Reprint: Fatality Fumble:
Football Kills As Many Students As School Shootings
The Libertarian Party, 2600 Virginia Avenue, NW, Suite
100, Washington DC 20037; http://www.LP.org
For additional information contact George Getz, Press
Secretary,
(202) 333-0008 Ext. 222,
pressreleases@hq.LP.org
High
school football killed as many students last year as did guns — which means
politicians should either stop using school shootings as an excuse to attack
the Second Amendment or start passing "football control" laws, the Libertarian
Party said today.
"According
to the latest statistics, a football is as deadly as a gun," said Steve
Dasbach, the party's national director. "So why do first downs continue
to be exalted while the Second Amendment continues to be vilified?"
A
new study from the National School Safety Center (NSSC) reported that there
were 15 "school-associated deaths" caused by violent crime — including
guns — during the 1999-2000 school year.
That
number is unchanged from the 1998-1999 school year, when 15 students were
killed by guns, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
There
have been zero student gun deaths so far during this school year.
By
comparison, 15 high school football players died during regular season
and playoff games in 1999, according to the National Federation of State
High School Associations.
Another
11 athletes have died in high school games and practices since late August
of this year — and that number is expected to rise during playoffs.
In addition, another 29 players this year have suffered "catastrophic injuries"
on the field, leaving them paralyzed or seriously disabled.
These
numbers have Libertarians wondering: Given the carnage on our nation's
high school football fields, why the outcry about guns — and the utter
silence about football fatalities?
"When
15 students are tragically killed by guns during a school year, every politician
and anti-gun lobbying group expresses practiced outrage, and immediately
demands new laws that infringe on the Second Amendment," said Dasbach.
"But when 15 students are tragically killed by football, the silence is
deafening.
"If
the preventable death of any young person is a tragedy — and it is — then
why wasn't there a Million Mom March demanding an end to high school football?
Why no calls from Bill Clinton for 'reasonable' football control laws?
Why no saturation media coverage as dead football players are carried off
the field in stretchers? Why no class-action lawsuits against Spaulding
for manufacturing cheap Saturday Night Special footballs?
"Could
it be that politicians get more yardage attacking guns than attacking football?"
This
"outrage gap" is especially puzzling, said Dasbach, because the Constitution
doesn't guarantee an explicit right to "keep and bear" footballs.
"Football
is nothing more than entertainment and sport. Guns are a Constitutionally
protected civil right," he said. "While every new gun-control law
triggers a fight about the scope of the Second Amendment, football has
no such protection.
"If
he wanted to, President Clinton could lobby for an absolute ban on high
school football, in order to save the lives of 15 young people every year.
The fact that he doesn't, and the fact that groups like Handgun Control,
Inc. don't demand such legislation, reveals that their real motive is not
to save lives, but to advance an anti-gun political agenda."
Of
course, Libertarians wouldn't support a ban on football any more than they
support a ban on guns, said Dasbach.
"Protecting
the lives of young people who play high school football is the job of parents,
school officials, and coaches, not politicians," he said. "And protecting
the Second Amendment is the job of every American, since so many politicians
have fumbled their duty to defend the fundamental human rights — including
the right to keep and bear arms — guaranteed in the Constitution."![10x5 Page Background GIF Image](../../Images/10x5_Page_Background.gif)
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Frontiersman,
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Also see The Pharos Connection at http://www.ida.net/users/pharos/ |
December 2000
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