# Banning Dangerous Sports **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 18, 2011, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banning-dangerous-sports/596736 "2011-09-18T19:36:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banning-dangerous-sports/596736/41 "2011-09-22T02:06:45Z")
> [@Una\_Persson](#): > > I’m a fencer, both sport and historical, and I do demonstrations of fencing to groups, including kids groups. The number of parents I meet each time who say “I WOULD NEVER LET MY LITTLE CHEYNAIYA OR JIMBO PLAY WITH DEADLY, DEADLY SWORDS! IT’S DANGEROUS!” is stunning. Then when I tell them that there has never been a fatality in US fencing of anyone under 18, no fatalities in 100 years of _sport_ fencing, and only 11 deaths in all fencing since 1930…they don’t care. And when I tell them high school football had 101 fatalities from 1982-2007, high school soccer 7 fatalities over that same time period, high school baseball 10 fatalities, and even track 20 fatalities…they still don’t care. All they see is “OMFG SWORDS KNIVES TERROR MUSLIMS 9/11 9/11”… > > The average American is at heart an ignoramus of jaw-dropping proportions, and given time, will end up banning everything and anything to “protect their children.” Except the stuff that is actually, you know, _risky_. Like high-school football, as you mention, or like getting in a car. Though I would be interested in seeing some _denominators_ associated with the numbers you give. After all, a hell of a lot more American kids have played high-school baseball, football, soccer, and track than fenced over that period. If you had as few kids in HS baseball as you did in HS fencing, maybe the expected number of HS baseball fatalities over the period would have been closer to 0 than to 1. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banning-dangerous-sports/596736/42 "2011-09-22T03:27:42Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > Though I would be interested in seeing some _denominators_ associated with the numbers you give. After all, a hell of a lot more American kids have played high-school baseball, football, soccer, and track than fenced over that period. If you had as few kids in HS baseball as you did in HS fencing, maybe the expected number of HS baseball fatalities over the period would have been closer to 0 than to 1. I gave the reference. True, many, many more people play football than fence, but the _numerator_ for fencing for 18 and under is “0”. That’s really hard to compete with. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banning-dangerous-sports/596736/43 "2011-09-22T06:15:09Z")
Hell, gimme a sword. I can fix that! ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banning-dangerous-sports/596736/44 "2011-09-22T06:41:11Z")
> [@Borzo](#): > > I don’t think individuals should have the right to inflict their costly mistakes upon the rest of society. That’s one way to look at it. Of course, I don’t see how one can advocate universal health care and then complain when someone inflicts their costly mistakes on society. ---
**Author:** ![Borzo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/43a26b/32.png) [@Borzo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Borzo)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banning-dangerous-sports/596736/45 "2011-09-22T12:51:40Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > That’s one way to look at it. Of course, I don’t see how one can advocate universal health care and then complain when someone inflicts their costly mistakes on society. I support universal healthcare. I also support taxing activities that will end up with society picking up the tab. ---
**Author:** ![Miltonyz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Miltonyz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miltonyz)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banning-dangerous-sports/596736/46 "2011-09-22T13:56:57Z")
> [@](#): > > I support universal healthcare. I also support taxing activities that will end up with society picking up the tab. The problem is humans are very bad at quantifying risk and tend to misplace it. You are suggesting that we increase the cost of “dangerous sports” to their participants so that society does not have to pay the extra costs. But according to this link [Almost 10 Percent of U.S. Medical Costs Tied to Obesity - ABC News](http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Healthday/story?id=8184975&page=1) obesity related health problems compose over 9% of our medical costs. > [@](#): > > In fact, people who are obese spend almost $1,500 more each year on health care – about 41 percent more than an average-weight person. Do you believe that if we have national healthcare obese people should be taxed at a much higher rate? ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Mouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mighty_mouse/32/7776_2.png) [@Mighty\_Mouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Mouse)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banning-dangerous-sports/596736/47 "2011-09-22T14:10:30Z")
