaths were due to homicide. Then there are 489 unintentional deaths by firearms, which is 3.5% of the total, and 484 legal shootings, which also comes to only 3.5% of the total firearms deaths. And of those legal firearms deaths, it is likely most are by police. There are no government kept statistics on how many people cops kill each year, but the Washington Post figures that 995 people were shot dead by police in 2015, which would include accidental shootings, legal shootings, and homicides by cops. Thus, the figures of the Post are not easily correlated with the CDC figures, but they do suggest that the bulk of the legal shootings (which already are a very small part of total firearm deaths) are indeed by cops. That again leaves very, very few legal shootings by civilian gun owners protecting themselves.

But the bottom line here is that when you take out the suicides the CDC data shows 93% of gun deaths are homicides, 3.5% are accidents/negligence, and just 3.5% legal shootings, most of which are likely officer shootings given what other data there is out there on that. That just does not make a compelling case for the argument advanced by some that people need to own to guns for protection. Maybe a few people truly do, but it appears that most do not. And I say that as someone who generally supports the 2nd Amendment.

So I don't see that taking out the suicides really changes things much. Do you?