Gun Deaths Since Newtown now exceeds U.S. Military deaths in 20 war-years

[DreamGypsy]

The tally of Americans killed by guns since the Newtown Sandy Hook shootings on December 14, 2012 now stands at 6734, as reported on the Slate site How Many People Have Been Killed by Guns Since Newtown? on August 1, 2013, 7:28 PDT

Matched Deaths: 6,734 or more since Newtown

Slate characterizes their number as follows:

As time goes on, our count gets further and further away from the likely actual number of gun deaths in America—because roughly 60 percent of deaths by gun are due to suicides, which are very rarely reported. When discussing this issue, please note that our number is by design not accurate and represents only the number of gun deaths that the media can find out about contemporaneously. Part of the purpose of this interactive is to point out how difficult it is to get accurate real-time numbers on this issue.

Using the most recent CDC estimates for yearly deaths by guns in the United States, it is likely that as of today, 8/1/2013, roughly 19,884 people have died from guns in the United States since the Newtown shootings. Compare that number to the number of deaths reported in the news in our interactive below, and you can see how undertold the story of gun violence in America actually is.

The number of days that have elapsed from the Newtown shootings, December 14, 2012 to today, August 1, 2013 is 230. Counting only the 6734 gun deaths reported by Slate, the death rate over that period is 29.28 deaths per day. Taking the extrapolated number of 19,884 gun deaths based on CDC estimates, the death rate is 86.45 per day.

For comparison the number reported by Slate now exceeds, by 8, the number of U.S. military deaths in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars (Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation New Dawn, and Operation Enduring Freedom) as reported by the U.S. Department of Defense as of Aug. 1, 2013, 10 a.m. ED.

The U.S. military war death counts are:
• Operation Iraqi Freedom – 4409
• Operation New Dawn – 66
• Operation Enduring Freedom – 2251 (2123 in Afghanistan, 127 other locations)

The total count of military deaths is 6726. If DOD civilians deaths were to be included the total would increase by 16.

Operation Iraqi Freedom began 20 March 2003, became Operation New Dawn on September 1, 2010, which ended 15 December 2011, so lasted 8 years, 8 months, 3 weeks and 4 days, or approximately 3182 days. The death rate in OIF/OND was 1.406 deaths per day.

Operation Enduring Freedom began 7 October 2001 and is ongoing, so spans 11 years, 9 months, 3 weeks and 2 days as of August 1, 2013. This is approximately 4317 days, so the death rate in OEF is 0.52 deaths per day.

The current combined total time for the three operations is 20 years, 6 months and 17 days or approximately 7499 war-days, so the average death rate over the period is ~.897 per war-day.

Of course, these statistics take a very insular view of the wars and represent a small fraction of the overall carnage, destruction, and upheaval that have occurred and are still occurring due to our military operations.