> [@Miltonyz](#): > > The problem is humans are very bad at quantifying risk and tend to misplace it. You are suggesting that we increase the cost of “dangerous sports” to their participants so that society does not have to pay the extra costs. But according to this link [Almost 10 Percent of U.S. Medical Costs Tied to Obesity - ABC News](http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Healthday/story?id=8184975&page=1) > > obesity related health problems compose over 9% of our medical costs. > > Do you believe that if we have national healthcare obese people should be taxed at a much higher rate? Yes, but how much sooner do they die, leaving the rest of us with the social security taxes they paid all their lives to spend on ourselves? That is the part people forget about. If you are going to make it all about the money, then make it all about ALL the money, not just health care dollars. You want to tax people for being obese, smoking, etc., then give them a break on the FICA rate, actuarially reflecting the probability that they will be collecting at 90. Or conversely: “You ran 25 miles this week? We are docking you an extra 1% of your wages for FICA. Try not to do that again.” ---
**Author:** ![Borzo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/43a26b/32.png) [@Borzo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Borzo)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banning-dangerous-sports/596736/48 "2011-09-22T14:33:03Z")
> [@Miltonyz](#): > > The problem is humans are very bad at quantifying risk and tend to misplace it. You are suggesting that we increase the cost of “dangerous sports” to their participants so that society does not have to pay the extra costs. But according to this link [Almost 10 Percent of U.S. Medical Costs Tied to Obesity - ABC News](http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Healthday/story?id=8184975&page=1) > > obesity related health problems compose over 9% of our medical costs. > > Do you believe that if we have national healthcare obese people should be taxed at a much higher rate? More taxes should be collected through the food they consume. Unhealthy foods should definitely be taxed more. They should also get tax-breaks for joining (and actually attending) a gym or other fitness activities/programs. ---
**Author:** ![Miltonyz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Miltonyz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miltonyz)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banning-dangerous-sports/596736/49 "2011-09-22T14:50:17Z")
> [@](#): > > More taxes should be collected through the food they consume. Unhealthy foods should definitely be taxed more. They should also get tax-breaks for joining (and actually attending) a gym or other fitness activities/programs. Why tax the food? Plenty of skinny and healthy people consume junk food. With your system we are very quickly going to run into a large confusing set of rules that are going to make the tax code look simple. We are going to have to define and haggle over what activities are considered dangerous and how dangerous with serious lobbying and politicking involved. In your plan we provide tax breaks for exercise, so we need to monitor peoples exercise regime. What if they engage in a dangerous activity that promotes fitness such as rock climbing. Do we write off some of the cost of rock-climbing due to the health benefits? Then we need to decide on what constitutes a unhealthy food and the appropriate taxes for the food. For example do we tax 80/20 hamburger higher then 90/10? ---
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banning-dangerous-sports/596736/50 "2011-09-22T14:52:10Z")
> [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](#): > > That begs the question, is Russian roulette legally banned? I kept thinking someone smarter would chime in. I would say yes but not by name; the winner and organizers would be prosecuted for various forms of murder/manslaughter/assisting suicide based upon the specific jurisdictions. I remember something back when Gary Gilmore was big about a couple guys wanting to have a real pay-per-view-type gunfight something like some old Johnny Cash movie or something. The state (Nevada?) rounded them up and slapped their wrists hard and basically used “conspiracy” as the reasoning. ---
**Author:** ![Borzo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/43a26b/32.png) [@Borzo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Borzo)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banning-dangerous-sports/596736/51 "2011-09-22T15:19:34Z")
> [@Miltonyz](#): > > Why tax the food? Plenty of skinny and healthy people consume junk food. > > With your system we are very quickly going to run into a large confusing set of rules that are going to make the tax code look simple. > > We are going to have to define and haggle over what activities are considered dangerous and how dangerous with serious lobbying and politicking involved. In your plan we provide tax breaks for exercise, so we need to monitor peoples exercise regime. What if they engage in a dangerous activity that promotes fitness such as rock climbing. Do we write off some of the cost of rock-climbing due to the health benefits? Then we need to decide on what constitutes a unhealthy food and the appropriate taxes for the food. For example do we tax 80/20 hamburger higher then 90/10? Insurance companies can do this, so I don’t see why the government can’t. You’re making it seem more complicated than it has to be. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banning-dangerous-sports/596736/52 "2011-09-22T15:45:18Z")
