Gun Deaths Are Now Outpacing Traffic Deaths In 21 States, And Counting

[MariaThinks]

More people died from guns than from motor vehicle accidents in 21 states in 2014, according to a report released this week.

The Violence Policy Center, a research group that advocates for gun safety legislation, has found in past reports that traffic fatalities have been declining due to what the organization calls "effective regulation," such as safety prevention initiatives, improved vehicle and highway design, and efforts from the government and advocacy groups. Firearm-related deaths, meanwhile, have only climbed.

The VPC analyzed the latest available data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which tallies all gun deaths, including suicides and accidents, and all fatalities in car crashes. As the number of people who die in car crashes goes down, the organization says, the number of people who die from guns is going up needlessly.

"Firearms are the only consumer product the federal government does not regulate for health and safety," VPC Legislative Director Kristen Rand said in a press release. "Meanwhile, science-based regulations have dramatically reduced deaths from motor vehicles in recent decades. It’s well past time that we regulate firearms for health and safety just like all other consumer products."

When VPC first compared firearm and traffic deaths in 2009, gun deaths exceeded fatal motor vehicle accidents in only 10 states. That number more than doubled in just six years.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/guns-deaths-car-deaths_56991b31e4b0ce4964242c47

[Thinkingabout]

1. Yes lots of safety features such as better seat belts, air bags, better brakes

And many more. This is an industry though not perfect but has improved. Gun violence is growing.

[Duckhunter935]

2. it is, that's news

It has been on the decline for the last 20 years according to the FBI

[NickB79]

4. It's fairly simple: cars have become extremely safe, while suicides have gone up dramatically

The introduction of airbags, increased rigid body frames, electronic stability control, and other safety measures, while at the same time cracking down on drunk driving, has paid off big time.

Gun homicides have fallen to their lowest levels per capita since the late 1960's: http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/08/us/study-gun-homicide/

The increase in gun deaths the VPC claims comes almost entirely from a rising suicide rate, not a rising murder rate: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/03/health/suicide-rate-rises-sharply-in-us.html

[leftyladyfrommo]

5. A gun death is a gun death.

You can't just thow out the suicides and say they don't count.

[1939]

8. No

but the problems causing the suicides and the problems causing the homicides are totally different and need to be addresses separately.

[leftyladyfrommo]

9. And they need to add in the 75,000

Last edited Sun Jan 17, 2016, 02:41 PM - Edit history (1)

Gunshot injuries a year that aren't fatal to get a truer picture of just how devastating gunshot incidents are in this country.

This is like apples and oranges. Cars are not primarily weapons. We use them mainly for getting around not for killing each other.

And there are approximately 256 million cars on the road in the US. It's amazing that we don't have way more fatalities.

[Lizzie Poppet]

13. "...256 million cars on the road in the US. It's amazing that we don't have way more fatalities."

320 million firearms in civilian hands in the US. It's amazing we don't have way more fatalities.

I'm truly not trying to be a smartass here. It's interesting to note that neither tool is actually misused all that much (on a percentage basis). The large majority of owners of each use them responsibly.

[NutmegYankee]

32. 2.35 million injuries from cars every year.

Over $200 Billion every year in medical costs.

[Eleanors38]

10. "Throw out the suicides:" Does that mean throwing out other means of suicide?

Last edited Sun Jan 17, 2016, 07:27 PM - Edit history (1)

[Lizzie Poppet]

12. Not in terms of how best to address them, they aren't.

Homicides and suicides have largely different causal factors. Very different, in most cases. That makes differentiating between them critical in any discussion of what to do about them. It's not like they're of unequal import, it's only that they require very different approaches.

[beevul]

25. And yet when you lump gun suicides and gun homicides into one number...

You can't just thow out the suicides and say they don't count.

And yet when you lump gun suicides and gun homicides into one number, essentially ignoring that they are suicides, that's precisely what you're doing. You're disregarding the fundamental differences of WHY it happens, in essence, saying the difference doesn't matter.

And that's a major disservice to those who have issues leading to suicides of ANY kind.

[1939]

6. The interstate system

Before the completion of the interstates, there was a lot of long distance, high-speed travel on two lane and four lane undivided highways with frequent cross roads and driveways. A lot of those collisions and deaths have gone away.

[deathrind]

7. Very well said.

"Meanwhile, science-based regulations have dramatically reduced deaths from motor vehicles in recent decades. It’s well past time that we regulate firearms for health and safety just like all other consumer products."

A statement filled with common sense. Yet there are still those who will wave the 2nd amendment about as justification for the impotence on this issue and say things like "guns don't kill, people kill people" as if that is a reasoned statement.

[Initech]

11. Hooray guns!!

[Blue_In_AK]

14. I'm sure there are way more guns than cars in Alaska.

We only have about nine highways, after all.

[restorefreedom]

15. over 60% of gun deaths are suicides

important to keep in mind imo

[Katashi_itto]

20. Gosh that makes all the difference

[restorefreedom]

22. i didn't say it was good.

but for people intent on killing themselves, they will find a way. as sad as it is though, it doesn't pose a societal risk like killing their neighbor, or their ex wife, or going on a shooting spree. it does point to the need to focus on mental health, both on its own and as a part of sensible gun control.

[Lizzie Poppet]

24. It makes an enormous difference in how you address the problem.

Surely that's obvious...?

[Skittles]

29. see, they don't count, Katashi_itto

they are not, you know, "REAL" gun deaths

[Skittles]

28. WHY do suicides not count ??

[restorefreedom]

33. i didn't say they don't count

but they would seem to be in a different public risk category than murder. trying to look at it from a public health risk perspective

the more we know about these deaths, the better to try and prevent them.

