[Flyboy]

Getting back to guns for a moment (yeah, I know, it's been a lousy few weeks for civil rights), I came across a table showing the odds of dying from various causes over the course of your lifetime. The table's available at http://www.livescience.com/forcesofnature/050106_odds_of_dying.html#table; guns come in at number eight.

Heart Disease
1-in-5

Cancer
1-in-7

Stroke
1-in-23

Accidental Injury
1-in-36

Motor Vehicle Accident
1-in-100

Intentional Self-harm (suicide)
1-in-121

Falling Down
1-in-246

Assault by Firearm
1-in-325

Next time your favorite anti proposes banning guns, suggest instead that we ban assault staircases and shoelaces.

[Jammer Six]

The odds of dying are 100%.

Everything else is arm waving.

[Joejojoba111]

If you're in your teens or twenties, then you're going to die with a car. Or a truck, whatever. By far the most likely. So likely that people don't care anymore, they crusade about firearm deaths instead, because they're flashier.

[Librarian]

A much bigger table is at National Safety Council (http://www.nsc.org/lrs/statinfo/odds.htm)

Usual comparisons -- Death by:
Assault by firearm, X93-X95 Annually:1/24,342 Lifetime:1/315

Intentional self-harm by firearm, X72-X74 Annually:1/16,831 Lifetime:1/218

Firearm discharge, Y22-Y24 Annually:1/1,184,943 Lifetime:1/15,329

Car occupant, V40-V49 Annually:1/17,625 Lifetime:1/228

Falls, W00-W19 Annually:1/17,712 Lifetime:1/229

Accidental poisoning by and exposure to noxious substances, X40-X49 Annually:1/16,407 Lifetime:1/212

[MikeB]

The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out alive.
-- Heinlein