Law enforcement officers killed on duty 2010.

Some statistics some of you may or may not be interested in.


Unfortunately each year some law enforcement officers die in the line of duty. Following is a list of causes during year 2010 as reported by the Officers Down web site.

Total Line of Duty Deaths in year 2010: 140
Accidental: 1
Aircraft accident: 2
Assault: 3
Automobile accident: 41
Boating accident: 1
Drowned: 2
Fall: 2
Gunfire: 47
Gunfire (Accidental): 2
Heart attack: 11
Motorcycle accident: 4
Struck by train: 1
Struck by vehicle: 5
Training accident: 1
Vehicle pursuit: 4
Vehicular assault: 13

http://www.odmp.org/year.php source

Of the 140 deaths 49 were from gunfire. 91 deaths were from other causes. Of the 140 deaths the gunfire rate was 35% the other causes rate was 65%.

The percentage of on-duty deaths based on total number of employees (using 2006 employment records and year 2010 death numbers) is.

Deaths by gunfire. .00609%
Deaths by other causes. .01132%
Deaths by all causes. .01742%

The last year figures were available (2006) show that there were 803,396 full time law enforcement officers employed in the U.S. 120,000 federal and 683,396 state and local.

By comparison Farm deaths have a ten year average of 516 deaths per year. Latest figures estimate the number of people working on farms to be 1,039,000.
The death rate percentage is. .04966%. Over 8 times higher than the death rate of law enforcement officers killed by gunfire. More than 4 times higher than other causes. 2.8 times higher than death by all causes.

interesting statistics

here's a few more for you.

*snip snip snip*

According to the U.S. Department of Transpotation Statistical Records Office there are approximately 62 million registered vehicles in the U.S. at the current time and appox. 6.4 million unregistered functioning vechicles. Roughly 32% of those two numbers combined would account for Semi-Trucks, construction, heavy machinery vehicles. Stats accurate as of 02/01/05 (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_cars_are_currently_in_the_US)

Earlier this month, NHTSA reported that in 2009 traffic deaths dropped to 33,808 (http://detnews.com/article/20100927...drop-in-2010--Michigan-up-5-percent-this-year)

The FBI estimates that there are over 200 million privately-owned firearms in the US. If you add those owned by the military, law enforcement agencies and museums, there is probably about 1 gun per person in the country (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_guns_are_in_the_united_states_of_America)

30,000 Gun Deaths per year!
by bigblock57, blogalwarning blog.

This number touted by gun-controllers seems to be about right. However, a deeper look reveals the following:

1).Suicides account for about 48% of deaths by guns. They need to be taken off the figures, as suicide will take place with or without a gun. (Sweden has higher suicide rate than US, but guns hardly used there for that…) So now we are down to 16,300 deaths per year to deal with.

2.)Homicides account for about 16,000 gun deaths in the US annually. Half of the homicides are blacks on blacks while blacks are just 13% of the population. If we figured out the social issues among blacks in the US, homicide rate would have dropped by about 40% with no change in guns ownership.(Data for 1995-2005.) Most of these homicides are with guns, but how many of them would be avoided if guns weren’t around? (See suicides above…) So now we are down to about 9300 gun homicides. (8000 among whites, and 1300 among blacks which will bring the rate to same as whites poroportional to population.

3.)As far as accidental deaths in 2007 , 39% cars, 18% poisoning, 16% falls,….only 0.6% guns! Even deaths from medical mistakes are three times higher than from gun accidents.

4.) Gun homicides decreased during the mid 90′s and remained stable todate, in-spite of population growth, and dramatic increase in gun ownership. Accidental guns deaths have decreased over 90% during the last 100 years! (Again, in the face of population growth and increase in gun ownership).

5.)there are about 9300 gun homicides (not counting the unproportional high rate within the black community) and about 700 accidental gun deaths in the US every year. 10,000 too many deaths, but nothing like the 30,000 number that is used to call for a “gun ownership crisis” in the US. The only crisis at hand is that some people, while calling themselves “Americans” are trying to take away from me my constitutional gun rights.

