Long-time readers won’t be surprised by this, but here’s an infographic I encountered recently.

It’s 12 years old, but (excepting the COVID spike and continued reduction in violent crime) it’s reasonably accurate for this decade…at the very least we can still draw accurate conclusions about where to put our safety efforts.

Here’s some things you might notice after giving it a good, long look.

90% of the deaths here are from disease
Of the 10% remaining, less than half are from crime

If you dig down you can find other points of data that are at the very least interesting, but those two are the big ones from me.

This tells me that most of us — focusing on crime prevention and self-defense against assault — are putting our energies in the wrong place. It accounts for less than 5% of deaths.

Meanwhile, accidents cause more than twice that many deaths, and transport accidents (car crashes) are of equal importance. Bottom line: new tires are at least as important as a new gun. Working on our balance and falling skills are far more important than learning a knife disarm or joint lock.

Going one step further out from assault and murder, we underscore the lesson of Zombieland. Rule One is CARDIO.

Good cardiovascular conditioning isn’t a guarantee of good health, but it does reduce our susceptibility to about half of the death causes in the overwhelming 90% of illness-related mortality.

As somebody who used to say “I got my black belt so I don’t have to run”, that’s bad news for me, too. But facts are facts.

So…I dare you to get some cardio in today. Whether that’s a 10-minute walk or your third ultramarathon. Do more today than you did yesterday, and more tomorrow than you did today. Model it for our kids, and live it so we can properly spoil our grandbabies.