The ACTUAL facts about gun violence in America

There are about 30,000 gun related deaths per year by firearms, this number is not disputed. (1)

U.S. population 328 million as of January 2018. (2)

Do the math: 0.00915% of the population dies from gun related actions each year.

Statistically speaking, this is insignificant. It's not even a rounding error.

What is not insignificant, however, is a breakdown of those 30,000 deaths:

• 22,938 (76%) are by suicide which can't be prevented by gun laws (3)

• 987 (3%) are by law enforcement, thus not relevant to Gun Control discussion. (4)

• 489 (2%) are accidental (5)

So no, "gun violence" isn't 30,000 annually, but rather 5,577... 0.0017% of the population.

Still too many? Let's look at location:

298 (5%) - St Louis, MO (6)

327 (6%) - Detroit, MI (6)

328 (6%) - Baltimore, MD (6)

764 (14%) - Chicago, IL (6)

That's over 30% of all gun crime. In just 4 cities.

This leaves 3,856 for for everywhere else in America... about 77 deaths per state. Obviously some States have higher rates than others

Yes, 5,577 is absolutely horrific, but let's think for a minute...

But what about other deaths each year?

70,000+ die from a drug overdose (7)

49,000 people die per year from the flu (8)

37,000 people die per year in traffic fatalities (9)

Now it gets interesting:

250,000+ people die each year from preventable medical errors. (10) You are safer in Chicago than when you are in a hospital!

610,000 people die per year from heart disease (11) Even a 10% decrease in cardiac deaths would save about twice the number of lives annually of all gun-related deaths (including suicide, law enforcement, etc.).

A 10% reduction in medical errors would be 66% of the total gun deaths or 4 times the number of criminal homicides.

Simple, easily preventable, 10% reductions!

We don't have a gun problem... We have a political agenda and media sensationalism problem.

——sources——

https://www.cdc.gov/...nvsr/nvsr64/nvsr64_02.pdf

https://everytownresearch.org/firearm-suicide/

https://www.cdc.gov/...es/2015_ed_web_tables.pdf

https://www.washingtonpost.com/...gs-2017/?tid=a_inl_manual

https://www.latimes.com/...eaths-20180101-story.html

https://247wallst.com/...th-the-most-gun-violence/ (stats halved as reported statistics cover 2 years, single year statistics not found)

https://www.drugabuse.gov/...tics/overdose-death-rates

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/faq.htm

https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/...ic/ViewPublication/812603

https://www.google.com/...-of-death-in-america.html

https://www.cdc.gov/heartdisease/facts.htm

Edit: this is copy and paste from my comment below that I supplement this data even further:

There’s two things his post leaves out from the 5,577 killed from gun violence.

80% of those are gang related

Second, he mentions justified homicide by police officer but not citizens.

Law enforcement reported 665 justifiable homicides in 2010. Of those, law enforcement officers justifiably killed 387 felons, and private citizens justifiably killed 278 people during the commission of a crime.

https://ucr.fbi.gov/...panded/expandhomicidemain

Between 2007 and 2017, citizens averaged 329 justified homicides.

https://www.statista.com/...able-homicides-in-the-us/

That means if you are not in a gang (80% of 5,577 = 1,115) or planning on commiting a crime against a person (1,115 - 329) there is only a 0.00000238906 (786/329,000,000) percent chance of being killed by a firearm.

0.00000238906

What is not insignificant, however, is a breakdown of those 30,000 deaths:

• 22,938 (76%) are by suicide which can't be prevented by gun laws (3)

• 987 (3%) are by law enforcement, thus not relevant to Gun Control discussion. (4)

• 489 (2%) are accidental (5)

So no, "gun violence" isn't 30,000 annually, but rather 5,577... 0.0017% of the population.

By what weird logic are gun related suicides not directly tied to the abundance of firearms?

Same thing with law enforcement, how often would they have to use lethal force if firearms were not as abundant?

Do I actually have to say anything about the accidental deaths lol? It goes without saying that they are almost directly proportional to the number of firearms in circulation.

That said its still a low number. So why are you attacking the gaming industry?

Someone has turned Marshal into a puppet

By what weird logic are gun related suicides not directly tied to the abundance of firearms?

Same thing with law enforcement, how often would they have to use lethal force if firearms were not as abundant?

Do I actually have to say anything about the accidental deaths lol? It goes without saying that they are almost directly proportional to the number of firearms in circulation.

That said its still a low number. So why are you attacking the gaming industry?

You can jump off a bridge or building, cut your wrists deep enough, drop a connected toaster in the bathtub, swallow certain pills or poison, you really don't need access to a gun to kill yourself, maybe that's why it isn't tied? Dunno.

People getting drunk/high and getting behind the wheel are more deadly than the 300+ million guns in the US, and yet we don't give it the same scrutiny.

Guns don't kill people, people kill people, you don't need a firearm to cause mayhem.

I'm pretty sure you need a license to drive a car. If you are mentally ill, they typically medically examine you to see if you are fit to drive, and make you take a driving assessment.

Drunk driving is still a huge problem, but drivers licensing absolutely is given more scrutiny than gun ownership.

Yeah and I'm sure crazy people will still be able to acquire guns, but I'm just saying we do actually at least have rules governing the license to drive. It's far more regulated than guns.

And yet people that shouldn't still get behind the wheel, lots of them.

We have rules governing both Derrick. Luckily you can get denied buying and owning a gun due to already strict back ground checks. Only thing denying you from a car is the loan process.