That link's primary purpose is educating the public about safety, in several categories. Last year, under our ground rules for having this discussion, you agreed that police department statistics were admissible, and that neither Handgun Control, Inc. or NRA data was, since it is so polarized on both sides. If you like statistics however, here are some that you might consider. I would particularly note the one about 86% of all gun deaths among 15-26 year olds in the world being those of young Americans.
I guess I would ask whether your "right" to be fully armed is worth all the carnage:
vpc.org
Introduction
Firearm injuries result in substantial
health care costs, trauma, and death.[1]
Firearms are the second leading cause of
traumatic death related to a consumer
product in the United States and are the
second most frequent cause of death
overall for Americans ages 15 to 24.[2]
Since 1960, more than three quarters of a
million Americans have died in firearm
suicides, homicides, and unintentional
injuries. In 1995 alone, 35,957 Americans
died by gunfire: 18,503 in firearm
suicides, 15,835 in firearm homicides,
1,225 in unintentional shootings, and 394
in firearm deaths of unknown intent.[3]
And nearly three times that number are
treated in emergency rooms each year for
non-fatal firearm injuries.[4] Today, guns
are outpaced only by motor vehicles as a
cause of fatal injury stemming from a
household or recreational consumer
product. The federal Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates
that by the year 2003, firearms will
supplant motor vehicles as the leading
cause of product-related death in our
nation.[5]
Contrary to popular perception, most gun
death in America is not crime related.
Most firearm deaths stem not from
homicide (15,835 reported to the National
Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) in
1995) but suicide (18,503 reported to the
NCHS in 1995). And even for those who
are murdered with firearms[a], each year
the Uniform Crime Reports published by
the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
reveals that the majority of homicide
victims die not as the result of criminal
activity, but because of arguments
between people who know each other.
In addition to the human toll exacted by
firearms, the monetary cost—as
measured in hospitalization, rehabilitation,
and lost wages—is staggering. In 1990
the lifetime economic cost of firearms
violence totaled $20.4 billion.[6] Other
less tangible costs associated with
firearms violence include the fear that
permeates the streets of our cities, the
gnawing concern for our children's safety,
and, perhaps worst of all, a debilitating
hopelessness that anything can ever be
done to stop the bloodshed.
The reality of firearms violence is that it
stems not from "guns in the wrong
hands," but from the virtually unregulated
distribution of an inherently dangerous
consumer product of which specific
categories—such as handguns and
assault weapons—have very limited utility
and inflict high costs on society in the
form of premature death and debilitating
injury. Identifying the variations in firearm
death and injury among groups provides
an opportunity to move beyond the
popular but narrow perception of firearms
violence as solely a crime issue to place
it in its proper perspective: a widespread
public health problem of which crime is
merely the most recognized aspect.
When compared to other industrialized
nations, the United States stands alone in
the number of its citizens felled by guns.
Earlier this year a study by the federal
Centers for Disease Control (CDC)
concluded that the United States leads
the industrialized world in rates of
firearm-related death among children. The
February 1997 CDC study, "Rates of
Homicide, Suicide, and Firearm-Related
Death Among Children—26 Industrialized
Countries," analyzed firearm-related
deaths for children under age 15 in 26
countries and found that 86 percent of the
deaths occurred in the U.S.[7]
However, while no one segment of
American society is immune to firearms
violence, there are those who bear a
disproportionate share of victimization.
Lower-income urban neighborhoods
consistently record higher rates of
homicide[8]—especially among young
males. Firearms suicide is most
prevalent in western[9] states, and rates
have remained highest among young adult
and elderly white males[10]. The nature of
victimization also varies among groups. In
its 1995 Uniform Crime Reports, the FBI
reports that while for men homicide was
intra-gender 89 percent of the time, nine
out of 10 female victims were slain by a
male.[11] The sections below provide an
overview of the differences in firearms
victimization among groups by sex, age,
and race.
a) Firearms were the weapons used in
approximately seven out of every ten
homicides committed in the United States
in 1995.
b) In his June 14, 1995 Journal of the
American Medical Association article,
"Race, Socioeconomic Status, and
Domestic Homicide," researcher Brandon
Centerwall affirmed that socioeconomic
factors were more important than race in
explaining variations in homicide rates.
While most of the differences among
racial groups can be attributed to
disproportionate variations in social class,
they cannot be attributed to variations in
social class alone, since differences in
social class are also not a construct of
race--but often the result of racism. Both
institutional and individual racism promote
social class divisions. Evan Stark, in his
1990 International Journal of Health
Services article, "Rethinking Homicide:
Violence, Race, and the Politics of
Gender," noted that the influence of
racism on social class division has
created: less access to economic and
educational resources to cope with
violence, increased stereotyping about
acceptable levels of violence, and
consequently, disproportionate levels of
fatal violence. |
