"I can't believe you just shot me"

[suthdj]

In 2011 32+k died from guns, 851 were accidental, I just did a research paper on it for my Soci class on gun control those numbers come from I believe the CDC I will post a link later to report.

edit to add link
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr61/nvsr61_06.pdf

[bauer]

In 2011 32+k died from guns, 851 were accidental, I just did a research paper on it for my Soci class on gun control those numbers come from I believe the CDC I will post a link later to report.

edit to add link
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr61/nvsr61_06.pdf

I had to write a similar paper a while back for a Soci class. I'll have to see if I can find the paper.

There were roughly 32400 fatalities resulting from car accidents in 2011, the same year as your gun related death statistics. With a fewer number of cars being owned than guns according to K.Mooneyham's numbers and the same number of deaths what gives here? Why is this information so hard to see and interpret from the anti 's point of view? Oh yeah these numbers don't help push their agenda.

[SlowDave]

As such, gun-related injuries accounted for 6,570 deaths of children and young people (ages 1 to 24) in 2010, according to the New England Journal of Medicine. When considering death by gun violence in the broader spectrum, NEJM cites, "Gun injuries cause twice as many deaths as cancer, five times as many as heart disease, and 15 times as many as infections."

This is a wonderfully vague, misleading couple of sentences. So, gun-related injuries account for 6,570 deaths of people ages 1 to 24 in 2010. Definitely includes all the gun-related deaths that occur between drug dealers etc, the large majority of whom are under 25.

But my favorite is the 2nd sentence. When they say "When considering death by gun violence in the broader spectrum," does that mean across all age levels? What is the broader spectrum? If they mean "all ages," why not just say "all ages"? And they only specify that they are considering the gun violence side of the equation "in the broader spectrum, so they could even technically stretch this to there are 5 times as many gun deaths among all age groups, as there are deaths from heart disease in the age 1-24 age group. If they were taken to court, I'd bet they'd get away with that one.

But if we take it at face value, the 2nd sentence should mean that across all age groups, there are twice as many firearm-related deaths as cancer, and so on. However, cancer.org ref indicates that they were projecting 571,950 cancer deaths in the US in 2011. All the numbers I've seen put the firearm fatalities at around 30k/year, with about 2/3 of those from suicides. That gives the ratio at nearly 20 cancer deaths per firearm death. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) lists (see p.7) the top 10 causes of death, and #1 is heart disease, #2 is cancer, while the entire category of "accidents" (surely dominated by vehicle crashes) comes in at #5 with suicide at #10. So, even if every accident and every suicide were with a gun, they still wouldn't come up to the numbers Huff Post is quoting. How can they just claim total bull like that. Anyone? Am I mis-interpreting something?

Edit to note that the former posters had ref'd a more updated version of the CDC report I ref'd, so probably go there. Just there's doesn't give the parenthetical on cause #2 (malignant neoplasms) explaining that that is cancer.

[Jumping Frog]

According the John Lott's published analysis of CDC reports, when one excludes the 16-24 group of thugs, gangbangers, and drug dealers it present a much different picture, because I would not consider them to be "children". When one looks at a group that all of us would consider to be "children", there are more children that drown in a five gallon bucket than die of a gunshot in the 0-12 age group.

[baldeagle]

The leading cause of death among children 1-14 is accidents. 54% of those are car accidents. The second leading cause of death among children 4-14 is cancer. Suicide is 4th and homicide is 5th. Among young adults from 15-24, accidents are also the leading cause of death, but suicide is 2nd, homicide is 3rd and cancer is 4th.