Gun Violence and Statistics

I ran across this on the internet today and felt it really needed to be saved somewhere public.

There are about 30,000 gun related deaths per year by firearms, this number is not disputed. (1) U.S. population 328 million as of January 2018. (2) Do the math: 0.00915% of the population dies from gun related actions each year. Statistically speaking, this is insignificant. It’s not even a rounding error. What is not insignificant, however, is a breakdown of those 30,000 deaths:

• 22,938 (76%) are by suicide which can’t be prevented by gun laws.
• 987 (3%) are by law enforcement, thus not relevant to Gun Control discussion.
• 489 (2%) are accidental.

So no, “gun violence” isn’t 30,000 annually, but rather 5,577… 0.0017% of the population. Still too many? Let’s look at location:

• 298 (5%) – St Louis, MO
• 327 (6%) – Detroit, MI
• 328 (6%) – Baltimore, MD
• 764 (14%) – Chicago, IL

That’s over 30% of all gun crime. In just 4 cities. This leaves 3,856 for for everywhere else in America… about 77 deaths per state. Obviously some States have higher rates than others Yes, 5,577 is absolutely horrific, but let’s think for a minute… But what about other deaths each year?

• 70,000+ die from a drug overdose
• 49,000 people die per year from the flu
• 37,000 people die per year in traffic fatalities

Now it gets interesting: