Rep. Ilhan Omar's claim is high: There aren't 500 gun deaths per day in the US, it's closer to 100

[beijingwalker]

Rep. Ilhan Omar's claim is high: There aren't 500 gun deaths per day in the US, it's closer to 100
By Tom Kertscher
on Wednesday, June 12th, 2019 at 11:08 a.m.

U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath of Georgia, who became a gun-control advocate after her 17-year-old son was shot to death, tweeted on June 5 that she was praying the U.S. Senate would adopt the House-passed Bipartisan Background Checks Act.

That drew a retweet from a Democratic colleague, Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, who added this statement:

"Supporting my colleagues’ call on Senate Majority Leader to vote on H.R. 8, 1112 & 1158. Gun violence is an epidemic. Every day on average 500 people die from gun violence. How many more lives will we let gun violence claim?"

At 500 per day, that would be 182,500 deaths per year from gun violence in the United States.

The actual figure is nowhere near that high.

The legislation
The legislation (H.R. 8) would establish new background check requirements for firearm transfers between private parties. Transfers would be prohibited unless a licensed gun dealer, manufacturer, or importer first takes possession of the firearm to conduct a background check. There would be some exceptions, such as a gift between spouses.

Currently, only federally licensed gun dealers, importers and manufacturers are required to conduct a background check for someone seeking to obtain a gun.

The House, which is controlled by Democrats, passed the bill 240-190 in February 2019. National Public Radio reported then that passage in the Republican-majority Senate is unlikely. The White House has signaled that President Donald Trumpwould veto the legislation, which is opposed by the NRA. And Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has declined to take up the bill.

The numbers
When we last examined the numbers, earlier this year, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported there had been 39,773 deaths related to firearms in 2017. 2017 is still the most recent year for which annual statistics from the CDC are available.

The figure counts deaths resulting from suicides (60 percent of the total), homicides, unintentional and undetermined deaths, as well as those from law enforcement. And it was the highest tally in at least 40 years.

Meanwhile, the average over five years — 2013 through 2017 — is slightly lower, according to Brady, the nonprofit formerly known as the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

Either way, the total gun deaths per day is far fewer than the 500 Omar claims:

Total gun-related deaths, 2017: 39,773. Average per day: 109.

Average annual gun-related deaths, 2013-2017: 36,383. Average per day: 100.

Two other anti-gun violence groups — Everytown for Gun Safety, which McBath became a spokeswoman for after her son’s death; and Giffords, which is named for former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords of Arizona — also use figures of 100 deaths per day or fewer.

To get near the figure that Omar used, you have to count nonfatal injuries as well as deaths.

For 2017, the daily average comes to 475 cases of gun-related deaths and injuries, based on CDC figures.

But the CDC itself says its injury estimate is "unstable because of small sample size." And an analysis by The Trace and FiveThirtyEight indicates the CDC could be overcounting the number of firearm injuries.

Finally, Amnesty International states that every day more than 500 people die from gun violence — around the world. That’s the figure Omar’s office cited to back up her statement, and it arguably is low.

A study published in 2018 in the Journal of the American Medical Association said there are about 250,000 gun deaths worldwide per year. That would amount to 685 per day.

But Omar’s claim was clearly made in the context of legislation that would affect gun transactions only in the United States.

Omar’s spokesman, Jeremy Slevin, defended Omar’s use of the 500 figure. But he acknowledged to us that Omar’s tweet was in the context of domestic legislation and that the reference to 500 could have been more precise.

Our ruling
Omar said, "Every day on average 500 people die from gun violence."

Her claim was made in promoting legislation that would add new background check requirements for gun transfers made in the United States.

Based on the latest federal figures, for 2017, the average per day was 109 — that’s counting deaths resulting from suicides, homicides, unintentional and undetermined deaths as well as those from law enforcement.

And it’s 100 if you use a five-year average for 2013 to 2017.

We rate Omar’s statement False.

https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-...han-omars-claim-high-there-arent-500-gun-dea/

 

[beijingwalker]

Nearly 40,000 People Died From Guns in U.S. Last Year, Highest in 50 Years

Last year was the third consecutive year that the rate of firearm deaths rose in the United States. While public mass shootings like the one in Las Vegas make up a small percentage of firearm deaths, they have changed the national conversation.CreditCreditZackary Canepari for The New York Times



By Sarah Mervosh

• Dec. 18, 2018
• More people died from firearm injuries in the United States last year than in any other year since at least 1968, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

There were 39,773 gun deaths in 2017, up by more than 1,000 from the year before. Nearly two-thirds were suicides. It was the largest yearly total on record in the C.D.C.’s electronic database, which goes back 50 years, and reflects the sheer number of lives lost.

When adjusted for population size, the rate of gun deaths in 2017 also increased slightly to 12 deaths for every 100,000 people, up from 11.8 per 100,000 in 2016. By this measure, last year had the highest rate of firearm deaths since the mid-1990s, the data showed.

It was the third consecutive year that the rate of firearm deaths rose in the United States, after remaining relatively steady throughout the 2000s and the first part of this decade.

