Michael Ramirez pithily sums up all the deliberate or accidental hazards in American life that exceed the risks of rifle (“automatic” or otherwise) violence:

As you can see, cars are infinitely more deadly to Americans than are the rifles that are getting Progressives so excited. Those who wish to control guns think they’ve come up with the perfect counterargument to people who point out that we should do something about cars before we do something about guns:

The above poster is what happens after two generations of public school civics classes that focus obsessively on PC rights, while ignoring incidentals such as the Constitution.  Unlike guns, cars are not protected by the Constitution nor do they fall within the federal government’s purview.  The right to drive is purely a state’s rights issue, and the 10th Amendment therefore gives the individual states a fair amount of leeway.  To the extent cars travel on roads that fall within the Interstate Commerce clause, the federal government has some say too (e.g., speed limits), but cars are no more constitutionally protected than is swimming or bike riding.

Guns, however, are so important that they have their own Amendment.  Think about that for a minute.  With one other exception — which happens to be related to an armed citizenry — all of the other Amendments that make up the Bill of Rights are compound amendments, focusing on myriad issues that fall under a single subject line.  For example, free speech, a free press, and religion that is not subject to government interference, although all staggeringly important, are jumbled together in the 1st Amendment.  The Fifth Amendment has a laundry list of protections a citizen has when the state prosecutes him.

But there are two substantive amendments, both of which involve an individual’s rights against a state’s standing army, that are short and sweet:

Amendment II

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Amendment III

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

To be honest, I don’t see anything about cars anywhere in the Bill of Rights or, indeed, in any other section of the Constitution.

Here’s the really embarrassing thing about that poster likening driver control to gun control — I got it off the Facebook wall of a lawyer.  Tsk, tsk, tsk.