More Americans were shot to death by March 6 this year than died on D-Day

[editor]

Sobering comparison from Washington Post:

A 19-year-old in Delaware, a 25-year-old in Columbus, Ohio, a 33-year-oldin California, and a 64-year-old in Indiana.

They are among the 29 people fatally shot in the United States on March 6. Meaning that any one of them might have been the shooting death which pushed the year’s total past the number of deaths suffered by American forces during the invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944.

On Thursday, Americans remembered those killed on D-Day, 75 years back. It was a day of enormous heroism that was critical in turning back Nazi Germany’s attempt to conquer Europe. Thousands of Americans, Canadians, Australians and soldiers from a number of other countries were part of the largest amphibious invasion force in history.

Some 2,501 Americans gave their lives that day, according to historic estimates. Another 1,913 soldiers from other Allied countries also died, bringing the total death toll from the immediate invasion to 4,414.

It took until late April before the number of people killed by guns in the United States in 2019 topped that number, according to data collected by the Gun Violence Archive. (These data exclude suicides.)

As a percentage of the population, the death toll on D-Day was equivalent to about 5,930 deaths in the U.S. today -- fewer than have been killed here in shooting incidents so far this year.

In an interview with President Trump earlier this week, British journalist Piers Morgan drew a comparison between American gun violence and World War II.

Morgan noted that there were 35 gun deaths a year in Britain, half the number killed on average each day in the United States. Trump responded by making an argument he’s made before: That if the concertgoers at a nightclub in Paris had been armed during a terrorist attack there in November 2015, fewer people might have died.

“Here’s my problem with that argument,” Morgan said. “More people were shot dead in America that week than have died from guns in Paris since the Second World War. The stats are so against that argument.”

“Well what are you going to do?” Trump replied. “You’re going to take the guns away from hunters?” He also pointed out that many people have rifles for entertainment.

Morgan’s data point is incorrect. According to the Gun Violence Archive, 234 people were shot and killed in the United States the week of the Paris attacks. There are more gun suicides than homicides in the United States, but, even so, France has averaged more than 1,800 gun deaths per year in recent years.

It’s still the case, though, that other nations see far fewer gun deaths than does the United States. Looking at estimates since 1990, calculated by the Global Health Data Exchange at the University of Washington, there were more homicides by gun in the United States in 1990 alone than there were from 1990 through 2017 in the United Kingdom, Canada and Germany combined.

Most of those killed in the United States this year died in incidents where they were the only victim. While we focus on mass shootings (defined by the Gun Violence Archive as incidents in which four or more people were killed or wounded), they make up only a tiny fraction of all those killed in 2019.

The number of those killed and wounded by guns in the United States has already topped 16,000 this year.

An after-action report compiled by the U.S. Army after D-Day found that between June 6, 1944 and July 1, the United States suffered 2,811 deaths and 13,564 wounded.

That’s 16,375 casualties combined — slightly less than the total from shooting incidents in the United States this year through June 6.

 

[weltweit]

Interesting numbers certainly.

 

[agricola]

No doubt an NRA spokesman will be along shortly to declaim "Yes, well the reason why so many more Americans have died this year compared to the D-Day landings is because everyone at the latter was armed"

 

[Yossarian]

No doubt an NRA spokesman will be along shortly to declaim "Yes, well the reason why so many more Americans have died this year compared to the D-Day landings is because everyone at the latter was armed"

"The lesson of World War II is that it takes a shitload of guns for the good guys to win."

Or maybe they'll come out with some crap about how there wouldn't have to have been a D-Day if Hitler hadn't taken everybody's guns away.

 

[Ming]

Love this. Message: ‘don’t get rid of the guns...tear the school down!!!’ (Or that’s the way my sick mind took it).
Columbine shooting: District suggests tearing down school Columbine school 'could be torn down'

 

[Pickman's model]

I wonder how many soldiers who fought on D-day took their own lives afterwards - I think more American soldiers who fought in Vietnam have since killed themselves than were killed in the conflict, so that's 58,000+, wouldn't be surprised if it was the same for operation overlord

 

[agricola]

I wonder how many soldiers who fought on D-day took their own lives afterwards - I think more American soldiers who fought in Vietnam have since killed themselves than were killed in the conflict, so that's 58,000+, wouldn't be surprised if it was the same for operation overlord

TBH I'd have thought not as many, or at least not as many from the Allies in that theatre of the war given that it worked, they had relatively competent political and military leadership, it demonstrably helped to end the war, there were few units that were in the fire for that long, there was a clear goal against a recognizably vile opponent and they were welcomed by the inhabitants.

 

[nogojones]

No doubt an NRA spokesman will be along shortly to declaim "Yes, well the reason why so many more Americans have died this year compared to the D-Day landings is because everyone at the latter was armed"

If the Americans hadn't been so heavily armed that day, many more of them would have been killed.

 

[Ming]

If the Americans hadn't been so heavily armed that day, many more of them would have been killed.

And the Germans similarly. The NRA were right all along.

 

[Yossarian]

TBH I'd have thought not as many, or at least not as many from the Allies in that theatre of the war given that it worked, they had relatively competent political and military leadership, it demonstrably helped to end the war, there were few units that were in the fire for that long, there was a clear goal against a recognizably vile opponent and they were welcomed by the inhabitants.

I think it's likely that the suicide rate was just as high, if not higher - PTSD was as real then as it is now, even if they didn't have a name for it, and it seems like it was an era when men were definitely not encouraged to talk about their feelings, leaving alcohol as one of the few forms of release.