“It is significant that after a period of relative stability, now the rates are rising again,” Bob Anderson, chief of the mortality statistics branch at the C.D.C.’s National Center for Health Statistics, said in a phone interview.

While there are signs that the movement to prevent gun violence gained momentum this year — state legislatures passed a surge of new gun control laws, gun control groups outspent the National Rifle Association in the midterm election cycle and the medical community recently took on the N.R.A. over an assertion that doctors should “stay in their lane” on gun policy — the findings underscore that even after such efforts ramped up after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Conn., in 2012, gun violence continued its dizzying assault on America.

Suicides have historically made up most deaths by firearm in the United States, research shows.

In 2017, about 60 percent of gun deaths were suicides, while about 37 percent were homicides, according to an analysis of the C.D.C. data by the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence, a public health think tank. (The group is a sister organization of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, an advocacy group that works to oppose the N.R.A.)

Suicide over all has been on the rise for more than a decade and is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States, according to the health statistics center. But researchers say firearm homicide has ticked upward recently and also helps explain the rise in gun deaths since 2015.

Among other public health problems, drug overdose deaths have also been surging, a trend that continued in 2017. About 70,000 people died from drug overdoses last year — almost double the number that died from guns, the health statistics center reported.

Mr. Anderson said there could be a correlation between drugs and gun deaths. While the gun death rate is higher than it has been in some time, he noted that it was even higher in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, which corresponded with heroin and crack cocaine epidemics.

“Now with the fentanyl issue and at the height of the drug overdose epidemic, now we are seeing rises in gun deaths,” Mr. Anderson said.

Dakota Jablon, who analyzed the C.D.C. data for the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence, noticed another trend underlying the data: state-by-state variations, which she believes could reflect differences in gun laws.

For example, Kansas, which received an F from the national advocacy group Giffords Law Center’s gun law scorecard, had increases in both its firearm suicide and homicide rates over the past decade. New York, which was given an A-minus, had both rates decrease, according to her analysis of C.D.C. data.

“Some states are doing incredible work,” Ms. Jablon said. “They are passing these lifesaving policies that are clearly working.”

Dr. Garen Wintemute, an emergency medicine physician who is the director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis, said that the rise in firearm deaths was a result of “a national unwillingness to take this problem seriously.”

In 1996, under pressure from the N.R.A., Congress stripped the C.D.C. of its budget to study the health effects of shootings and prohibited the agency from advocating or promoting gun control.

“We have decided as a country not to do research on this problem, so we don’t understand it,” said Dr. Wintemute, a leading researcher on gun violence who identified himself as a member of the N.R.A.


A gunman killed 26 people at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Tex., in 2017. Mass shootings have occurred recently at schools, music venues and houses of worship.CreditRuth Fremson/The New York Times

A gunman killed 26 people at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Tex., in 2017. Mass shootings have occurred recently at schools, music venues and houses of worship.CreditRuth Fremson/The New York Times

But recently, mass shootings — at schools and music venues and houses of worship — have rocked the American consciousness. Though public mass shootings make up no more than 1 percent of all firearm deaths, Dr. Wintemute said, they have changed the dynamic of the conversation.

“I’ve been working on this problem full time since the early ’80s and there has never been a time like the present in which everybody feels some personal sense of risk,” he said.

This spring, student activists led March for Our Lives protestsacross the country, after a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., left 17 dead. More recently, doctors weighed in after the N.R.A. took aim at their profession in a tweet: “Someone should tell self-important anti-gun doctors to stay in their lane.” Physicians, in turn, shared painful stories about treating gunshot victims.

In an interview at the Tedmed event in November, the surgeon general, Dr. Jerome M. Adams, defended the right of doctors to talk about gun violence.

“It is absolutely within physicians’ lanes to talk to their patients about ways that they can be safer,” said Dr. Adams, an anesthesiologist by training who has worked on gunshot victims and is a gun owner himself. “And that includes seatbelts, that includes bicycle helmets and that includes having a discussion about whether or not you have firearms in your home and whether or not you’re keeping them safe.”

Despite the recent increase in firearm deaths, Dr. Wintemute said he had reason to be optimistic for the future.

“For the first time in our history, everybody has a sense of personal involvement,” he said, adding, “That universal sense of personal risk might just lead to an increase in willingness to do something about the problem.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/18/us/gun-deaths.html

 

[OBLiTeRate TrumpTurd]

109 violent deaths per day is =

39,785 violent deaths per year.

Awesome achievements by the Global public enemy #1, ...
the criminal nation * United Sewage Cockroaches americese.

 

[beijingwalker]

US is killing as many Americans in US as foreigners in other countries, US culture is a killing culture.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

There were 39,773 gun deaths in 2017, up by more than 1,000 from the year before. Nearly two-thirds were suicides.

Not many people drink insecticides or jump out of windows in the US.

109 violent deaths per day is =

39,785 violent deaths per year.

Awesome achievements by the Global public enemy #1, ...
the criminal nation * United Sewage Cockroaches americese.

39,785 Violent deaths...if you include 27,000 suicides.

Even China’s train system wouldn’t sound safe if we add in all the people who jumped infront of one to kill themselves. That is just as violent of a death BTW.

