OPINION
12
Forget the Flu: Guns Cause Far More Deaths
As Americans load up on Tamiflu, shootings draw little notice
By Katherine Thompson
|
Posted Apr 29, 09 8:56 AM CDT
|
Share
(Newser)
–
In the US and Mexico, a plague much more widespread than swine flu continues to pick off its victims, regardless of age, health, or hometown. "While federal and state authorities are preoccupied with preventing a swine flu pandemic from overwhelming the United States, the epidemic of gun violence rages on, unabated and little noted," writes Cynthia Tucker in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
"We have an odd way of assessing risks," Tucker writes: even in Mexico, swine flu deaths are a tiny blip compared with the toll of gun violence. But as "the news media have hurriedly produced new catchphrases for their round-the-clock swine flu reportage," the public makes a run on pharmacies. "If only we could muster half that hysteria over gun deaths."