The reality was that of the 16 million Americans who served in the armed forces during World War II, fewer than half saw combat. Of those who did, more than 1 million were discharged for combat-related neuroses, according to military statistics. In the summer of 1945, Newsweek reported that “10,000 returning veterans per month . . . develop some kind of psychoneurotic disorder. Last year there were more than 300,000 of them — and with fewer than 3,000 American psychiatrists and only 30 VA neuropsychiatric hospitals to attend to their painful needs.”

There was ubiquitous public discussion and concern for the complex issues facing the returning soldiers. Popular magazines such as Redbook, Ladies’ Home Journal and Life were full of articles about how to find a job, use the GI bill, or deal with a vet who suffered from nightmares, sudden rages and debilitating sadness. The film “The Best Years of Our Lives,” the story of the troubled homecoming of three World War II vets, won the 1947 Academy Award for best picture.

Yet that discussion was short-lived, and cultural amnesia set in. The economy recovered, and jobs were suddenly plentiful. The Cold War began. Through the 1950s, the troubled vet routinely surfaced as a character in film noir, often as the villain. But the lingering horrors of war otherwise retreated from the public conversation, often overshadowed by communism.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...73967a143d3_story.html?utm_term=.2b16428a6b52

 

[Yossarian]

According to this report, World War II veterans in California are killing themselves at four times the rate of other people their age.

Arbore said the toll of the unprocessed trauma of war was evident in his father and uncle, both of whom served under Gen. George Patton. "My dad and his identical twin brother never talked about the war, but they were very, very aggressive with their wives, my aunt and my children."

And when old age begins to lead to physical maladies and diminished mental capacity, "that defense that they have held on to for so many years begins to slip away."

"That's when suicidal plans can kick into gear," he said.

Suicide Rates Soaring Among WWII Vets

 

[Poi E]

I remember how it affected some relatives. Just hushed tones of "it was the war" to explain things. Awful, especially in a society like NZ where mental health matters were not discussed, especially amongst men.

 

[Dogsauce]

Interesting numbers certainly.

The ‘1800 gun deaths per year’ doesn’t seem to be substantiated other than referencing an online article. Sounds a bit suspect to me.

 

[Artaxerxes]

"The lesson of World War II is that it takes a shitload of guns for the good guys to win."

Or maybe they'll come out with some crap about how there wouldn't have to have been a D-Day if Hitler hadn't taken everybody's guns away.

I swear I gave actually seen that as an argument against gun control.

"Only dictators want to control who has guns!"

 

[Yossarian]

I remember how it affected some relatives. Just hushed tones of "it was the war" to explain things. Awful, especially in a society like NZ where mental health matters were not discussed, especially amongst men.

Yep, it was just never talked about - my grandfather on my dad's side died when I was about 9, I just knew him as a grumpy and unpredictable old man who was liable to give you a smack if you annoyed him, it wasn't until after my dad died that I found out he spent years dicing with death on the Murmansk run.

 

[agricola]

I think it's likely that the suicide rate was just as high, if not higher - PTSD was as real then as it is now, even if they didn't have a name for it, and it seems like it was an era when men were definitely not encouraged to talk about their feelings, leaving alcohol as one of the few forms of release.

Youre entirely right to state that PTSD was undiagnosed for most or actively supressed, it was internalized rather than dealt with and people drank heavily / acted in various other life-threatening ways (and knocking about family members and others) as the result of what they'd gone through - however I do wonder whether that necessarily means that the suicide rate among veterans was as high as / higher than it is now.

I appreciate that statistically a lot of WW1 and WW2 veteran suicides might have been written up as something else because of the percieved stigma around it (making it very difficult to work out how many there were - though it is something that must be done by someone), but perhaps it is not a coincidence that the WW2 veterans were killing themselves at a noticeably higher rate than before as they were coming into contact with modern treatments for / understanding of combat stress or PTSD, and when they were being encouraged to talk about their experiences / fetishized as that generation started to die off. I mean, since Vietnam (and NI / the Falklands over here) society has allegedly started to deal with veterans in crisis better than we were before and yet the suicide rate among veterans is high and is going up, not down.

I am not saying ex-service personnel should be told to bottle it all up, get drunk every night and take it out on their partner and kids but if things as self-destructive as that resulted in less veteran suicides than modern treatments for combat stress do, perhaps we should all question whether the current approach may be doing more harm than good for some people.

 

[Poi E]

I am not saying ex-service personnel should be told to bottle it all up, get drunk every night and take it out on their partner and kids but if things as self-destructive as that resulted in less veteran suicides than modern treatments for combat stress do, perhaps we should all question whether the current approach may be doing more harm than good for some people.

Fuck no. Pretending you were strong but felt like death inside? Nooooo.

 

[likesfish]

The Sad thing is not only do the yanks have Some strict gun laws they have proof that they work.

If you want an actual machine gun you have to jump through similar hoops to getting a firearms licence in the UK.
Legal machine guns have been used in three killings in thirty years.

 

[Don Troooomp]

I'm trying to work out why anyone needs a machine gun at home. Wasps nests, birds stealing the grass seed, what?

 

[Artaxerxes]

I'm trying to work out why anyone needs a machine gun at home. Wasps nests, birds stealing the grass seed, what?

Anti-hurricane kit, issued as standard to all Florida residents.