We are an accident-prone nation. Interestingly, given how people rail about "gun accidents", guns are not high on the accidental death list. First, Accidents are the 5th leading cause of death in the US, Homicides are 15th.
Of the 118,021 accidental deaths in 2009, only 564 were due to firearms. (0.5%). Seven times more people died from accidental drowning (3517).
As to the overall premise -- our INFANT MORTALITY rate is very high relative to a lot of other developed nations (our overall rank is 50th). There isn't a LOT of infant deaths, but because they represent almost 0 life expectancy, they tend to pull the averages down a lot. Our IM rate is 6 per 100,000 -- MORE than our death rate by gun homicide. Monaco is first at 1.81 per 100,000.
Our life expectancy is ranked 57th. So yes, we could do better -- but we probably have a lot more fun in our shorter lives.
Death by homicide is number 15. I wonder what the breakdown of the homicide catorgry is?
I bet guns would be about half and the other half woudl be other methods from a good push out the window to a punch to the head. So death by gun must be number 25 or 30?
Americans fight for every life. We measure live births differently than other countries. They only count a live birth if the baby lives 24 hours.
The numbers about our life expectancy and health care compared to the rest of the world are based on lies.
See here: http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2012/07/scott_atlas_on.html
Read the transcript and listen to the interview.
We were lied to...again.