[geeks] What desk toy or "tchotchke" says "geek" to you?

[Phil Stracchino]

Chris Petrov wrote:
> In 2003 (the most recent year for which data is available), there  
> were 30,136 gun deaths in the U.S:
> 
>      * 16,907 suicides (56% of all U.S gun deaths),
>      * 11,920 homicides (40% of all U.S gun deaths),
>      * 730 unintentional shootings (2% of all U.S gun deaths),
>      * 347 from legal intervention and 232 from undetermined intent  
> (2% of all U.S gun deaths combined).
> 
> -Numbers obtained from CDC National Center for Health Statistics  
> mortality report online, 2006.

Pretty close to the numbers I recall, considering they're not breaking
police shootings and defensive shootings out as separate categories there.

> Can't say that I disagree in general apart from the fact it seems to  
> be an awful lot of people (certainly compared to other industrialized  
> countries) and that the suicide stat seems particularly alarming  
> given that it's generally accepted that someone who does is of  
> unsound mind.

I'm personally not convinced about that, and never have been.  If one's
life has become intolerable and one sees no way to improve it, I don't
see that escaping it via suicide is necessarily an unsound decision.
It's a part of my personal philosophy that the right to "life, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness" is pretty meaningless without the right to
die with dignity in a time, place and manner of one's choosing when life
has become a source of misery from which one cannot win free, instead of
an opportunity to seek happiness.



-- 
 Phil Stracchino                     Landline: 603-886-3518
 phil.stracchino at speakeasy.net         Mobile: 603-216-7037
 Renaissance Man, Unix generalist, Perl hacker, Free Stater