The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #152163   Message #3557683
Posted By: Rapparee
09-Sep-13 - 11:25 PM
Thread Name: BS: Do we need stricter gun laws?
Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricter gun laws?
Ah, Bobert -- the Centers for Disease Control's statistics show 11,078 homicides by firearms in 2010, or 3.6 per 100,000 of the population. For all homicides, the numbers are 16,259, or 5.3 per 100,000.

There were 19,392 firearms suicides, or 6.3 per 100,000; suffocation suicides were 9293, or 3.1 per 100,000; suicides by poison, 6,599 or 2.1 per 100,000. In all, there were 38,364 suicides, or 12.4 per 100,000 -- making suicide the number 10 cause of death in the US.

According to the CDC, the 15 leading causes of death in the US in 2010 were:

1. Diseases of heart (heart disease)
2. Malignant neoplasms (cancer)
3. Chronic lower respiratory diseases
4. Cerebrovascular diseases (stroke)
5. Accidents (unintentional injuries)
6. Alzheimer's disease
7. Diabetes mellitus (diabetes)
8. Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis (kidney disease)
9. Influenza and pneumonia
10. Intentional self-harm (suicide)
11. Septicemia
12. Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis
13. Essential hypertension and hypertensive renal disease (hypertension)
14. Parkinson's disease
15. Pneumonitis due to solids and liquids

Homicide (assault) dropped from the Top 15 for the first time since 1965. There were 40,393 drug-related deaths, 25,692 alcohol-related deaths, and 31,672 non-fatal injuries due to firearms.

Wikipedia has a table world firearms deaths, but it is all too often "incomplete" data or data combined from several years or data from years other than 2010. Yes, some countries have data for 2010, but unless we can compare all the comparison would be invalid.