[Skittles]

35. tell that to the families of murder / suicides

the instant availability of a gun is catastrophic

[restorefreedom]

37. i never said it wasn't

but the reality is, in this country we will never completely get rid of guns. we can try and cut back and do lots of background checks, but we also have to understand what goes wrong when people use guns to kill people, whether through suicide, accident, or homicide.

[Skittles]

38. ALL gun stats should count

ALL OF THEM

[restorefreedom]

39. they all DO count

but if we don't break them down and understand what the hell is going on, we can't fix anything. guns are never going to go away, so we need to see what the patterns are and try and stop them. along with as much restriction as we can get through legally.

i am on your side, k?

[Skittles]

40. you sound like the NRA

it's not the guns! we need to STUDY why America has so many gun deaths - because it cannot POSSIBLY be the sickening GUN CULTURE

ugh, over and out

[restorefreedom]

41. i guess you haven't read most of my comments on guns

have a nice evening

[NickB79]

44. Most gun control laws have little bearing on suicides committed with guns

Assault weapon bans, background checks, magazine limits, armor-piercing ammo bans, these are all laws written to address homicides where one person murders another using a firearm.

Applied as an attempt to prevent the 22,000 suicides by gunshot each year, though, and these laws fail miserably. All you need to kill yourself is the most basic of firearms and one round of ammunition. A 100-yr old, $100 single-shot shotgun that virtually no gun laws significantly restrict or ban would suffice.

Even those who might fail a background check could simply buy a black powder gun (which is exempt from background checks):

If our ultimate goal is to actually REDUCE deaths in this country, and not to simply punish legal gun owners, you MUST separate suicides from homicides or you can't create meaningful solutions to the problem at hand.

[Rex]

16. Well you know the drill, they were responsible car owners until they were not.

It is a shame the gun controllers in the NRA won't allow Congress to follow the peoples will.

[malaise]

17. Well we have regulations on the road

but don't tell the NRA and the humpers

[leftyladyfrommo]

18. Think of all the regulations when you drive.

Not just the license for you and the car. But all the stop signs and lights and speed limits. It's totally regulated all the time you are behind the wheel. Driving would be chaos without all the rules of the road.

Thete might be 300 million guns but most of those aren't being used everyour day. Most are in closets or gun safes or in gun stores or whatever.

I wonder how many people actually carry guns with them on a regular basis? None of the people I know carry or even own a gun. But they all have a car and they all drive.

I just think it's a bad analogy. The two aren't comparable except that they both cause a lot of deaths each year. Guns are designed to kill things. Cars are carefully designed to not kill things. And theirs uses are totally different. Guns don't have a lot of regulation and cars are regulated up the wazoo.

We can't get along very easily without a car to get around in. We can function perfectly well without a gun.

[malaise]

19. Very good post

We have seat belts too. I agree that one has one purpose - to kill and the other is for travel and we have made them less dangerous with regulations. That said - should we not regulate who can get the one that kills and can't we make them safer.

[leftyladyfrommo]

21. I'm not pro gun. I hate the damn things.

I think they should be regulated up the wazoo, too.

[Skittles]

30. LOL, you don't live in Texas do you?

[Kang Colby]

23. 67% of "gun deaths" are suicides. More fraudulent statistics from the gun control crowd.

Why can't they ever just be honest? Suicides are gun violence? Give me a break.

If someone hangs themself with a belt - do you call it belt violence?

[Eleanors38]

26. Suicides: How does Japan keep their rate so low with all its guns?

[valerief]

27. Holy shit! Georgia, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, Tennesee, Pennsylvania. All over 1000.

And a lot of other states aren't far behind.

WTF are they doing in those states? Is everyone drunk, stupid, and armed ALL THE TIME?

http://www.vpc.org/studies/gunsvscars16.pdf
Page 4

[Heeeeers Johnny]

31. Does a drive by shooting or road rage shooting count as a traffic death, or a firearms death?

[Logical]

42. Think this is funny? nt

[Heeeeers Johnny]

43. You're one of those 'life of the party guys' I keep hearing about, aren't you?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

34. I wonder if those statistics applied to certain types of food or chemicals they'd be banned.

Or, at least tightly controlled. I wonder how easy it is to buy and use arsenic or hemlock.

[Matrosov]

36. Continue to be surprised by how many RW trolls are on DU

Some of these people have thousands of posts on DU, yet the only time I ever see their name is on firearm-related issues, and they typically just regurgitate the right-wing talking points.

Wow, do y'all really lead such pathetic lives that you can browse these 'communist' topics all day, pick out the ones that have to do with guns, and then just copy and paste the NRA bullshit a thousand times over?

[krispos42]

45. It's an inherently false comparison

Nearly all vehicular deaths are genuine accidents. Driver inattention, mechanical failure, bad weather, falling debris, etc.

Yeah, there are a few real murders, and more that are legally defined as homicides that are due to negligence (e.g., drunk driving), but the vast majority are accidents. And things like airbags, crumple zones, dynamic stability control, and other design improvements minimize the effects of a collision on the human body.

Very few firearm deaths are genuine accidents. Modern guns are very very safe, and do not discharge accidentally when dropped or handled roughly. Most accidents are "negligent discharges" such as the "I thought it was unloaded" type, but some are "the dog stepped on the trigger" variety.


The majority of firearm deaths are suicide (about 60%), with homicides and accidents being the balance. And seeing as how homicides and suicides can only occur a) if the gun is working properly, and b) deliberate intent is used to discharge the gun, how can this be regulated for health and safety?


With a homicide or a suicide, the gun went "bang" when the owner desired it to. It did not blow up, jam, or otherwise destroy itself. It worked perfectly as intended.

It's not a hardware issue.