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Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics, and The Truth

since9

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Joined
Jan 14, 2010
Messages
6,964
Location
Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA
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I've seen a very wide range of (mostly non-cited) statistics used on these forums.

Here are the stats I use, many from the Bureau of Justice Statistics:

Annual causes of death in the US (Source: Journal of American Medical Association, March 10, 2004, Vol 291, pp 1238, 1241):

Tobacco: 435,000
Alcohol: 85,000
Motor vehicle crashes: 36,347
Adverse reactions to prescription drugs: 32,000
Suicide: 30,622 (33,000 in 2006 Source: US CDC)
Firearms: 29,000
Homicide 20,308
Illicit drug use (direct and indirect): 17,000
NSAIDs: 7,600

Homicides due to handguns have varied around 10,000 (+4,000, -2,000) for thirty years, while homicides due to other gun types has slowly, but steadily declined from about 3,500 in 1976 to about 2,800 in 2003. Homicides due to knives and other methods has remained commensurate with those due to other guns, while blunt object homicide has remained steady around 1,000.

Thus, out of 20,000 annual homicides:
Handguns: 50%
Other guns: 14%
Knives: 13%
Other methods: 12%
Blunt objects: 5%

Of all homicides, 18-24 year olds commit the highest number, around 28/100k, followed by 25-34 (14), 14-17 (10), 35-49 (6) and those over 50 (about 2). Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics

Yet another 9,000 people each year due to non-homicide use of guns:
Hunting accidents:
Home accidents:
Suicide:
Justifiable shootings:

Gun ownership: 25% of all adults, and 40% of American households own at least one firearm. Of 192 million firearms, 35% are rifles, 34% are handguns, 26% are shotguns, and 4% are other long guns. Source: NSPOF Survey.

For violent crimes, guns are used 0.83% of the time in self-defense, and of those, 71% of the crimes were committed by strangers.

In self-defence uses of guns, victems shot at the offender 28% of the time, and of those, 20% of the time it was by police officers (so 8% of the time it was by private citizens). Source: McDowell Study

By contrast, Kleck's study says 2.45 million crimes are thwarted each year in the US, and in most cases, the potential victim never fires.
 

tekshogun

Founder's Club Member
Joined
Nov 17, 2009
Messages
1,052
Location
Greensboro, North Carolina, USA
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Good stuff, thanks. It makes me think of the sad statistics that came out recently about crime in Europe done by the European Union. The United Kingdom didn't fair too well in those statistics, especially when compared to the United States of America. And to add, all across the Nation, there are news reports regarding local and state crime statistics showing that our crime has reduced by very large margins in the last couple of years.
 
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