 

[beijingwalker]

2018 'worst year for US school shootings'
By Sean CoughlanBBC News education and family correspondent

• 12 December 2018

This year, 113 people have been killed or injured in school shootings in the United States.

That's the sobering finding of a project to count the annual toll of gun attacks in schools.

At the beginning of 2018, Education Week, a journal covering education in the US, began to track school shootings - and has since recorded 23 incidents where there were deaths or injuries.

With many parts of the US having about 180 school days per year, it means, on average, a shooting once every eight school days.

Another database recording school shootings says 2018 has had the highest number of incidents ever recorded, in figures going back to 1970.

That database, from the US Center for Homeland Defense and Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), uses a different way of identifying gun incidents in school, and says this year there have been 94.

Never 'normal'
The idea behind the year-long Education Week project was to mark each shooting - so that attacks should never come to seem "normal" and that every victim should be remembered.

But it was also an attempt to fill in the gaps in knowledge, because while there was intense media coverage of multiple-casualty shootings, there was much less clarity about the attacks happening across the country each month.


Mourning in the wake of the shooting at a school in Parkland, Florida, in which 17 people were killed


Lesli Maxwell, assistant managing editor of Education Week, said this year has "definitely been an outlier" with two large-scale school shootings, which have contributed to such a high annual loss of life.

Seventeen people were killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

At Santa Fe High School near Houston, Texas, there were 10 killed, with both gun attacks carried out by teenage boys.

"This year also stands out because of all the activism that followed Parkland, with students leading the charge," says Ms Maxwell.

Teenagers, guns and victims
There have been campaigns for tighter gun control - and on the other side of the debate, calls for more weapons in the hands of teachers or school staff.

While such mass shootings made headlines around the world, the majority passed by with much less attention.

Image captionFrancine Wheeler, mother of a Sandy Hook shooting victim, at a rally against gun violence in schools this summer
These included a shooting at a primary school in Virginia last month, when a parent collecting their child was shot in the leg when a gun in the pocket of another parent was accidentally fired.

Or in March in a high school in Maryland, when a 17-year-old teenager shot and injured two students and then, after he was confronted, killed himself. One of the injured, a 16-year-old girl, died a few days later.

The shootings are a bleak list of teenagers, guns and innocent victims. The perpetrators are as young as 12 but are mostly 16 or 17.

The lack of certainty about the number of school shootings is also because it can be defined in different ways.

Highest level
The Education Week tracker only counted events where there were casualties and where shootings took place on school property and in school time and where there was a victim other than the perpetrator.

The Center for Homeland Defense and Security has a different measure - counting gun incidents in school, regardless of the time or whether anyone was shot or injured.

Image captionStudents have been campaigning for action to stop school shootings
This wider measure has so far recorded 94 school shooting incidents across the US - which stands significantly above what had been the previous highest total, 59 in 2006.

By this measure, 2018 has also been the worst year for deaths and injuries, with 163 casualties, compared with a previous high of 97 in 1986.

It also shows the big increase over the decades, with annual casualties in the 1970s never higher than 35, about a fifth of this year's level.

Killers typically 17 and male
The data from five decades of school shootings shows the most typical age for a school killer is 16 or 17 and these perpetrators are highly likely to be male.

The attacks are not often "indiscriminate", but are more usually an "escalation of a dispute" or a gang-related incident.
But as well as following the statistics of school shootings, Ms Maxwell has seen the aftermath.

In the schools affected by such attacks, she says, there can be a cycle of strong and contradictory emotions.

At first, along with the "raw grieving" there can be a "coming together" of communities.

But that can be followed by divisions and a "splintering" as families look for answers and people to hold accountable for their loss.

She says there can be "fury against authorities and institutions", rather than any consensus on what should happen next.

No consensus
There is also no agreement at a national level about how to respond to school shootings, with opinion just as divided as when the year began.

"The needle hasn't moved," she says.

There are calls for guns to be kept out of schools and others calling for more guns to be used to defend schools.

"Our sense is that a vast majority of teachers don't want to be armed," she says.

"Whether it's one child or 17, it's awful and tragic and we need vigorous discussion about how to put a stop to it," says Ms Maxwell.

But there is no sign of any agreement about how that might happen.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-46507514

The US averaged at least 1 deadly mass shooting a month in 2018

• By
• MEGHAN KENEALLY

Jan 7, 2019, 11:37 AM ET
https://abcnews.go.com/US/2018-mass-shooting-month-us/story?id=59418185

 

[LeGenD]

39,785 Violent deaths...if you include 27,000 suicides.

But why?

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

But why?

Why suicide by gun? Probably ease of access and a high probability of success. Over 50% of suicides are by gun which is different from most countries where poisoning is the #1 cause.

I think if you tried to poison yourself there’d be a good chance somebody would call an ambulance and you’d be rushed to the hospital and survive.

 

[beijingwalker]

Mass shooting is a kind of suicide I guess.

 

[大汉奸柳传志]

sometimes I envy the americans, it's hard to find a legal shooting range in China. the one in my city is too far away in the outskirt which has a strict membership control and their gun selection is just abysmal

But why?

depression I suppose