
Guns are now killing as many people as cars in the U.S - Libertatea
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/12/17/guns-are-now-killing-as-many-people-as-cars-in-the-u-s/
======
ericfrenkiel
If I could downvote this for being a sensationalist article, I would!

Here's the operative phrase: "The convergence of the trend lines above is
driven primarily by a sharp drop in the rate of motor vehicle fatalities since
1950."

It's amazing that we've improved vehicle safety in the last 60 years, yet
there is zero reason to conflate that with homicides involving a firearm.

~~~
jberryman
That's literally the third sentence in the article, which also mentions the
rise in suicide and fall in gun homicide rates two sentences below that. The
title is dry and accurate.

> yet there is zero reason to conflate that with homicides involving a
> firearm.

The article doesn't conflate anything; it makes a very interesting and
important comparison: vehicle deaths (which have been extensively studied for
decades, with much federal regulation and other pressure to improve safety)
are now on par with gun deaths (which had been banned from federal research
for nearly two decades).

> It's amazing that we've improved vehicle safety in the last 60 years

Wouldn't it be nice if fewer people were dying from guns as well?

~~~
dawnbreez
It would be nice if fewer people were dying from bullet wounds; that does not
change the fact that this article's headline is misinforming.

Further, the data is misleading as well. Suicides, homicides, and accidental
deaths are three different things.

On top of that, this data is collected across the US...meaning that it
includes both areas where gun laws are loose, and areas where gun laws are
strict. This means that the data tells us nothing about whether tougher laws
would help or hurt the state of gun-related death, for reasons that should be
obvious to anybody who's completed a high school science class.

~~~
michaelcampbell
> Suicides, homicides, and accidental deaths are three different things.

In terms of someone being killed by a gun, how so exactly?

~~~
dawnbreez
Suicides are caused primarily by mental illness, and can be committed through
many means other than firearms. Trying to stop suicides by removing firearms
is a pointless endeavor, similar to trying to cure a cold by keeping the
patient from coughing. Homicides are similar in that one can commit homicide
by many means other than firearms, though firearms allow doing so from a much
greater distance; however, again, the root cause is mental illness, and
attacking firearms is a waste of effort compared to trying to fix the root
cause. As for accidental deaths, they have nothing to do with suicides and
homicides, and the solution there is to teach people how to not point the
firearm at something they don't want to kill (among other safety rules, like
not keeping the weapon loaded unless absolutely necessary).

------
jstalin
Firearm suicide data:
[http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/suicide.htm](http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/suicide.htm)

Firearm murder data:
[http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm](http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm)

Unintentional injury death stats: [http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/accidental-
injury.htm](http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/accidental-injury.htm)

------
grecy
I'm Australian, live in Canada, am a hunter who owns a rifle and am currently
visiting the US. In the last couple of months, I've seen more guns than I have
in my entire life.

Two days ago I walked into a friends unlocked garage to find at least 75 guns,
mostly loaded, with ammunition lying all over. Some semi-auto assault rifles,
some hunting rifles, tons of handguns. All perfectly legal (and legal to not
be locked up too).

I think it's sad to live in a "successful" country where regular citizens feel
the need to carry a loaded weapon in public. I think that's a strong indicator
something is very wrong with this society.

I'm not an expert, and obviously guns don't kill people, though it's my
observation there are a LOT of readily available guns in the US, and the US
has a lot of guns deaths.

As an avid hunter I would never advocate "Taking the guns away", though I do
think a few things should change - I believe gun laws in the US could be
somewhat similar to Canada and Australia (no semi-autos or fully autos,
basically no handguns, must be locked up, must apply for a license, need
license to even buy ammo, etc) and gun enthusiasts can still have appropriate
guns, while the sheer number of guns would drop substantially.

Citizens already can't own surface to air missiles, so we've already
established some weapons are not suitable for private citizens, now we're just
talking about what falls into what category.

I know it's a very difficult thing to change, as gun ownership is the 2nd
amendment and is seen as a right not a privilege.

~~~
NiftyFifty
Grecy, with all the respect I have for Australia, there is a HUGE difference
culturally between your population demographics and ours. The primary reason
why the Australian ban (noting that 65-80% of guns are still in the general
population in your home country, and never reclaimed by the ban - because
who's going to enforce that? really?) will never work here. Australia = 97%
white/Caucasian, 2% Asian, 1% everything else. The US is a vastly different
landscape and our population comes from ALL over the world. If I were to
introduce very deeply concentrated communities of 50 other religions, 15 other
race demographics, and stir the pot the debate becomes that much more
problematic. Back to Australia - having a very, very homogeneous society makes
it easy to pass and maintain order in comparison to what makes our country so
incomparable with yours on this issue in particular, as a model to follow.
Same occurs with the Japanese model - so, leaning on that won't help either. I
respect you, and I believe you have a valid point on face value but when you
dig into the complexity and what I consider a unique trait of the US citizen
(as a positive! for our diversity!) ... we will never ban guns. It's a poverty
issue here, not a gun issue.

