Which Constitutional Right Kills More People: Right to Bear Arms or Right to an Abortion?
‘Puter apologizes in advance to his liberal readers for using facts to support his argument. He knows you rarely encounter such fact-based arguments, and as such are confused and frightened by such dialogue. ‘Puter will attempt to make his point in small words, using shiny objects and sparkly visual effects, in order to maximize the chance you will understand his point.
Individual Americans have a Constitutional right to keep and to bear arms. See, U.S. Const. amend II. This right permits citizens to purchase weapons and ammunition for personal use, such as for home defense and concealed carry. The Supreme Court affirmed the Second Amendment is an individual right, and not a collective right. District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008). This is a fact, no matter how much liberals may wish it otherwise.
Individual Americans have a Constitutional right to terminate pregnancies through a medical process known as abortion. There is no specific text in the Constitution elevating an elective medical procedure that, done properly, terminates a human life to a Constitutional right. Further, there is no express right to privacy enunciated in the Constitution. However, the Supreme Court held in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973)(link to Blackmun, J.’s majority opinion only), that Americans have a Constitutional right to abort a child, which right the state can limit only upon showing such limitation is necessary to further a compelling state interest. This is a fact, no matter how much conservatives (including ‘Puter) may wish it otherwise.
So, we know abortion and gun ownership are both Constitutional rights. Further, we know that both rights may be limited by the government. In the case of abortion, the Supreme Court has applied strict scrutiny to government restriction of such right. As to gun ownership, the Supreme Court has not yet passed on what standard of scrutiny will be applied to government restriction of such right. though ‘Puter believes logic dictates a strict scrutiny standard be applied, if only for consistency’s sake.
Now, to the numbers.
The CDC reported that in 2009, there were 31,347 gun deaths nationwide. This figure includes both intentional (murder) and unintentional (suicide, accidental discharge) deaths, as well as deaths attributable to legally acquired and illegally acquired firearms. The figure does not carve out justified killings (e.g., self-defense). ‘Puter believes that suicides and justified killings should be carved out from these statistics, because neither suicide nor justified homicide are the sort of risk gun control advocates cite to support strict, European style gun laws. For the sake of argument, however, ‘Puter will go with the higher figure.
In 2008 (the most recent year ‘Puter found firm data, partly because the Obama Administration refused to issue abortion figures for several years after it took power), the CDC reported 825,564 abortions nationwide. The CDC number excludes figures for California and New Hampshire, so its statistics are necessarily understated. The Guttmacher Institute estimates the number of abortions in 2008 was approximately 1,212,400, adjusting to include estimates for California and New Hampshire.
So, here’s ‘Puter simple conclusion. Liberals want to end Americans’ Second Amendment right to keep and to bear arms, established in the text of the Constitution because firearms, legal and illegal, used intentionally and accidentally, killed at most 31,347 people in 2009. Yet liberals are fine with not only keeping, but expanding, Americans’ constitutional right, found nowhere in the Constitution yet created from thin air by bleeding heart liberal activist judges, that inarguably intentionally destroys between 825,564 and 1,212,400 human lives annually.
Put another way, liberals’ pet Constitutional right to an abortion kills between 26.33 and 38.67 times more humans than conservatives’ pet Constitutional right to keep and to bear arms. Or, gun deaths account for between 2.58% and 3.79% of the number of abortion deaths each year, depending on whose figures you believe.
Tearful liberal tirades about the untoward number of gun deaths would be much more impressive if liberals gave a rat’s ass about the nearly one million aborted human lives each year.**
**’Puter’s thoughtfully allowed liberals to continue to pretend that a vastly disproportionate number of human lives aborted each year are Black and Hispanic, not White or Asian. Abortion is not only more costly in terms of lives lost than gun deaths, abortion disproportionately kills minorities. Any good liberal would bring a disparate impact lawsuit claiming abortion laws are TEH RAYCEZT!!1! But ‘Puter’s too good a guy to keep an entire belief system while it’s down, hemorrhaging from its nose as a result of having its collective mind blown by indisputable facts.
Always right, unless he isn’t, the infallible Ghettoputer F. X. Gormogons claims to be an in-law of the Volgi, although no one really believes this.
’Puter carefully follows economic and financial trends, legal affairs, and serves as the Gormogons’ financial and legal advisor. He successfully defended us against a lawsuit from a liquor distributor worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid deliveries of bootleg shandies.
The Geep has an IQ so high it is untestable and attempts to measure it have resulted in dangerously unstable results as well as injuries to researchers. Coincidentally, he publishes intelligence tests as a side gig.
His sarcasm is so highly developed it borders on the psychic, and he is often able to insult a person even before meeting them. ’Puter enjoys hunting small game with 000 slugs and punt guns, correcting homilies in real time at Mass, and undermining unions. ’Puter likes to wear a hockey mask and carry an axe into public campgrounds, where he bursts into people’s tents and screams. As you might expect, he has been shot several times but remains completely undeterred.
He assures us that his obsessive fawning over news stories involving women teachers sleeping with young students is not Freudian in any way, although he admits something similar once happened to him. Uniquely, ’Puter is unable to speak, read, or write Russian, but he is able to sing it fluently.
Geep joined the order in the mid-1980s. He arrived at the Castle door with dozens of steamer trunks and an inarticulate hissing creature of astonishingly low intelligence he calls “Sleestak.” Ghettoputer appears to make his wishes known to Sleestak, although no one is sure whether this is the result of complex sign language, expert body posture reading, or simply beating Sleestak with a rubber mallet.
‘Puter suggests the Czar suck it.