Gun Violence In America (In 6 Uncomfortable Charts)

A recent report, The Annual Review of Public Health, summarizes the basic facts of firearm violence, a large and costly public health problem in the United States for which the mortality rate has remained unchanged for more than a decade. It presents findings for the present in light of recent trends. Risk for firearm violence varies substantially across demographic subsets of the population and between states in patterns that are quite different for suicide and homicide. Suicide is far more common than homicide and its rate is increasing; the homicide rate is decreasing. As with other important health problems, most cases of fatal firearm violence arise from large but low-risk subsets of the population; risk and burden of illness are not distributed symmetrically. Compared with other industrialized nations, the United States has uniquely high mortality rates from firearm violence.

SUMMARY POINTS

1. The overall fatality rate from firearm violence has not changed in more than a decade.

2. Suicide is the most common form of fatal firearm violence (64.0% of deaths in 2012) and is increasing. Homicide is decreasing.

3. Homicide risk is concentrated to a remarkable degree among Black males through much of the life span. Mortality rates from firearm violence are very high and unchanged in this group.

4. Suicide risk is highest among White males beginning in adolescence. They also account for most fatalities from firearm violence and have increasing mortality rates.

5. As compared with other industrialized nations, the United States has low rates of assaultive violence...

...but uniquely high mortality rates from firearm homicide and suicide.

Full report can be found here (PDF)

Comments

[Winston Smith 2009]

Wow, look at the suicide rates for 65 and older whites.

[Dingleberry]

Several reasons for the decrease in homicide rates:

1. 3 strikes laws. Crime is committed by a (relatively) committed few. That dude who got "choked" by the po po had over 30 arrests. Lock up the criminals, you have almost no crime.

2. Medical tech. We can keep almost anything alive now, esp. with the advent of cellphones and quicker EMS response.

Get rid of the crime stats for those feral inner city liberal wonderlands, and the US is actually a cery safe place to live.

[The Carbonator]

Gun violence in the Gun FREE Zones of the inner city Utopias is through the roof.

Gun violence in the rural Gun CULTER Zones is very very low and safe to live in.

The stats show that the Leftist wonderlands always turn into poverty stricken and crime infested shit holes.

Fight for your 2nd Amendment Rights to defend yourself.  Molan Labe.

[didthatreallyhappen]

I was't the least bit uncomfortable with these 'stats'.

truth is, democrats (who commit the majority of crimes) want to take guns from conservatives (who commit a smaller % of crimes).  hmmmm, why would that be?

[rwe2late]

by my fuzzy math,

10 deaths per 100,000

7 of those due to suicide

remaining 3 deaths per 100,000 in a population of 350,000,000

equals ~ 3500

of which an unofficially tallied 750 or more are killed by police

(more than killed by legal gun owners other than police)

 - and of the remaining 2750, many would have been avoided if not

for the counter-productive and fake "war on drugs" (aka Prohibition II)

http://www.killedbypolice.net/kbp2013.html

[noben]

Downloaded the Full Report and was intrigued by Fig. 8-10.  The results were surprising or even unsettling, as it contradicts the Black/Latino meme for crime propensity.

Fig 8: Firearm deaths by Age and Race.  The only group that has higher death rates than Whites are young Black (ages 10-30).  Beyond that age, their rates drop sharply.  By contrast, White deaths rise almost as fast as for Blacks in the 10-30 group.  Beyond 30, White deaths peak higher (in their mid-50s) than even peak-Black deaths (in their foolish youth of mid-20s).  Surprising, even shocking.

Fig 9: Deaths/100k pop over time.  The numbers have been dropping for Blacks and Latinos, but rising for Whites.  In fact, the rates for Whites are by far the highest.  Surprising.

Fig. 10: Homicides/100k pop vs. Suicides/100k pop. by State.  Has some surprising results.  You are more more likely to die by suicide in places like ME, OR, UT, CO, NV, KS, ID, AK, and MT (which smack of being libertarian), than in infamous murder-States like AL, MS and LA.  Things might be bad in Chicago or Detroit, but their State stats don't look too bad (relative to other states).

Fig 11 (missing):  The Deaths caused by US WARS, both to the US Troops and Local People in the combat/war zone.  No mention of the hundreds of thousands or millions of deaths.  And note that the Legislators behind all this are basically... WHITE.

This whole "Crime" and "Violent Crime" thing has been grossly misrepresented by the MSM.  Even here on ZH, you get the constant buzz/drone that it's basically a Black or Latino problem.  These numbers do not support that. 

Clearly the problem of White violent crimes are getting White-washed even here -- where libertarians seem to have difficulty looking at issues among their own ranks, lest it somehow mortaly damage the entire ideology/movement.  If you can handle the Truth.

I, for one, have no issues at looking at myself or my own group for any problems or issues (no matter how unpleasant), as it is the only way to improve and grow.  But perhaps not everyone is emotionally and psychologically as secure in their own skin, and would rather lash out than reflect.  Feel free to agree or junk accordingly.

[falconflight]

The rate of male white deaths, mostly suicide, rises with age because there's no country for white males.

[tlnzz]

"...but uniquely high mortality rates from firearm homicide and suicide."

That chart is a red herring. Number of firearms ownership should be factored in since all of the other Countries have far fewer firearms owned by the people. Someone has an agenda with that chart. Besides that, Firearms are NOT A HEALTH ISSUE any more than traffic deaths are a health issue.