Any death is sad, but much insight and perspective can be gained from reviewing statistics. What do y'all think? Which kills more people in the US, firearms or the Flu? Among people killed by firearms, are more killed as homicides or as suicides? I'll answer these questions in a follow up on this thread.
About 35,000 die from Flu related causes per year in the US (normal year, not a pandemic year, when death rates can quadruple and quintuple).
About 12,000 people die from firearms causes per year in the US (1999 data).
More people die from suicide caused by firearms than by homicide in the US. The ratio is about 6 suicides to 4 homicides. Thus, about 5,000 firearms caused homicides per year.
You are 7 times more likely in the US to be killed by Flu than by a firearm, unless you are deliberatly attempting to take your own life in a suicide.
Some of this information can be found at the following link, which I would assume is a worst case source of information for gun risks.
I wonder how many people are killed by automobiles per year in the US versus firearms homicides?
Guns kill less people than nearly any other means, accidental or intentional.
Aside from War.
__________________
"The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the Presidency........... Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The Republic can survive a Barack Obama, who is, after all, merely a fool. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their president."
Of those "homocides" I wonder how many are gang on gang, type crimes? how many or what percent of gun crimes are just random unarmed people being shot by an intruder etc...?
how many or what percent of gun crimes are just random unarmed people being shot by an intruder etc...?
I would think the percentage here would be fairly low, but it would still be considerably higher than other civilized nations. We need to accept the fact that for an advanced nation we are still quite violent. Eventhough I am a gun owner I have no doubt that the easy availability of guns in this country helps keep our murder rate higher than in other parts of the world. In general it is a whole lot easier killing someone with a gun than it is with a knife, club, strangulation or any other means. The gun advocates would claim that there would be even more murders if people weren't allowed to keep guns for self defense. They may be right, but then the murder percentage would be even higher and our placement among other nations would be even worse. Anyway you look at it we have little to brag about here, eventhough we have a high standard of living in this country in comparison to other places.
As far as I know I have yet to hear of a gun getting up and killing anyone so therefore the gun didnt kill anyone its the person pulling the trigger [:-]
__________________
Theres a place for all Gods creatures , right next to the potatoes and gravy.
ORIGINAL: Steve863
Anyway you look at it we have little to brag about here, eventhough we have a high standard of living in this country in comparison to other places.
Not to take you out of context, I think your point is we are more violent than other nations. It is hard to argue against that. It must be a cultural thing -- other nations's citizens are more civil, are better adapted for living cooperatively with one another than US citizens.
But where I'm going is that if you would listen to the press and the government, we are dieing off left and right from bullets flying all over the place. When 7 times more people die in the US from the flu than from firearm homicides . . . maybe it is worth saying there aren't so many firearms homicides.
I take the trouble to tell my kids to watch out for drunks when they go out in the car on Saturday evenings. It is almost certainly a higher risk -- everywhere -- to be killed by an automobile accident than to be killed in a firearms homacide. We all seem to coexist with automobiles. We climb into our automobiles every day. But guns are looked upon as something extraordinary, beyond the pale.
How many people do you think die from swimming accidents every year? Seems I looked that up once and found that 500 people died annually in the US from swimming accidents. We're not talking about people swept off of piers by a rogue wave, but people engaged in recreational swimming who die.
In a nation of 300,000,000 a smallish number of 5,000 are annually killed by firearms homicides. I wonder how many are killed by erroneously distributed prescription medicine?
An article in the New England Journal of Medicine a while ago reported that almost 100,000 people die every year as a result of doctors' mistakes. I can't cite a reference, but any halfway competent Googler should be able to find it.
Hope veterinarians don't make that many mistakes
__________________
Proud parents of our own "Daddy's Little Girls"
I heard Jesus He drank wine and I bet we'd get along just fine.
Not to take you out of context, I think your point is we are more violent than other nations.Â* It is hard to argue against that.Â* It must be a cultural thing -- other nations's citizens are more civil, are better adapted for living cooperatively with one another than US citizens.
But where I'm going is that if you would listen to the press and the government, we are dieing off left and right from bullets flying all over the place.Â* When 7 times more people die in the US from the flu than from firearm homicides . . . maybe it is worth saying there aren't so many firearms homicides.
I take the trouble to tell my kids to watch out for drunks when they go out in the car on Saturday evenings.Â* It is almost certainly a higher risk -- everywhere -- to be killed by an automobile accident than to be killed in a firearms homacide.Â* We all seem to coexist with automobiles.Â* We climb into our automobiles every day.Â* But guns are looked upon as something extraordinary, beyond the pale.
How many people do you think die from swimming accidents every year?Â* Seems I looked that up once and found that 500 people died annually in the US from swimming accidents.Â* We're not talking about people swept off of piers by a rogue wave, but people engaged in recreational swimming who die.
In a nation of 300,000,000 a smallish number of 5,000 are annually killed by firearms homicides.Â* I wonder how many are killed by erroneously distributed prescription medicine?
It can't be argued what you say about fatalities by swimming accidents, car accidents, etc in comparison to gun related fatalities, but I think in many peoples minds SOME gun fatalities could have been prevented with stricter gun regulation. This of course can and is argued also, but in my opinion I DO think that the easy availability of guns doesn't help in our overall poor standing in this area in comparison to other nations. As I said before, I think a person would find it quite a bit easier to commit a murder using a firearm than if they had to strangle or bludgeon someone with a knife. Eventhough I don't want guns to be banned, I DO think our murder rate would go down considerably if we were not allowed to own them.
Gun death statistics
Hope veterinarians don't make that many mistakes