(Sources; FBI, CDC, US Census Beureau, allcountries.org)

Number of deaths for leading causes of death
•Heart disease: 616,067
•Cancer: 562,875
•Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 135,952
•Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 127,924
•Accidents (unintentional injuries): 123,706
•Alzheimer's disease: 74,632
•Diabetes: 71,382
•Influenza and Pneumonia: 52,717
•Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 46,448
•Septicemia: 34,828
(http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/lcod.htm)

But we should ban guns because they kill !!! (that's sarcasm)

Beretta-m9:

Your information is interesting and adds additional perspective. The FBI statistic that there are 200 million privately owned firearms in the U.S. is interesting but somewhat misleading. From what I have researched it is an extrapolation from the number of NICS background checks performed. That is essentially a gun count and does not account for ownership of multiple firearms by a single person. What would be more meaningful is if the FBI would publish figures on how many individuals own firearms or how many don't own firearms. I'm not sure how that information can be determined with any accuracy. The latest information I have been able to find is around 89,000,000. However, I have not been able to cross check that value from any other source. U.S. population being about 300 million that means 29% of the U.S. population owns at least one firearm. If the gun count by the FBI is correct then it indicates that the 89,000,000 people that own guns own an average of a 3.4 each. Of course the 200,000,000 is valuable to the anti's whenever they want to argue that the U.S. has a gun culture. Or to compare those figures to gun ownership in countries such as Canada, U.K., Australia and Japan thus trying to make us gun owners look like radical thugs.

Your other figures support my figures that law enforcement is, by comparison, a safe employment. Contrary to what law enforcement itself woul like us to believe. They would like us to believe that there is someone with a loaded gun lurking in any vehicle, alleyway, dark building or Culver's ready to gun them down.

Captain Nemo said:

Beretta-m9:

Your information is interesting and adds additional perspective. The FBI statistic that there are 200 million privately owned firearms in the U.S. is interesting but somewhat misleading. From what I have researched it is an extrapolation from the number of NICS background checks performed. That is essentially a gun count and does not account for ownership of multiple firearms by a single person. What would be more meaningful is if the FBI would publish figures on how many individuals own firearms or how many don't own firearms. I'm not sure how that information can be determined with any accuracy. The latest information I have been able to find is around 89,000,000. However, I have not been able to cross check that value from any other source. U.S. population being about 300 million that means 29% of the U.S. population owns at least one firearm. If the gun count by the FBI is correct then it indicates that the 89,000,000 people that own guns own an average of a 3.4 each. Of course the 200,000,000 is valuable to the anti's whenever they want to argue that the U.S. has a gun culture. Or to compare those figures to gun ownership in countries such as Canada, U.K., Australia and Japan thus trying to make us gun owners look like radical thugs.

Your other figures support my figures that law enforcement is, by comparison, a safe employment. Contrary to what law enforcement itself woul like us to believe. They would like us to believe that there is someone with a loaded gun lurking in any vehicle, alleyway, dark building or Culver's ready to gun them down.

Click to expand...

I would think that some of those 300 million are too young to own/buy guns. That would make for a greater than 29%

Yeah. It's difficult to get precise statistics on the subject. Many states now allow mentored hunting as young as 8 years old. Too young to "own" a gun but most likely they have a gun sized to fit them so does that count as owning a gun?

Got into quite a discussion on this issue with a law enforcement friend of mine. Her argument centered around the difference between officer deaths in U.S. v Canada. Her claim was that law enforcement in Canada is much safer than in the U.S. because of Canada's strict gun control resulting in only 2 officer deaths by gunfire whereas the U.S. had 49. I argued that the ratio of officer gunfire death in Canada is 2:64,135 while in the U.S. it is 49:800,000 and that the percentages are suprisingly close regardless the extreme restriction Canada has concerning gun ownership. As I expected my argument fell on deaf ears. Law enforcement phobia of guns in the hands of private citizens far exceeds their common sense. Personally I think that a great number of law enforcement live in fear of their job. They are so concerned with comming home to their spouse and kids at night that they lose all rational thought concerning guns. It is futile to try to discuss the issue with officers of that mindset.

My opinion.