The Center for Disease Control (CDC) measures the number of people killed by guns in the U.S. each year. One problem is that it takes a while to publish the numbers; the most recent year for which numbers have been published is 2011.
It's also a difficult task as agencies do not categorize data in the same way. Gun deaths can include suicides, homicides, accidental firearms discharges, and legal killings. However, the number does not include county-level deaths because of privacy concerns. And who knows what the number of police shootings are. No one has a number that can be considered complete.
Supposedly, the number of people killed by firearms is greater than those killed in car accidents. Although, we again have a data problem. Deaths by car are as of 2012 and total 33,561; deaths by guns are as of 2011 and total 32,251. Part of the reasoning for this claim is that the number of fatalities on the roads in the United States has been going down for years as fewer young people drive, car safety technology improves, and gas prices climb.
No comments:
Post a Comment