American exceptionalism kills
It killed a lot of people from COVID.
It kills a lot of people from guns.
Oh and we are kinda the world leader in this too:
They Survived Mass Shootings. Years Later, The Bullets Are Still Trying to Kill Them
May 31 2019
https://time.com/longform/gun-violence-survivors-lead-poisoning/
Like hundreds and possibly thousands of shooting survivors across the country, Goddard(Va. Tech survivor), a 33-year-old father of two, is suffering a lesser-known and often unrecognized side effect of gun violence: lead poisoning. When he was shot in his French class that spring day, one bullet pierced his right shoulder cleanly, but three others shattered when they hit his hips and left knee. Because the fragments did not pose life-threatening risks, trauma surgeons left them in his body—a common and widely accepted practice in emergency rooms throughout the United States. Now, with his blood lead levels seven times higher than what is considered safe, Goddard faces long-term health risks, including neurological problems, kidney dysfunction and reproductive issues.
The metal’s toxicity is well-documented, but only wildlife have so far benefitted from efforts to outlaw its use in bullets, and even those results have been limited. California on July 1 will become the first state to ban lead hunting bullets, the culmination of a yearslong battle that pitted environmentalists against the National Rifle Association and other gun-rights groups.
With roughly 80,500 nonfatal gunshot injuries annually, a vast number of Americans every year experience a version of Goddard’s worst day, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Tens of thousands more don’t live through their ordeal. In 2017, the most recent year with available data on mortality, more people in the U.S.—nearly 40,000—died from firearm injuries than in any other year since at least 1968, when the government first started keeping track electronically. It was the third consecutive year that the U.S. saw a rise in the rate of gun deaths. “Doctors think we solved the lead problem because we took lead out of paint and we took lead out of gas,” Goddard says. “But we still have these very acute, very severe problems within a big population of the country—a population that’s already been victimized in a significant way.”
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