North Texas Daily

Surprising fact: Half of gun deaths are suicides

Abstract:
ATLANTA (AP) - The Supreme Court's landmark ruling on gun ownership last week focused on citizens' ability to defend themselves from intruders in their homes. But research shows that surprisingly often, gun owners use the weapons on themselves.

Suicides accounted for 55 percent of the nation's nearly 31,000 firearm deaths in 2005, the most recent year for which statistics are available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention....

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Jonny Carroll

posted 7/01/08 @ 9:23 AM CST

The thing I don't like about this article and just the general public's view is that it sound like guns are the cause of suicide and violence. No, guns are just the weapon used. The cause of suicide can be depression, poverty and debt, bad parenting, failure, no options, etc. Someone doesn't see a gun and decide to kill themselves, they usually make the decision and seek out a gun. At least that's what I assume.

Statistics are thrown everywhere in the article. It's just too many handle and in addition, statistics can be very deceiving and bias. For example:

(Statistics courtesy of U.S. Dept. of Health Human Services)

Doctors
- The number of physicians in the U.S. is 700,000.
- Accidental deaths caused by Physicians per year are 120,000.
- Accidental deaths per physician is 0.171.

Guns
- The number of gun owners in the U.S. is 80,000,000.
Yes, that is 80 million.
- The number of accidental gun deaths per year, all age groups, is 1,500.
- The number of accidental deaths per gun owner is 0.000188.

Statistically, doctors are approximately 9,000 times more dangerous than gun owners.

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Havok

posted 7/01/08 @ 11:32 AM CST

Originally posted by
Jonny Carroll
The thing I don't like about this article and just the general public's view is that it sound like guns are the cause of suicide and violence. No, guns are just the weapon used. The cause of suicide can be depression, poverty and debt, bad parenting, failure, no options, etc. Someone doesn't see a gun and decide to kill themselves, they usually make the decision and seek out a gun. At least that's what I assume.

Statistics are thrown everywhere in the article. It's just too many handle and in addition, statistics can be very deceiving and bias. For example:

(Statistics courtesy of U.S. Dept. of Health Human Services)

Doctors
- The number of physicians in the U.S. is 700,000.
- Accidental deaths caused by Physicians per year are 120,000.
- Accidental deaths per physician is 0.171.

Guns
- The number of gun owners in the U.S. is 80,000,000.
Yes, that is 80 million.
- The number of accidental gun deaths per year, all age groups, is 1,500.
- The number of accidental deaths per gun owner is 0.000188.

Statistically, doctors are approximately 9,000 times more dangerous than gun owners.

Now look at the number of doctors who use their tools to kill people on purpose every year vs. the number of people who use guns to kill people on purpose every year.

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Jonny Carroll

posted 7/03/08 @ 4:32 PM CST

I don't really think doctors are more dangerous, they just are statistically. Just an example of how statistics, while 'true' don't always reflect truth.

I don't know the purposeful statistics, and I don't feel like looking them up. The point is guns don't kill people, people kill people, guns are just the most common and least cruel way to do so in the US.

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