“… Guns, Murders, Life, Death, and Ignorance in Contemporary America”

Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of Warre, where every man is Enemy to every man; the same is consequent to the time, wherein men live without other security, than what their own strength, and their own invention shall furnish them withall. In such condition, there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving, and removing such things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short.

This is a quote from Thomas Hobbes, used in the interesting Chance magazine article having the subtitle of this post. By Robert Cook and Howard Wainer, and called Plotting Evidence to Affect Social Policy: Guns, Murders, Life, Death, and Ignorance in Contemporary America, it continues the line of reasoning pursued by the Centers for Disease Control in the early 1990s, that violence and, in particular, gun-related homicides are an epidemic which needs to be addressed by epidemiological means.