> [@Borzo](#): > > I live in Canada. Why should my tax dollars pay for the medical care of those who participate in extremely risky activities? Congratulations, you’ve just made many people incrementally more opposed to government-run healthcare. ---
**Author:** ![Hbns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hbns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hbns)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banning-dangerous-sports/596736/53 "2011-09-22T16:24:52Z")
> [@Borzo](#): > > I support universal healthcare. I also support taxing activities that will end up with society picking up the tab. You will have to show me the activity that absolutely does not have the potential of “society picking up the tab”. > [@Borzo](#): > > "They should also get tax-breaks for joining (and actually attending) a gym or other fitness activities/programs. This certainly can not be allowed under your plan. Gyms contain exercise equipment and often pools, basketball courts, or racquetball courts. All of these things have risk of coronary events, tendon / ligament damage, and with the pool drowning that could have the potential of society picking up a hefty tab. No tax breaks for joining the gym. In fact, there should be a hefty tax surcharge on that gym membership. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banning-dangerous-sports/596736/54 "2011-09-22T18:42:03Z")
> [@Una\_Persson](#): > > I gave the reference. OK, I see it now. I went with the 27th annual report rather than the 24th, since it was right there in the Google link. Unless I’m missing something, it didn’t give denominators either, which is too bad because it renders it useless in assessing _relative_ risk. > [@](#): > > True, many, many more people play football than fence, but the _numerator_ for fencing for 18 and under is “0”. That’s really hard to compete with. No, actually, it’s not, and that’s my point. Probably not football, but I expect some of the other sports you compare fencing with (e.g. baseball) would have a good chance at arriving at the same numerator as fencing if they had the same denominator. ---
**Author:** ![Borzo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/43a26b/32.png) [@Borzo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Borzo)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banning-dangerous-sports/596736/55 "2011-09-22T19:22:48Z")
> [@Hbns](#): > > You will have to show me the activity that absolutely does not have the potential of “society picking up the tab”. > > This certainly can not be allowed under your plan. Gyms contain exercise equipment and often pools, basketball courts, or racquetball courts. All of these things have risk of coronary events, tendon / ligament damage, and with the pool drowning that could have the potential of society picking up a hefty tab. No tax breaks for joining the gym. In fact, there should be a hefty tax surcharge on that gym membership. 1. Activities can have average net positive or negative outcomes. Those that have an average net negative outcome, should be taxed more. Things like attending school or being employed usually end with positive results (for society). Things like shooting heroin, smoking tobacco, usually end with negatives results. 2) Medical journals are full of studies that show that exercise has a net positive benefit. I take this as fact. Are you claiming that exercise is actually _bad_ for you? Can you please provide some references for that claim? ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banning-dangerous-sports/596736/56 "2011-09-22T21:46:17Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > OK, I see it now. > > I went with the 27th annual report rather than the 24th, since it was right there in the Google link. Unless I’m missing something, it didn’t give denominators either, which is too bad because it renders it useless in assessing _relative_ risk. Participation figures are given for most sports on the front page of the 24th report. Such as: Football - High School - Men - 34,123,701 over 1982-2006 Baseball - High School - Men - 10,438,725 The problem is that it doesn’t rank them in terms of “contact hours” or “contact instances.” And that’s a problem. In football it is not unknown for a player to sit out an entire season on the bench. I personally knew people who did just that. In fencing, however, you cannot sit on the bench - you either fence, or I guess you’re practicing a drill. I’ve never encountered someone who only drilled and never fought. > [@](#): > > No, actually, it’s not, and that’s my point. Yes, actually, it is, and that’s my point. “0” divided by anything except “0” is still “0”, and no amount of GD-esque equivocating is going to change that. I was and am being very literal in my point and yes I understand the difference between the relative sample sizes. Or at least I sort of do - since fencing is rarely a high school varsity sport, and a very large number of fencers are not in the USFA, even just “good” figures on the number participating are hard to find. The last figures I had were about 24,000 in the USFA, with about 4-8 times that number not in the USFA. The estimate I had for under-19’s was about 11,000 in the USFA, so one might assume 4-8 times that number not in. On the low end, we get 55,000 high school fencers participating per year, and over the same 15-year range as above we get 825,000 - a ratio of 2.4%. If high school football had 272 direct and indirect action deaths over that time period, scaling down to 2.4% yields 6.5 deaths, compared to 0. 