~~~
rbg246
Hi, Such a complicated issue! But if I may correct a few errors,Australia is
60% British descent not 97% which is decreasing year on year. Within the
larger cities Melbourne and Sydney there are levels of diversity
observationally comparable to most large US cities. Our rural cities have a
much higher homogeneous population but I believe that is similar to the USA,
observationally anyway.

The 65% guns still in population is an interesting statistic but as a well
read Australian I am surprised I have never heard this before and suspect it
is a politically motivated / chery picked statistic. Probably a better
statistic if we are talking about gun violence would be the decrease in the
levels of gum violence that have occurred since the buy back of guns in 1997.

------
carsongross
Alternate title: (ex) middle class americans are killing themselves in record
numbers, but we want to talk about guns.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
How so? According to this article, gun violence hasn't increased much at all.
Cars are safer though.

~~~
mtberatwork
In contrast to automobile deaths, it has increased: "In 2005, gun deaths
outnumbered vehicle deaths in just two states, Alaska and Maryland, plus the
District of Columbia. By 2014, gun deaths were greater in 21 states plus D.C."

~~~
ocdtrekkie
Again, you're not looking at the data. Gun violence hasn't increased,
automobile deaths have decreased.

------
lintiness
guns don't kill people; people with guns kill people. They mostly just kill
themselves:

"...[S]uicides account for roughly two out of every three gun deaths."

~~~
NiftyFifty
I know its like being CPT Obvious, but that is so true. Fix the problem, not
the symptom.

~~~
SteveLAnderson
Fixing the issues that lead a person to consider suicide is really hard.
Decreasing the number of available guns is much easier and is effective.

When Australia decreased the number of guns, the suicide rate (not just gun
related suicides, but all suicides) decreased by 65%.

~~~
brianlweiner
Suicides definitely decrease with less access to guns, however many countries
with gun restrictions have higher rates of suicide than the US (e.g Japan, S
Korea, France, Belgium) [1]

Also suicides via firearm had been declining in Australia prior to any
buyback. [2]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate)
[2]
[http://c5.nrostatic.com/sites/default/files/australia.jpg](http://c5.nrostatic.com/sites/default/files/australia.jpg)

------
dustinmoorenet
It is funny in an article about the difficulties of finding safer ways of
handling guns, it is attacked in the comments for trying to talk about gun
safety. You can not just say guns are only unsafe in unsafe hands but not
allow research and regulation in to gun safety to figure out why. Cars
benefited from research and regulation and guns can too.

~~~
sarvinc
I haven't read the article and am not interested in attacking the article.
Some of us don't believe that others (not all) are arguing in good faith. I
don't believe we'll stop talking about firearms till firearms are illegal to
own. For example; I believe that if firearm related suicide was reduced to
zero we'd still be arguing about firearm safety.

I'm all for increasing the amount of data we gather and research we do in
relation to firearms. I'm all for making intelligent decisions based on the
data we gather. From where I'm sitting we don't make decisions based on the
data we have (on either side).

This largely feels like bizarro abortion argument where both sides of the
abortion argument are now arguing the exact opposite when it comes to
firearms.

------
PauloManrique
Guns are banned in Brazil and we got the highest homicide numbers in the
planet.

~~~
NiftyFifty
THANK YOU! Honestly, the more data I have the more it validates the gun
legislation is a bad idea. The longer view is one of social reform related to
what ills the country - crime, poverty, and a replacement of
liberalism/progressive thinking with Republican conservatism bridging the isle
in Congress by taking on poverty like no progressive ever has.

~~~
PauloManrique
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate#By_country)

------
ocdtrekkie
This is an incredibly sensationalist and politically-motivated title. It
should really read "Automobiles now immensely safer in the US". As the
article's own graph shows, gun violence hasn't really changed much in the last
decade and a half, but cars have gotten a lot safer!

~~~
refurb
Good point. It looks like gun violence is down ~30% since the mid 1990's.

Also, how do they define "gun violence"? Does that include accidental
shootings? Suicides? From what I remember, suicides account for almost half of
all deaths due to guns.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
"Due to guns?" Do guns make people suicidal?

~~~
Retric
It lowers the bar before people succeed. Take some pills and many back out,
pull a trigger and your generally out of options.

~~~
pdkl95
Freedom, by definition, includes the freedom to be stupid[1]. This is kind of
the point of having a _free society_ ; the people that do helpful things that
you approve of don't need to have their activities protected by law and
constitution. It's the people that do things you _don 't_ approve of that need
those protections.

To test if people are actually free, you study how the unpopular people and
unwelcome ideas are handled. If they are restricted "for their own good", then
any claim of being "free" are jut marketing.

The solution is better education and more communication (and better
healthcare, including a lot more funding/availability for mental health
services). Going after guns doesn't address the actual problem.

Oh, and "take some pills"? That really depends. You may survive, but hours of
hypoxia from an overdose of respiratory depressants can be incredibly
damaging, especially to the brain. If the overdose wasn't strong enough to
cause that kind of damage, it may not even be a fatal dose. There is going to
be a lot of variation, and "backing out" only apples some of the time.

[1] As someone who strongly supports the _right to die_ , suicide is a
complicated subject, and is _not_ "stupid" in some cases. However, for the
purposes of this thread, that is really off-topic. The "stupid" subset
certainly exists and they would be the people who would benefit form the
"backing out" you mention.

