Just Shoot Me: Guns in America Part II

So, I started out in yesterday’s article venting my frustrations with our government and its inability to pass federal gun control legislation. Today I’m going to share with you some statistics on gun ownership and gun deaths in America. I know the thought of reading statistics is less than appealing. Believe me, I’ve looked at enough numbers over the past two weeks that my brain hurts. I think you’ll find the information not only interesting (as far as statistics go) but pretty alarming. I’ve tried to edit out as much of the “interesting but not necessary” data as I could, but still, it’s a lot. In tomorrow’s post, I’ll share with you my ideas (some borrowed from other countries and some uniquely my own) on what America’s gun regulations should look like. Betcha can’t wait, right?

GUNS IN AMERICA

In America, we love our guns. Or, at least, some of us do. A lot.

The 2010 U.S. Census counted 308.7 million residents of the United States. Because census data only comes out every ten years, the Census Bureau estimates what the population in the country is for the years between census recording years. The bureau’s estimate for our country’s population in 2017 is 325 million. (Much of the data I reference in this article is based on 2017 data, that is why I used the Census Bureau’s 2017 extrapolated population numbers.)

In 2017, there were 393 million civilian-owned firearms in the United States.  (This figure does not include the number of guns owned by law enforcement and the military.)

Yes, that’s right. There are more guns in America than people. But, big deal, right? There are more paper clips than people too.

Okay, so, with the number of guns we have in this country, we could give a gun to every man, woman, child and baby and still have 68 million left over. Seems like overkill, doesn’t it?

But we know that not every person in the United States owns a gun. In 2017, a Gallop poll found that 42% of American households owned a gun. With an estimated 137 million households in America in 2017, and 393 million civilian-owned guns in the country, the average gun-owning household has almost seven guns. I’m not going to say too much about this statistic except to say that if you “need” a firearm to protect you, your family, and your stuff, I hardly think you need seven. After all, you can only shoot one at a time, right? I do not believe that one’s being able to maintain an enviable collection of firearms is a legitimate reason for owning more than one weapon and it almost certainly wasn’t the intent of the 2^nd Amendment.

With a rate of 121 guns per 100 residents, America has the largest number of guns than any other country in the world. Taking second and third place are Serbia (75.6 guns per 100 residents) and Yemen (54.8 per 100). In 2017, Americans represented just 4% of the world’s population but owned about 46% of the global stock of 857 million civilian firearms. Yikes.

DEATH-BY-FIREARM IN AMERICA

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that 39,773 people died in 2017 from gun-related injuries in the U.S.

A study published by The American Journal of Medicine earlier this year, compared the gun-related death rates of the United States and 22 other wealthy nations using data from 2010. To me, the statistics are disturbing.

In 2010, America had a death-by-firearm rate of 10.2 per 100,000 people. To give you an idea of how extraordinarily high this rate is, I’ll give you the rates of gun deaths of some other wealthy countries: Canada (2.3), United Kingdom (0.2), Germany (1.1), Japan (0.0), and Australia (1.0). France has the second highest rate with 2.8 gun-related deaths per 100,000 people, still considerably lower than our 10.2.

The study also concluded that Americans are ten times more likely to be killed by guns than people in other developed countries.

Even though it has half the population of the other 22 nations combined, the U.S. accounted for 82% of all gun deaths. Of all the gun-related deaths in the 23 wealthy nations, 90% of all women killed by guns; 91% of all children under 14 killed by guns; and 92% of young people ages 15-24 killed by a firearm were in the U.S.

In 2016, half of all gun-related deaths occurred in six countries: Brazil, the United States, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia and Guatemala. These countries represent less than 10% of the world’s population. Note that the U.S. is the only wealthy nation among them. It’s no wonder that so many Latin Americans are trying to escape their homelands.

Data from a study by the World Health Organization found that Americans are six times more likely to be accidentally killed by a gun.

What can we learn from these other wealthy countries? Quite a lot, it would seem. Shouldn’t our country be looking to these other countries for the firearm regulations they’ve established and perhaps implementing them ourselves so we can lower the number of lives this country loses each year because of guns? Having the greatest number of gun-related deaths each year is nothing our country should be proud of. It’s a shame that the United States isn’t striving to do better. It’s not about the numbers; it’s about the lives those numbers represent.

DEATH-BY-FIREARM IN AMERICA: SUICIDE

I was surprised and saddened to learn that the majority of gun deaths in the United States are from suicides. Each year, over 60% (~22,000) of deaths caused by gun-related injuries were suicides. On average, there are approximately 59 suicide gun deaths per day in the U.S. And over the past decade the number of suicides in America has steadily increased. More concerning, while the overall firearm suicide rate has increased by 19% over the past ten years, the firearm suicide rate for children and teens has increased 61%.

