In the wake of almost every mass shooting in the past year or two, I have seen dozens of people use the analogy of "well people die from cars too, should we ban them? should we ban cars that can go above 75 mph, since higher speeds aren't legal outside of race tracks?" Frankly, I am sick of it.
Mainly: cars are already heavily regulated.
You can't legally learn to drive until you are 14 years and 8 months of age in the US. From there, you take Driver's Education. I'm sure the types of programs offered vary from state to state, but in my home state of Michigan, it's 24 hours of classroom time, 6 hours of in-car learning, and 4 hours of observation time while driving. That classroom time is limited to a maximum of 2 hours per day. After all of that plus a written test, you can get your Segment 1 Learner's Permit. From there, you have to wait a minimum of 3 months before taking another 6 hours of classroom instruction and another written test before you can take the final test to get your driver's license at the age of 16. That is a LOT of work.
I will interrupt myself to give you my example. I never took Driver's Ed because of reasons that I don't want to go in to. Instead, I took a written test after I turned 18 and got a learner's permit, and then I learned to drive from my sister. Then, I was able to take a driving test and get my license without having to go through all of that coursework. This was a much cheaper and technically easier route to take, but it had its sacrifices: I didn't know how to drive until long after I graduated high school, so I was entirely dependent on my parents and friends for rides in high school and half of college. This was a few years ago; I don't even know if you're allowed to get a permit without going through Michigan's Graduated Driver Licensing program anymore.
So, obviously, it is hard to obtain a driver's license. It takes time, learning, and testing. I nearly failed my road test because I was bad at parallel parking and backing into a spot - two things which are not guaranteed to be a part of every driver's life.
Then once you get a car (which can be very difficult if you are not financially blessed), there are all kinds of rules for driving. Speed limits on every road. Tickets for speeding, for making illegal turns, for running red lights even if nobody was around, for using your phone while driving, for not wearing your seat belt, for driving hazardously (guy who always swerves through traffic cutting everyone off going 25 mph above the flow of traffic, I'm looking at you). Points on your license for getting caught breaking the laws. Too many points and they suspend your license or take it away all together. DUI laws that have become so severe, you don't even get a warning anymore - one instance of drunk driving and you're done. If your reaction time and/or vision can be proven to have deteriorated to the point that you become a hazard on the road, your license will be taken away.
And then there's registration. Every car must be registered with the state in which it resides, even if it's not in use. To illustrate: years ago, my parents were selling their old car to a friend. They had already gotten a new car, so they took the license plate from the old one and used it for the new one. The old car was parked at the top of our driveway for maybe a week without a license plate. A nosy neighbor saw it and phoned the city, and then we got a notice from the city stating that we needed to register the car or either it would be impounded or we would be ticketed/fined.
And then there's insurance. Each state varies slightly, but in the US it is illegal to drive an uninsured car. Insurance covers you causing an accident, someone causing an accident against you, unnatural damage to your car (such as a branch falling on it in a storm), etc. Any time you make a claim on your insurance - any time you ask for your insurance company to pay to fix something - your rates go up and it becomes more expensive for you to drive.
Okay, so all of that to say: Cars are heavily regulated to protect both drivers and pedestrians. The ability to drive a car is heavily regulated. Sure, one can steal a car and drive it without a license, but the penalties for that would be huge.
On to some other types of reasons why banning cars is a stupid analogy when talking about gun control.
Cars were invented for transit and recreation. People rely on cars to get to work, school, the store, etc. Some people also drive their cars for fun. But cars were not invented to be weapons of mass destruction, or of minor destruction for that matter.
Guns, on the other hand, were invented strictly for the purpose of killing. The earliest gun was invented in China in the 13th century AD and it was meant to be a weapon of war. "But some people use guns for recreation, like skeet shooting!" Yes, true. But that sport did not surface until the 1920s. And guess what? That sport was invented by a guy who liked to hunt (read: kill) birds. So it's safe to say that that sport is meant to practice or imitate hunting (read: killing). I don't inform you of this to judge anyone who likes to shoot skeet or go to the firing range; I merely want to remind you that guns were invented with the intent to kill. So there's another reason why we shouldn't ban cars even though sometimes people die from them.
Now, I really wish I could provide you with factual, statistical evidence regarding the way in which people die from cars. By that, I mean comparing the number of accidental car crashes to the number of purposeful car crashes. I've looked, but I haven't been able to find any of that type of data. This causes me to suspect that the number of purposeful car-related deaths in the US is statistically insignificant. Meanwhile, the number of purposeful deaths caused by guns in the US is, well, staggeringly high.
Cars have an incredible amount of built-in saftey features in order to prevent accidental deaths. Air bags, side air bags, bodies that crumple on any impact (example: I once hit a parking structure pay station, going about 2 mph, and the body of my car crumpled so badly that I couldn't open my front passenger door all the way), seat belts, child locks, the design of head rests, etc, etc, etc. Upgrades such as rear-facing cameras to avoid backing over things. Millions of dollars have been spent on research in order to make cars safer.
And yet.
Guns have one little button or switch to prevent them from being shot. Children and toddlers are constantly fining Mom and Dad's gun, which is for some reason stored unlocked within their reach and loaded, and shooting themselves or their parents.
How many toddlers do you see accidentally unlocking and starting the car, putting it into gear, and rolling into traffic or crashing into the house?
So please, for the sake of everything that is good in this world, STOP suggesting that we ban cars because they are dangerous. It is a BAD analogy and using that analogy makes you sound desperate. Over the last 60 years, cars have proven themselves to be safer and safer, while guns have become a bigger and bigger threat. Sure, the linked chart shows that guns and cars kill the same number of people every year right now; but car deaths have declined drastically while gun deaths have increased drastically over time. That right there should be enough reason for us to not ban cars, and reason enough to place stricter control (and perform more research) on guns to avoid gun deaths.
/endrant
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