0 still wins. Baseball will be much lower of course. Baseball had 10 direct and 14 direct deaths, and comparing numbers fencing participation is 7.9%. Scaling those 24 deaths down to 7.9% yields 1.9 deaths, compared to 0. 0 still wins. Obviously there are many sources of error here - the assumption of number of equivalent age fencers being the biggest one. But I’d have to be off by a factor of about 4 before baseball would bankers-round down to 0. It doesn’t matter though when my point is a) there are not an insignificant number of kids fencing, and b) _the numerator is still 0, over a hundred years of the sport, in the United States,_ and c) parents like to overreact, which is d) related directly to the topic of this thread, which is “banning dangerous [implied - also those which _seem_ dangerous] sports.” There are some other sports where “0” is in the numerator using the same report and same time period I used, such as: High School Cross Country - 0 High School Field Hockey - 0 (I’m surprised at this one) High School Swimming - 0 (and this one) High School Tennis - 0 ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banning-dangerous-sports/596736/57 "2011-09-22T21:53:39Z")
> [@obbn](#): > > No we shouldn’t ban them. We all do realize that life is dangerous in itself. We can learn from what has happend and try to take steps to prevent a repeat. But accidents happen, in racing and when walking down the sidewalk. > > As far as the poster that said tax them more? Really? What would that solve? If all the pilots and spectators had paid a hefty tax at the door are you implying that they would still be alive now? Or are you just advocating the re-distribution of wealth as the answer to everything? I don’t go along with the idea that things should be banned whenever something goes wrong either. Many many things are dangerous at some level. Any form of racing has dangers in it. A car, bike, or plane can crash. A baseball can kill someone (and has). Boxers have died. Ski enthusiasts have died. We can not remove ALL risk from EVERYTHING. It is impossible. All we can do is review and hopefully improve the safety through rules, equipment, etc. If we ban everything that might be dangerous, nothing would be allowed. The best we can do is try to use common sense and apply lessons learned. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banning-dangerous-sports/596736/58 "2011-09-22T21:57:21Z")
The one thing I’m pretty sure should be banned as a dangerous activity is marriage. It’s amazing how many spouses kill one another. ---
**Author:** ![Mewl\_Dear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Mewl\_Dear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mewl_Dear)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banning-dangerous-sports/596736/59 "2011-09-22T22:38:27Z")
Can we ban stairs? People fall down them all the time. Plus I hate climbing the ones at work. ---
**Author:** ![Cheshire\_Human](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Cheshire\_Human](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheshire_Human)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2011, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banning-dangerous-sports/596736/60 "2011-09-23T02:42:51Z")
> [@Borzo](#): > > More taxes should be collected through the food they consume. Unhealthy foods should definitely be taxed more. They should also get tax-breaks for joining (and actually attending) a gym or other fitness activities/programs. But then you have the problem of obese people joining gyms for the tax breaks, but you leave out people like me, who are in good shape, but stay that way by regularly wielding a chainsaw clearing brush and stuff on my property, all the time. I have literally come in after some particularly hard work and wolfed down a thousand calories of junk food. Tax that junk food because it might be “fattening” and you’ve taxed me for a perfectly reasonable consumption. I burned a thousand, I needed a thousand, and the junk food was the quickest way to do it, with the least amount of stuff shoved down my gullet, at the time I’m least ABLE to shove calories down my gullet. Tax the junk-food calories and you are (at least in that case) taxing the wisest food consumption, just to try to tax the fatties. You can’t make up rules that will cover what you want, without also negatively affecting things you shouldn’t be touching. Because they touch on people who aren’t fitting your beaurauocratic (fuck, I can’t spell that word) rules. I will accept that sort of “nannying” the instant you demonstrate that you can do it so it doesn’t tax me for **reasonable** behavior. Since you can’t, I reject your entire “what deserves taxation” premise. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banning-dangerous-sports/596736.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/banning-dangerous-sports/596736.md?page=4)