Tuesday, October 24, 2017

Guns and Roses?



A bind spot for guns and the NHS

I quite like reading Niall Ferguson's columns in the Sunday Times. He almost always has a different take on current events. (http://www.niallferguson.com/)

Writing with the sub-title: To US eyes, putting up with low cancer survival rates is the real madness, he makes an interesting comparison between the preoccupation with gun rights in the US and the equally – in his eyes – daft UK religious-like zeal for anything with NHS printed on it.

He explains that when he arrived back in the UK just after the Las Vegas shooting he
encountered “unanimity”, right across the political spectrum. Americans are crazy he was repeatedly told. How can you live in a country where such things are possible?

He explains that Americans do have a gun problem, but not the one most people think it is.

More Americans have died from guns in their own country since 1968 than have perished in all the nation's wars (including the Civil War). Between 2011 and 2014 guns were linked to 34 000 deaths a year in the US. He says that since 1982 there have been 91 mass shootings in which 760 people have died. Most troubling is the trend for more frequent massacres and higher death tolls.

But, the problem is not as many Britons seem to imagine that America is full of gun-toting-trigger-happy maniacs. The US is number one for firearms per capita with 88.8 guns per 100 people, but ¾ of Americans don't own a gun and just 3% own half the guns. (This is where I started to waver – this seems an unlikely and spurious stat – then again as Mark Twain said: there's lies, damn lies and statistics ( sometimes colloquially used to doubt statistics used to prove an opponent's point. The term was popularised in United States by Mark Twain (among others), who attributed it to the British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."). In any event this seems very unlikely. He concludes: the Las Vegas shooter was one of a very small proportion of Americans who takes advantage of flaws in US laws to amass large numbers of guns. (Well, gosh that's a relief, for a minute there I thought we had a problem!)

Ferguson follows with three paragraphs trying to explain the Second Amendment rights to the UK audience. He almost succeeds. He reminds readers of the reference to “a well regulated militia”. He explains how the Supreme Court (US v Miller 1939) ruled that the second amendment did not protect weapons that did not have “ a reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia”. That is plainly the correct reading of the text. (Ferguson's opinion not necessarily mine.) He goes on to explain
how District of Columbia v Heller 2008 asserts that the individual's right to possess and carry firearms is protected the the Second Amendment. That is where we are today.

He reiterates his view that the Second Amendment was only intended to ensure an adequately armed citizen militia for reasons of national defence. (By what process he is able to peer into the minds of the Founding Fathers through a 230 year old lens, he does not say). He asserts that most people who accumulate assault rifles are like stamp collectors; they just like to look at them. (interesting simile – not sure I agree – I would have thought that like complete losers would be better!) On firmer ground, he reminds us that there have been federal bans on some types of weapons – assault rifles for example in 1994 that was allowed to expire in 2004.

Rhetorically, he asks if anything will change after Las Vegas. He thinks bump stocks may be banned. Otherwise it's business as usual.

According to the WHO stats for 2015, the American rate of mortality for interpersonal violence is four times higher than the British. Americans are also between two and three times more likely to die from drug abuse, poisoning or intentional injury. The American way of death, he says, is violent. This is another way of saying the US is more like Latin America than Europe.

Niall goes for balance when he throws the British idiosyncrasies about death into the mix. In 2015 Britons were five times more likely to die of lung cancer than Americans - three times more likely from oesophageal cancer, twice as likely to expire from stomach cancer and almost twice as likely from prostate or bladder cancer.

According to a 2012 study cancer patients in the US lived longer than in the EU and these survival rates were not due to more aggressive screening of US patients, but to the higher expenditure that characterises the American system. In other words, rapid diagnosis may play a part, but not that much. Or, Money Talks and Bullshit Walks!

His personal experience serves to underline the point he is making. He had a friend who was told, after a breast cancer diagnosis, to go ahead and take a summer vacation as there was a queue for treatment anyway. His American friends say he must be crazy to live in such a country!

The peroration: “We do indeed live in a small world. And yet we all – Americans and Britons alike – still struggle to see ourselves as others see us.”

