Interesting data

[hso]

Here are some pieces that we can mine for valuable data. Try not to get hung up on a pro or Anti bias seen in the pieces and focus on the facts for our arguments against Antis.

See what else you can find than these tidbits I've pulled.

http://news.yahoo.com/three-charts-...n-gun-deaths-and-mental-health-183025852.html

But even if you assume that most mass shooters are indeed mentally ill — whether diagnosed or not — mass shootings make up less than 1 percent of all gun deaths in America, according to a study by the Pew Research Center.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-gun-laws-tend-to-have-the-fewest-gun-deaths/

Most gun deaths — more than 60 percent in 2013 — are actually suicides. The president made his remarks in the aftermath of the tragic shooting rampage at an Oregon community college, and so it’s a judgment call as to whether counting suicides is appropriate. After all, Obama wants to thwart mass shootings by enacting universal background checks aimed at people with criminal histories.

Some might argue that it is wrong to exclude suicides from the data, as less access to guns might result in fewer suicides. The data on that is mixed. Gun-related suicides might decline, but studies have shown little connection between suicides and access to guns. A 2004 report published by the National Academy of Sciences concluded that “some gun control policies may reduce the number of gun suicides, but they have not yet been shown to reduce the overall risk of suicide in any population.”

Japan, for instance, has among the world’s most-restrictive gun-control regimes — and yet also has among the world’s highest suicide rates, almost double the U.S. suicide rate.

As we will show below, the numbers change, sometimes dramatically, when suicides are not counted.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tan...ention-but-are-a-small-share-of-gun-violence/

Mass shootings rivet national attention, but are a small share of gun violence

In all, less than 1% of homicides each year claim three or more victims. In 2010, there were 31,672 deaths in the U.S. from firearm injuries, with the biggest categories being suicide (19,392) and homicide (11,078), according to a Pew Research Center analysis of government data.

The CRS report said, “Mass shootings are rare, high-profile events, rather than broad trends that require systematic data collection to understand.”

There are other valuable bits and good graphics for our use.

 

[boom boom]

If you poke around the CDC's website, they have a rather morbid data mining tool that allows you to find out all kinds of data of what kills people.

http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/fatal.html

For example about 30,000 people die annually from gravity related causes---e.g. accidental falls.

 

[hso]

The idea is what RKBA info is in the articles or references.

 

[Caliper_Mi]

Other death statistics can help put things in a larger perspective. 11,078 firearm murders may sound large to many people. Hearing that 3x the number of people die from falls suddenly makes that 11k sound much less. Especially since most of us aren't really too afraid of falling over in day-to-day life.

 

[Prijador]

To short-circuit the whole "suicide" part of the statistics.
If I chose to engage in an activity with a higher chance of killing me than say, sitting on the couch, then that is my choice to make. Just like riding a motorcycle, jumping out of an airplane, etc. - things that we are free to do.
My body, my choice. (To borrow a phrase...)

Besides, a great many suicide attempts are either a "cry for help" or manipulative in nature (ie people not serious about it) - they don't use a gun, they chose something like pills (heck, I even heard of one guy trying to OD on vitamins - which is at least theoretically possible, except these were kids vitamins - the dosage was far far too low to harm a full grown adult).

Also, the Washington Post (IIRC) is doing a study on how many people are killed by LEOs each year - turns out it's at least double the usual CDC figures. That's because
A) homicide is one person killing another - to include a LEO killing a criminal that is shooting at him/her, a homeowner who shoots an intruder bent on killing them, etc. Some homicide is lawful. Murder is unlawful homicide.
The antis actually included the Tsarnev brother in the list of those killed by "gun violence" for a while, I hear.
So the homicide stats do include lawful deaths in those figures.
B) The CDC stats are from death certificates - only as accurate as thousands of different people, in different states with different training etc. can make them.