Are some lives more valuable than others?

By Jim Thompson
HCP columnist

In 2017, the National Highway Safety Transportation Administration (NHTSA) attributed 9,717 fatalities on U.S. highways to speeding. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), this does not put the U.S. in the top 25 countries in the world for traffic deaths due to speeding by any measure (per capita, distance traveled, etc.).

Also, in 2017, according to PEW research, there were 14,542 homicides in the U.S. by firearms (down from a peak of 18,253 in 1993). According to PBS, this places us 30th in the world.

There were 879,000 abortions in the U.S. in 2017, ranking us as the number 10 country in the world for this practice. But since these are done behind closed doors and the Left has dehumanized fetuses, we are not supposed to think about these as murders (again, according to the Left; certainly, the rest of us, still maintaining a modicum of morality, can think of them as murders).

So, once again, giving the Left their sop for the moment, let’s just talk about cars and guns.

Want gun legislation? Fine. Just tie it to reducing the nationwide speed limit back to 55 miles per hour. This should cause a stink and a howl.

If you are not in favor of this, here is my question for you: Do you consider bodies with holes in them more precious than bodies mangled and bleeding out on the side of the road? Not pleasant choices, but I’ll bet more people are ready to accept a few deaths from speeding over deaths from gunshots.

As motorists, we like our speed. I did, too, when I was younger and had better reflexes. I even got rid of a vehicle one time because it was a speed ticket trap – a 1999 Lincoln Navigator. In two years, it got me three speeding tickets (of course, it gave me nothing – they were my responsibility. It was inanimate, but it was so smooth and so big that driving the speed limit felt like you were standing still). I still remember all three tickets: one on U.S. 52 around Hanging Rock, one on U.S. 62 in Brown County, and one on I-75 in northern Georgia.

But back to the subject at hand, we are controlled by our own emotions and the skillful work of the media. Seeing a school shooting, a store shooting or other shootings leaves us sympathetic to the victims and their families. This is natural and good.

However, the reality is this. There are so many fatal car accidents that if the news media just showed those, they would have no time left for anything else. We also think we are beyond being in a fatal car accident, but we place ourselves in those shooting situations and are frightened.

The truth is we should be just as concerned about one cause of death as the other and just as willing to do something about one as the other.

I have just been in Houston for a few days, and I have noticed that the city has contracted with tow trucks which are positioned near the entrance to nearly every expressway access point during rush hour. It is sobering to think this is how they view the likelihood of a vehicle accident.

Personally, maybe I’ll be lucky like the bumper sticker I once saw: “I want to die in my sleep like my grandfather, not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car.”

Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga. and is a columnist for The Highland County Press. He may be reached at jthompson@taii.com.