About half of the suicides each year involved a firearm. The average age of U.S. suicide victims is between 45 and 64 years.

Suicide by firearm is the most lethal. The fatality rate of suicide attempts using a firearm is 83%. That means, for every 100 people who attempt suicide by firearm, 85% of them succeed and die. Other suicide methods and their fatality rates include: Drowning/Submersion (66%); Suffocation/Hanging (61%); Poison by Gas (42%); Jumping (35%) and Drug/Poison Ingestion (2%).

In 2017, an article was published by abc7news.com that told the story of two men who had (separately, one in 1985 and one in 2000) jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge in an attempt to kill themselves. By some miracle, both men survived. The two men today tell of the immediate regret they felt the instant their fingertips left the bridge railing.

With the exception of suicide by either firearm or jumping, in most methods of suicide, a person has the ability to abort mid-attempt. Consider these: overdose, cutting, CO poisoning, and hanging/suffocation. These methods offer an opportunity for rescue or change of heart. Time to call 911 and say, “Help me.” Time to feel remorse, decide to live. When you jump off a bridge, there is no “mid-attempt.” The same is true when you try to kill yourself with a gun. Once the trigger is pulled, there is no going back. Bang! You’re dead.

Over 80% of child firearm suicides involved a gun belonging to a family member.

4.6 million American children live in households with at least one loaded, unlocked firearm.

It’s been reported that locking up unloaded household guns securely or storing a firearm separate from its ammunition, can reduce the risk of suicide and unintentional firearm injuries among children and teens up to 85%

It’s the people who die from self-inflicted gunshots that we have the ability to save. By restricting their access to guns. A meta-analysis of 14 different scientific studies concluded that having access to a firearm triples a person’s risk of death by suicide – this elevated risk applies to the gun owner and everyone else in the household.  

The easiest way I can figure to lower the number of suicides by firearms is not through background checks, but to remove firearms from homes altogether or at the very least, having an extended waiting period in order to take possession of one. Any one of us could be suicidal at any given time but have no history of mental illness. How do weed us out with just a background check?

In America, the data shows that we’re killing ourselves more than we’re killing each other. In my opinion, it’s more important for us to save ourselves from ourselves than it is to protect ourselves from others.

DEATH-BY-FIREARM IN AMERICA: MURDER

In 2017, the United States had the 28th highest rate of gun violence in the world with 4.43 gun-related deaths per 100,000 people. (These figures do not include suicides, accidents or armed conflict.)

Murder is the second leading cause of death among Americans between the ages of 15-24. Compared to those in the same age group in other wealthy countries, Americans aged 15-24 are 49 times more likely to be the victim of a gun-related murder.

Murder is the third leading cause of death among Americans between the ages of 25-35. Again, compared to the same age group in other wealthy countries, Americans aged 25-34 are 32 times more likely to be the victim of a gun-related murder.

Approximately 37% of gun-related deaths in 2017 involved a murder by firearm. Three-quarters of the murders that year – 14,542 out of 19,510 – involved a firearm. Another 500 deaths each year are due to legal intervention and/or accidental discharge.

According to the FBI, in 2017, handguns were involved in the majority (64%) of gun-related murders and non-negligent manslaughters in the U.S.

Louisiana and Mississippi have the highest rates of homicides involving a firearm. In 2015, Louisiana had a rate of 91 per 100,000 residents and Mississippi had 87. My advice: Don’t move there.

DEATH-BY-FIREARM: MASS SHOOTINGS

The U.S. has had more mass shootings than any other country since WWII, but because the FBI and the Gun Violence Archive define “mass shooting” differently, accurate numbers are difficult to determine. According to the FBI, 85 people – excluding the shooter – died in an “active shooter incident.” This compares to 373 deaths – excluding the shooter — that the GVA reports according to its definition of a mass shooting.

In 2000, the FBI reported just one active shooter incident in the U.S. In 2010, there were 26. And in 2018, 27.

Regardless of how they’re defined, mass shootings represent a small fraction of the murders that occur in our country each year. It’s the mass shootings, however, that shock us, wound our souls and will hopefully spur this country into action. It worries me that it hasn’t happened yet.

SOLUTIONS

How many of these deaths could have been prevented with stronger gun control laws? We will never know. But I suggest we begin now, to establish laws that restrict the ability to own a gun so we can perhaps, start to shrink the number of preventable deaths in this country. It’s not just about background checks.

(Check tomorrow’s blog for Just Shoot Me: Guns in America Part III)