Posted: 4/13/2009 6:39:59 PM EDT
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Hey all, sorry if everyone is already up on this, but I decided to read a little in preparation for some gun arguments.
CDC 2005 Death Stats Total resident deaths for 2005: 2,448,017 Since anti-gun groups always throw in suicide to beef up the numbers, I looked at table 18 and extracted the total number of deaths WITHOUT suicide or legal intervention/war for three categories: Firearm, Poisoning and Transportation Reasoning? Suicides will generally find a way regardless of gun bans, and nobody ever discusses banning law enforcement use (those are apparently justified with everybody). Firearm (including unintentional, homicide and undetermined): 13,362 deaths Poisoning (including same groups as above): 26,947 deaths Transportation (including same groups as above): 47,781 deaths So, as percentages of the TOTAL deaths: Firearms: 00.55% Poisoning: 01.10% Transportation: 01.95% Note: the CDC stats did not seem to indicate what part, if any, of the homicides were justifiable/self defense (not sure if those were included in legal or not). So, when people talk about the high number of deaths by gun in the US... once you take out suicide and legal/war, you are still talking about around a half of a percent of the total deaths in the US in 2005. Far better off illegalizing cars (NOT constitutionally protected) and getting rid of almost 2% of deaths. Anyway, hope that is helpful... I'm not a researcher by profession, so feel free to check the CDC link and come up with your own numbers. |