Ferguson get paid to write good stuff.

But, he over-eggs the pudding.

His analysis of US Second Amendment rights makes no mention of how the guarantees contained in the Constitution are nearly as much a religion in the US as support for the NHS is in the UK. He forgets to mention that the US healthcare system costs about seven times more than that of the UK and Europe. (Not surprising the outcomes are better! Solution: spend more UK tax payers money on the NHS – no governments have so far been willing to do this – even though every poll concludes that the voters would support increasing taxes to pay for better healthcare.)


Tuesday, October 17, 2017

One Third of the Way



Chiefs' season begins with a roar and then get ambushed

With six games gone (one third of the season) the Chiefs sit proudly on top of the AFC West with two game leads over the faltering Denver Broncos and Oakland Raiders. Excellent! I have £50 deposited with the bookies and could have got 12-1 on the Chiefs to win the Super Bowl just a few weeks ago. Before the Pittsburgh loss you'd be lucky to get 8-1.

The football gods have been truly good to the UK fans with our team featuring on TV almost every week. This has been a blessing overall , though at times a trial. Staying up very late to see the team munch the Patriots in week one was mesmerising. 42-27 makes for a very pleasant evening indeed! Week Two - we played in the late game and came out on top 27-20 over the Eagles. The late game out on the coast saw the streak continue with a 24-10 defeat of the Chargers in week three. Week Four – the Redskins were sent packing 29-20. Could things get better? Yes, they could by smashing the Texans away 42-34 in week five.

It could not last. The Steelers came to Arrowhead and beat us. And, beat us badly!

Everyone agrees that in the modern NFL the chances of repeating an undefeated season are quite remote. Nevertheless, as I sat down to watch the Steelers game I was quite optimistic. Remember, the Chiefs lost a play-off game at Arrowhead to the Steelers at the end of last season. The “no-touch-down game” as I call it was bad – or perhaps even worse than bad! The Pittsburgh team just ran over the home team all night. Surely they could not do it again?

They did almost exactly the same thing. In particular: Le'Veon Bell rushed for a season-high 179 yards, and the Steelers defense put on a stellar performance, as Pittsburgh earned a 19-13 victory over the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday. The Chiefs, who entered Week 6 at 5-0, were the NFL's lone remaining unbeaten team.

Wait a minute, the same thing happened in the play-offs! I was convinced that Andy Reid would not let that happened again! Big Ben might beat us with his arm – but no way would Bell run over us again!

Big Ben had a quiet game. He did give up an interception. But, Bell ran over, around and through the Chiefs again!

I was not shocked to lose but I was amazed that they lost again to exactly the same game plan and the same running back.

Commentators were quick to point out that every team has an off day and every team has a bad game. Yes.

But twice? In exactly the same manner? What were the coaches thinking about?

Injuries hurt the offensive line. Kareem Hunt was ineffective on the ground. (He did catch some passes in the flat for good gains). Alex Smith, the top-rated QB in the league so far had some drops and some poor throws. The Steelers actually won a freak play when the ball managed to sneak through Phillip Gaines hands and the result was a very fortuitous touch down. Still, the Chiefs did not manage a first down in the first half. And the third quarter was just about the same. Only when it was too late did they start to rally.

Where do we go from here?

The O-line may get some help with Mitch Morse set to return on Thursday against the 2-4 Raiders. Do they have anyone who can do more at safety than Daniel Sorensen? (If not they better find someone fast as the Pitt juggernaut ran principally at Eric Berry's replacement) Can they find a wide receiver to replace Chris Conley? (Jehu
Chesson made a nice special teams play on Sunday – can he step up? Will he get the chance?) Will the Chiefs run-stoppers actually stop the run?

Of course we would all like to think this was a one-off, but I'm not convinced. The Chiefs may actually be the worst 5-1 team in football ever. Their five wins were actually very luck – barring the Patriots game.

The good news is both the Broncos and the Raiders lost last week as well.

We await the outcome of the Thursday night game at the Raiders. (On TV again!)

Happy days.