~~~
Retric
This seems like the 'one true way' fallacy. If doing Y is vastly more
expensive and harder to pull off and nobody is trying to do Y, then it's not
an excuse to avoid doing X which is a vastly cheaper partial solution.

When you include external costs guns are massively subsidized. EX: Homeowners
insurance generally does not ask about gun ownership even if it increases
risks.

PS: The 18th may have allowed the sale of beer, but that does not mean the
government can't _discourage_ use though taxation.

------
tomp
I wonder how many of these guns belong to the police (and hence the murders
can't be prevented by reducing civil gun ownership)...

~~~
icebraining
[http://killedbypolice.net/](http://killedbypolice.net/)

You can just subtract the numbers.

~~~
largorn
This is crazy. I recently stumbled upon the numbers for gun-killings by German
police, I can't believe how much these numbers diverge:

[https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffengebrauch_der_Polizei_in_...](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffengebrauch_der_Polizei_in_Deutschland#Zahlen)
(Second column is "number of fatal shots", third is "total number of shots
fired at people")

Of course, the USA have 4 times as many inhabitants and the German numbers are
only related to gun-killings, not other methods. But still, they are in a
completely different dimension.

------
stmfreak
It is really dishonest to compare accidental vehicle deaths to intentional
suicides and homicides via gun. One is a safety issue void of intent. The
other is the result of intent to harm with the most efficient tool available.

What are we to make of this? Require anti-death features on a leathal weapon?

------
kyleknighted
What a crap title...

Cars don't kill people, anymore than guns do. It's the idiot behind the
wheel/trigger that's doing the killing.

These pieces of metal are built to be controlled by responsible humans. They
do not make decisions for you, anymore than a spoon is making the decision for
me to eat another bowl of cereal!

~~~
delecti
That's kinda a useless distinction. Nobody read that title and pictured
sentient guns tracking down and hunting humans. Autonomous cars doing that
might almost be plausible, but realistically the same applies there.

"Gun related fatalities are currently as high as automotive related fatalities
in the U.S. for the first time" might be a more precise statement, but it's a
worse headline.

------
tehchromic
It sounds wrong to say so but that is as it should be!

------
dennisgorelik
"Today, suicides account for roughly two out of every three gun deaths."

It looks like 2nd amendment protects right to suicide.

------
NiftyFifty
Redefining the conversation away from the liberal thinking, the real debate is
not about guns at all. It's about what causes violence, where does it occur,
and how can we stop it. The most dramatic form of this crime, occurs most
often from guns - so, we need to reframe it from gun violence to violence
where guns are involved. This is a 65 year old problem - the root of it, is
based on the highway system in conjunction with relining that left poverty in
the inner city. I note here, I am leaving out race, but it disproportionately
affects (use right?) the African American population because of the redlining
(why I mentioned it), thanks to racism and white privilege - debate all you
want, but mobility of the white middle class demographic was huge at this
time. Think baby-boomers in particular. The SOLUTION to solving a WHOLE slew
of problems, which liberals ALWAYS talk about is giving social programs a go
on a major scale to help disadvantaged population. Bipartisan politics always
shift away from this, because of the polarizing problem of being perceived as
to liberal or to conservative, etc. etc. Poverty to expand on violence is
exponential and often (like 80% of the problem) involves desperation which
leads to crime, disassociation with society and drives youth / people to gang
membership. It's been a long deep understood problem, that gangs of any time
typically lean towards drugs, alcohol, and illegal activities to maintain the
syndication of crime. This includes prostitution, which affects women and can
more often lead to domestic violence. So, with all _that_ said, think of guns
in the mix - illegal and not, and ALLLL the gun programs in the past, where do
most of the illegal guns come from - that's right, poverty stricken areas. So,
I lean back to what is gun control's main problem? It's ineffective. Solve
poverty ... put a CONSERVATIVE BUSINESS BASED DEMOGRAPHIC (namely young
moderate Republicans) on every other street with strict oversight who are NOT
prejudice to start engines of economic growth to stamp out poverty in areas
where it exists. Let Liberals cry all they want, but spearhead poverty in the
urban centers and you will reduce violence where guns are involved. THAT is
the solution.

~~~
dang
> _Let Liberals cry all they want_

Please don't use ideological buzz-phrases here. It lowers the quality of
discussion, regardless of what flavor of ideology you prefer.

