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Comment by ChancyChance | Hacker News Reader

I agree to make a valid comparison exclude gun and car deaths from healthcare statistics. Unfortunately, Horgan has citations, but you don't. So I can't really do much with your claim because without facts it is an opinion. If this were a debate that would score a point, but we're not competing with rhetoric: this should be a forum with facts. Because I *believe* you are correct, but I have no data so it remains a belief: facts would have helped!

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Fortunately there was an article on this very recently [1]. Here's an archived link if needed [2].

> One statistic in particular stood out: one in 25 American five-year-olds today will not make it to their 40th birthday. No parent should ever have to bury their child, but in the US one set of parents from every kindergarten class most likely will.

> And this is a very American problem. These young deaths are caused overwhelmingly by external causes — overdoses, gun violence, dangerous driving and such — which are deeply embedded social problems involving groups with opposing interests. Far trickier to tackle than most health issues where everyone is pulling in one direction.

[1] https://www.ft.com/content/653bbb26-8a22-4db3-b43d-c34a0b774...

[2] https://archive.ph/3OlNW

Currently the top one is getting shot, passing traffic accidents finally to get the first place. Yes, it is very much an American problem.

The other part ruining statistics is infant and early childhood mortality, divided across racial lines. Very American as well.

Honestly I didn't really believe you because I had looked similar numbers up a few years ago but then I found this pew research on the topic. Apparently youth gun deaths increased like a hockey stick graph %50 during the pandemic. I am surprised I have not heard more about this in the media. It will be interesting to see how much this returns to baseline. I wonder if this is just and effect of kids having %50 more opportunities for conflict out of school or if it was covid induced stress that everyone was feeling or what. It does make you wonder if shutting down all the schools really was the best thing to do for the kids. Although it's of course hard to balance that against the spreading of the disease to other familes members. And of course early on we did not know exactly how dangerous it would be for kids. It will be interesting to see how we respond during the next pandemic.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2023/04/06/gun-deaths-...

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