Silent Killer Taking More American Lives Than Cars & Guns, NOBODY Mentions It

Sean Brown Across the country, a silent killer has been taking the lives of more Americans than cars or guns, and surprisingly, nobody seem to be wanting to talk about it, despite the constant push to save lives.

On Wednesday, the Drug Enforcement Agency announced the leading cause of injury death in America in its 2015 National Drug Threat Assessment, and you might be surprised to hear that it’s actually drug overdoses by a wide margin, according to CNS News. That’s right, the latest information available is from 2013, and statistics show overdoses were responsible for some 46,471 deaths that year. However, vehicles caused 35,369 deaths and guns caused far fewer with 33,636 deaths, and 21,175 of those were from suicide, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

“Sadly this report confirms what we’ve known for some time: drug abuse is ending too many lives while destroying families and communities,” DEA Administrator Chuck Rosenburg said in his statement while releasing the report. “We must stop drug abuse before it begins by teaching young people at an even earlier age about its many dangers and horrors.”

According to the DEA, prescription drugs and heroin are responsible for the most overdose deaths annually, which is why they’re the most significant drug threats to the country. It also lists concentrated marijuana products that have potencies far above their leaf counterparts as an “issue of growing concern.”

The report comes on the heels of voters in Ohio rejecting a ballot proposal to legalize marijuana and as the debate over drug addiction heats up in the presidential primaries. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who’s running for the Democrat nomination, also introduced a bill on Wednesday that would basically legalize marijuana at the federal level and leave it up to the individual states to decide.

Ironically, as the push for more gun control has been reignited following recent events, nobody espousing support for such measures seems to be nearly as passionate about saving lives when it comes to drugs. In fact, many of the same people who want to restrict our Second Amendment rights are calling for looser drug laws and in some cases, they mention legalizing hard drugs like cocaine and amphetamines, even though statistics seem to show that drugs do lead to more deaths.

How can that be though? We’re constantly told that more laws will help get guns out of the hands of criminals, right? So how is it that drugs are illegal, passing along prescription drugs is illegal, yet criminals still seem to be getting drugs, and those drugs seem to be killing people at a higher rate than guns do? It just can’t be!

Or maybe, just maybe, the entire gun control debate isn’t actually about saving lives or doing anything to prevent gun violence. Perhaps it’s really about disarming law-abiding citizens, which many of us have long expected. After looking at all the different factors, I’m inclined to believe it’s the latter. What about you?