this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2024
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How obtuse is this guy. Throughout history being a political official of any variety has always carried an inherent danger. Be the threats external or domestic, chiefs, kings, emperors, presidents, prime ministers, legislators, governors, lords, etc. have all faced existential threat just for the fact that they are in a position of power. Just ask Julius Caesar, or the French bourgeoisie for their take on positions of power being safe. The illusion of safety is just an artifact of the fact that overall the world has been becoming safer over the last 200 years or so. Even still, 7/46 current or past presidents of the US have been killed or injured by gunmen since the inception of the office. That is 15% of all US presidents. I'd call that a pretty dangerous occupation. The best comparison I have is workplace fatalities. There have been 4/46 presidents assassinated in office. That is ~8.6%. The highest mortality job that is reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics is a roofer, with ~57.5/100,000 or 0.0575%.
Minor abuses of statistics aside, being the POTUS is, and always has been, a dangerous occupation.
You also need to consider someone is president for only 8 years maximum, meaning you can't compare directly with other job mortality statistics, unless you filter for time in position. That means it's even more dangerous to be president than the above statistics might seem.
Very true. Though the average career length of a roofer is relatively short due to the strain on the body. So they are not completely incomparable. Also, the statistics from BLS are fatalities per 100,000 per year, so the stats are still not directly compatible as the units are not normalized against each other. I would need the statistical average over the last 250 years to normalize properly, but I did call myself out for abusing statistics in my post. It is good enough for conversational comparison, and more than good enough for shutting down some trash victim complex Magasshole like this guy.