Except for the fact that the US and EU count heatwave deaths differently, in the US, its checked if the person actually died because of a heatstroke. In the EU, a lot of other deaths which aren’t heatstrokes but are heat related are counted as heat death.
More precisely: for the US, they only checked if the “cause of death” field on the certificate mentions heat but EU statistics compare to a model of how many deaths would have occurred without a heatwave. Of course heat makes lots of indirect deadly circumastances more likely. We don’t have recent studies on heat deaths with similar methodology to compare both regions but at least the gun death statistics are more clear-cut.
Also, this is a bit cynical but people who die to heat usually had preexisting conditions and were statistically likely to die in 10 years anyway. Meanwhile most gun deaths are young adults whose productive careers were cut short.
I already said I’m being a bit cynical. I can move it up a notch and even thank heat waves for culling old, sickly people who would otherwise keep using taxpayer-funded healthcare for a few more years.
I’m not comparing heatwave deaths to heatwave deaths though. i’m comparing gun related deaths to heat related deaths. More people die of heat related causes in Europe than gun related causes in the US per year.
My friend, those stats don’t mean what you want them to mean. The narrative you are trying to sell is frankly ridiculous and criminally stupid. And dare I say - American
How do you mean? That heat related deaths do not actually mean heat related deaths? People drowning in an overcrowded pool and kids left in hot cars are heat related. Just like a suicide by firearm is firearm related.
But please, explain to my feeble American mind how heat related doesnt actually mean heat related.
I shouldn’t have to explain it because it’s common sense.
In fact, I’m willing to bet that if we were to change the focus of our comparison from apples and oranges (which is what comparing gun-related deaths in the US to heat-related deaths in European countries comes down to, not to mention the vast differences in data collection approaches across disciplines, countries, etc.) to another pair of equally uncomparable fruit but one that you are not so strongly predisposed to thinkinking a certain way about, you would have the same reaction as I. Chuckle a little bit.
Why, you might ask? For the simple reason that comparing apples to oranges doesn’t make sense unless you’ve been predisposed for it to seem like it makes sense.
And no, this is obviously not a uniquely American issue (I wish it were but it’s definitely universal for all of us chimps). It’s just that this specific comparison, absurd as it is, has a uniquely American flavour because it’s clearly meant to rationalize the exceptially high levels of gun violence in the US.
And yes, “exceptional” is definitely the right word to describe gun violence in the US. You start to appreciate just how exceptional when you compare US numbers to literally any other wealthy nation. Now we’re comparing apples to apples and things start making a lot more sense, don’t you think?
My new favorite statistic is that more people die in Europe due to heat related deaths than people die of gun violence in the US per year.
Why?
Except for the fact that the US and EU count heatwave deaths differently, in the US, its checked if the person actually died because of a heatstroke. In the EU, a lot of other deaths which aren’t heatstrokes but are heat related are counted as heat death.
More precisely: for the US, they only checked if the “cause of death” field on the certificate mentions heat but EU statistics compare to a model of how many deaths would have occurred without a heatwave. Of course heat makes lots of indirect deadly circumastances more likely. We don’t have recent studies on heat deaths with similar methodology to compare both regions but at least the gun death statistics are more clear-cut.
Also, this is a bit cynical but people who die to heat usually had preexisting conditions and were statistically likely to die in 10 years anyway. Meanwhile most gun deaths are young adults whose productive careers were cut short.
I think with “productive careers” you meant “lives”, but I guess I’m not American enough to value life over producing. (jk)
I already said I’m being a bit cynical. I can move it up a notch and even thank heat waves for culling old, sickly people who would otherwise keep using taxpayer-funded healthcare for a few more years.
I’m not comparing heatwave deaths to heatwave deaths though. i’m comparing gun related deaths to heat related deaths. More people die of heat related causes in Europe than gun related causes in the US per year.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/08/1152766
https://publichealth.jhu.edu/center-for-gun-violence-solutions/issues/gun-violence-in-the-united-states
Yeah man if only we had ways to protect our most vulnerable from the unavoidable natural environmental danger of firearms.
It’s really too bad that, like the heat, gun violence is just a part of nature and we just have to live with it.
My friend, those stats don’t mean what you want them to mean. The narrative you are trying to sell is frankly ridiculous and criminally stupid. And dare I say - American
How do you mean? That heat related deaths do not actually mean heat related deaths? People drowning in an overcrowded pool and kids left in hot cars are heat related. Just like a suicide by firearm is firearm related.
But please, explain to my feeble American mind how heat related doesnt actually mean heat related.
I shouldn’t have to explain it because it’s common sense.
In fact, I’m willing to bet that if we were to change the focus of our comparison from apples and oranges (which is what comparing gun-related deaths in the US to heat-related deaths in European countries comes down to, not to mention the vast differences in data collection approaches across disciplines, countries, etc.) to another pair of equally uncomparable fruit but one that you are not so strongly predisposed to thinkinking a certain way about, you would have the same reaction as I. Chuckle a little bit.
Why, you might ask? For the simple reason that comparing apples to oranges doesn’t make sense unless you’ve been predisposed for it to seem like it makes sense.
And no, this is obviously not a uniquely American issue (I wish it were but it’s definitely universal for all of us chimps). It’s just that this specific comparison, absurd as it is, has a uniquely American flavour because it’s clearly meant to rationalize the exceptially high levels of gun violence in the US.
And yes, “exceptional” is definitely the right word to describe gun violence in the US. You start to appreciate just how exceptional when you compare US numbers to literally any other wealthy nation. Now we’re comparing apples to apples and things start making a lot more sense, don’t you think?