“Experience teaches only the teachable” ― Aldous Huxley
Deafness in the US — a profile
Like most medical conditions, deafness is more prevalent in some demographics than others. If you are an old, ill-educated, white male smoker — with diabetes and high blood pressure — working a noisy job, you are the most likely to go deaf. This profile is not particularly surprising — except perhaps the part about whites being more likely to suffer hearing loss than minorities.
Medical researchers have combed the data and developed a picture of who is deaf and why they lost some or all of their hearing.
(Note: Much of the data in this essay came from a Washington Post article. If you wish to read it, click HERE, the paywall should be down.)
Who goes deaf:
Why they go deaf:
What these charts do not show is that you are also more likely to go deaf if you are a Republican. This correlation makes sense as Republicans are more likely to be white, male, ill-educated, in poor health, and work blue-collar jobs. But the astute reader will have noticed one factor in the charts I have not yet mentioned — gun ownership.
Medical side effects of the Second Amendment
People who own guns, especially those who like to shoot a lot, are more likely to go deaf than people who do not own guns or shoot recreationally. These folk are not a niche demographic. As WaPo reports:
“In 2011 and 2012, 13 percent of U.S. adults were heavy firearms users, meaning they’d fired more than 1,000 rounds, and nearly half said they were exposed to gun noise for their hobby or job.”
And those shooters are more likely to be Republican. It did not use to be that way. The GOP targeted gun owners and reaped the electoral rewards.
Again, it is not surprising that people who hold a tool that makes a lot of noise a mere arm’s length away (handguns), or close to their ears (long guns), have hearing problems. On average, a pistol, a rifle, or a shotgun creates around 150 decibels (dB) of noise. In comparison, federal regulations limit a train horn to 110 dB.
According to Dr. William Clark, Ph.D. senior research scientist in charge of the Noise Laboratory at the Central Institute for the Deaf in St. Louis, “the damage caused by one shot from a .357 magnum pistol, which can expose a shooter to 165 dB for 2msec, is equivalent to over 40 hours in a noisy workplace.”
I suspect that most shooting ranges require, or at least strongly suggest, hearing protection. But not all people follow the rules, or they have substandard equipment. As for hunters, no matter how well-intentioned, they may have different priorities.
I will let Sam Lungren explain. In a post on MeatEater (a hunting site) he wrote:
“If ever there was an epidemic in the hunting community, it’d be hearing loss. When target practice is a way of life, it’s easy to become blasé about earmuffs. When that buck is about to get over the ridge, jamming in ear plugs is the last of our worries. For those reasons, most of us will go through the rest of our lives unable to hear pheasants cackle and elk bugle as well as we should.”
The methodology
Statisticians trying to tease out the relationship between gun ownership and deafness face a problem. Thanks to the interference run by pro-gun groups like the NRA and their government lackeys, it is hard to track gun ownership at a granular level. Fortunately, at least for the researchers if not the victims, there is one widely published statistic that closely tracks gun ownership rates — gun suicide rates.
According to Michael Siegel, a Tufts University public health specialist who is an expert on factors driving gun deaths and the author of many published analyses,
“The correlation between firearm suicide and hearing loss may be explained by the fact that firearm suicide is a proxy for rates of firearm ownership, and using firearms exposes gun owners to very high noise levels.”
The relationship is stark if you map deafness rates and compare them to gun suicide rates.
Note: While I am not in favor of guns littering the landscape, I am not opposed to hunting — as long as grocery stores sell meat. It is inconsistent to be opposed to people shooting their own food while local supermarkets stock the flesh of animals tortured to death and killed young. In fact, without hunters, deer populations would have to be culled by other means as their exploding population would quickly crowd out other animals. But enough of that.
However, those people who think a gun is a sign of manhood or womanhood and want to feel like a dollar-store Rambo blasting away at gun ranges, be advised that you will eventually have to blast the volume to watch Fox News.
Warned that they will go deaf, the MAGAs will not listen
Of course, most of the MAGAs will not pay attention to the evidence, as they think facts are a liberal plot. That people with years of medical training are lying to deny them their rights. And anything painting gun ownership in a negative light is a socialist plot. Unfortunately, while in some cases deafness is treatable with cochlear implants and people can buy hearing aids, stupidity is bone-deep and incurable.
I have relatives who suffer from this very thing due to their love of the almighty gun, sad, thank you Pitt