Charley’s Friday Food For Thought – Do Doctors Kill More People Than Guns?

We all get them. Spam email from friends, family and lord knows who else. Sometimes they are funny and sometime they are just a waste of time and others make you think things through...this is one of those emails.

This is what I think to be a prime example of how many people, like those in Congress, who think with their hearts and not with actual factual figures.  Deciding things with your heart can be a good thing; it can also be a downfall.  Take for example guns and doctors and who kills more people.  Of course 90% of people will say guns because that's what their hearts tell them to believe.

Think again...

Doctors (Statistics courtesy of U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services)

• The number of physicians in the U.S. is 700,000
• Accidental deaths caused by Physicians per year are 120,000
• Accidental deaths per physician is 0.171

 Guns (Statistics courtesy of the FBI)

• The number of gun owners in the U.S. is 80,000,000. (Million)
• The number of accidental gun deaths per year, all age groups, is 1,500
• The number of accidental deaths per gun owner is .0000188

So,statistically, doctors are approximately 9,000 times more dangerous than gun owners.  Pretty sure that math is close, well, close enough for me to know it's not the guns that are the problem...it's that "human element."

The joke punchline? "Remember, Guns don't kill people, doctors do."

Not everyone has a gun but most everyone has at least one doctor. This means you are over 9,000 times more likely to be killed by your doctor as by a gun owner.

Food for Thought