An Interesting, Fact-Based Perspective on ‘Gun Deaths’ We Almost Never See

The term “gun death” is fairly problematic in a lot of ways. First, guns aren’t dying, so there’s that.

Moreover, it treats all deaths resulting from a gunshot as somehow equal. We don’t see numbers for everyone who dies as the result of an edged implement like a knife or razorblade, for example. We don’t see “gravity deaths” that include people who jump off of a bridge and those tossed out of a 14th story window.

It’s just the guns.

But, keeping that in mind, there’s a lot more about the “gun death” discussion that is pretty problematic, including the way things are typically framed. Mostly, it’s a case of trying to lie with statistics. Numbers need context and most stories about these deaths omit a lot of them.

So it was nice to see something different, which was not what I was expecting when I clicked on a site called “Lawyer Monthly.”

Based on how the American Bar Association has been regarding guns of late, I expected the usual nonsense. This was different.

This article explores the latest trends in gun deaths in the U.S., based on data from the CDC, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and other key sources.

We also dive into public sentiment around gun violence and the policies aimed at addressing it.

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What Share of Murders and Suicides Involve Guns?

• Gun Murders: In 2023, approximately 79% of all murders (17,927 out of 22,830) involved a firearm. This is one of the highest percentages recorded since 1968, the earliest year for which the CDC provides online data.

• Gun Suicides: Guns were used in 55% of all suicides (27,300 out of 49,316) in 2023, which is among the highest percentages since 2000.

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How Have Gun Deaths Changed Over Time?

While the total number of gun deaths in 2023 was among the highest ever, the rate of gun deaths per capita has been gradually decreasing in recent years. Here’s a look at the numbers:

• 13.7 gun deaths per 100,000 people in 2023 (down from 14.2 in 2022 and 14.6 in 2021).
• The peak of 16.3 gun deaths per 100,000 occurred in 1974.

Now, look at that last statistic. It’s important, and it’s one we often don’t see in the media at all.

Anti-gunners keep presenting things like total numbers of they cut off the timeline they look at well before 1974, all because they don’t want you to think there’s been a worse time except, maybe, prior to the 1994 Assault Weapon Ban being passed.

However, this was actually the peak of an increase in the rate that immediately followed the passage of the Gun Control Act in 1968. Homicides, in particular, started trending up at this point, which led to the increase in the overall rate of so-called gun deaths.

And yes, the gun rate drops even as the total number of “gun deaths” seemingly climbs. That’s because there are more people in the United States now than in 1974. The issue isn’t as big as many want to claim, so they just use the scariest numbers humanly possible.

After that, things like concealed carry started taking hold with a wave of such regulations kicking off in 1976.

Let’s also look at suicides for a moment. They make up the lion’s share of “gun deaths,” and that is really by design. It’s so anti-gunners can justify restrictions on all kinds of things, most of which won’t have an impact on suicides even under the most optimistic interpretations of a given bill’s potential impact. Magazine restrictions, assault weapon bans, and a host of other regulations simply couldn’t prevent someone taking their own life.

Meanwhile, we point out that plenty of people take their lives with non-firearms. As noted above, that’s 45 percent of cases, to be exact. Those include a myriad of methods which are, in fact, successful. It’s unlikely that restrictions specifically tailored to prevent someone from killing themselves with a gun would have any appreciable impact on the total suicide rate, and not just because a lot of people who use them to take their own life already had them.

I’m a big fan of context, and it’s nice to see a little provided for a change, though it’s just a crumb.

Still, it’s better than almost anything I expected.