I haven't combed through the FBI stats in a few years. Last time I looked, suicidal gun deaths were roughly on par with homicidal gun deaths. Homicidal gun deaths were something like 1/4 of vehicular deaths. What does this tell us? For all the press events like Columbine get, people are taking their own lives with guns at the same rate they are taking each other's lives. People are killing each other on American highways at an enormous rate. Interestingly enough, no one is interested in highways deaths until there are several young children involved or it affects one personally.
Highway deaths are down, largely due to the improvement in safety equipment. In 2000, we were losing the casualty rate of the entire US involvement in Vietnam every year. By the mid-2000's, the death rate was down by 20%, but the accident rate was up. Go figure.
80 million gun owners is a big number. Of course, it's tough to generate meaningful stats, given that guns trade hands without being tracked by law enforcement. The last figures I saw put the number of gun owners at 50 million, who owned 200 million firearms between them. (Have fun, comrades!) This estimate is several years out of date. I keep reading that since President Obama was elected, there has been a massive run on guns and ammo, so it's conceivable that the numbers have spiked in the past several years.
If only I lived in Nevada.
Webstral
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