This is a fine example of exactly how we misjudge risk 
Risk evaluation is what I do for a living, so here’s how this works:
Survivability is only relevant in terms of the likelihood of that event occurring, and the frequency of the particular severity actually happening.
If a thing might happen, how likely is it to happen to you? If it happens, how likely is it to kill you?
If a thing never happens, it doesn’t matter if it can kill you. If a think happens often, but the odds of dying from it are vanishingly low, it doesn’t matter if it can kill you. And yet, our brain still screams “BUT YOU COULD DIE!”
Cars vs. airplanes in 2017:
- The Aviation Safety Network reported there were no commercial passenger jet deaths in 2017.
- The National Safety Council estimated that 40,100 people were killed in 2017 car accidents.
Regardless of how much you like your odds, your chances of dying in a commercial plane crash in 2017 was NONE. Your risk of dying in a car crash? Definitely not none. And yet you spent a great deal of time in cars and probably never thought “for the next 3 hours, I’d be safer if I was in a plane.”
You feel safer in a car. That is a misperception of risk, and it is what our brains do… it’s wired in.
This is a really good example of why it’s so hard to get people who are afraid of even being in the same room with a gun to understand that its not the gun that’s dangerous. Their brain is using its naturally wiring to shout alarms and they cannot hear us when we say the gun is not the problem. They feel what they feel. They like their odds of being safe better when there are no guns than if there are guns present. Even though they are wrong about the risk, they still feel better about their odds.
This is exactly why they want to get rid of all guns, rather than addressing the issues with bad people who use them… they feel fear in the presence of guns, or even at the idea of guns, rather than understanding the proper object of that fear is people who misuse them. It is the misperception of risk that makes them so hard to even have a rational discussion with.
It is only by correcting that misperception of risk that they start to calm down and use their brains.
When we understand why a thing is happening, we can start to be effective at fixing it.
The media and anti-gun forces understand EXACTLY how this works - and they crank up the perceived risk about the wrong thing intentionally. It is a deliberate strategy, and I think it’s unlikely we can make them stop using it because it works extremely well. And we aren’t going to fix it by yelling “it’s not the guns” louder and more often, because that doesn’t address the “why” of why it works.
We are going to fix it by changing people’s ability to assess the risk for themselves. Hands-on experience. Take-an-anti-gun-friend-to-the-range efforts. Getting (non-agendized) gun safety programs in schools or in church or community programs. Open carry by the lawful. All those things work by giving people experiences that allow them to reevaluate their perception of risk.
yep, I hear you.
Autodidact
