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GUNS & AUTO

Gun Deaths to Surpass Traffic Deaths by 2015

The CDC informs Americans of the big switch

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by Dain Fitzgerald

Staff Writer t

The worst of both worlds / Image: blog.nj.com

First, the good news: both traffic deaths and deaths by firearms have been reduced in no small measure over the last couple of decades. The bad news: gun fatalities are creeping back up again, and will soon surpass the number of those killed by auto accidents.

That's the word from the Centers for Disease Control by way of Business Insider's Walter Hickey. If current trends continue, informs the CDC, by 2015 more people will lose their lives by gun than by car.

"At the current rates, gun deaths should hit around 33,000 annually in 2015 while traffic fatalities should decrease to around 32,000," writes Hickey. "Motor vehicle deaths have declined 22 percent since 2005 while gun fatalities - including homicide, suicide and accidents - have steadily risen from a low point in 2000."

The impending tipping point appears to have more to do with the drastic reduction in unsafe driving than with a dramatic increase in dangerous firearm use. "In the past several decades, we've seen remarkable improvements in both the way motorists behave on our roadways and in the safety of the vehicles they drive," said a representative for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in a recent statement.

Via Business Insider.
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Is it surprising to hear that gun deaths will soon exceed car crash deaths?

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Comments (view in Forum)

  • nomdeplumme
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    @Polusalo I guess it's easy to be flippant when you don't care about a right that's is being encroached on. But you are radically misinformed. The reason the pope was unhappy will Galileo was because he was being disrespectful of the churches authoritah not because of the intrinsic findings of his research. Then again why let the truth bother your dimwitted little head.
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    Polusalo
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    @nomdeplumme

    You're right man. Our rights are being encroached on. We should have any weapon we deem fit, available to us at all times. Can you believe they actually outlawed regular citizens from having nuclear weaponry? I can't. What? We shouldn't have those? Well why not? Our right to keep and bear arms clearly states we can have weapon we want for private use.

    What if I want to slander someone? Commit libel? Why aren't those protected under my first amendment rights, dammit?! It says we can say whatever!

    My child is dying and my religion says there shouldn't be any medicine given to them, who is the big bad government to tell me what to do?

    That's right, because these "rights" that everyone seems to clammer on about when they don't like change, is subject to reasonable limitations.

    It's the people who are the most scared of a better change who are also the people who refuse to look at the rest of the world and see how their practices are better than ours. Canada has around 50 gun deaths a year. They have strict gun laws. Japan has as few as 2 a year. Strict gun laws.

    Also, do you know exactly how he was being disrespectful? For portraying the truth about the churches and Pope's strongly held beliefs. That's why he was charged with heresy. He ridiculed their beliefs using science. The same way you'd do had someone today told you the Earth was flat. Or perhaps the same way you were disrespectful to me, by saying I had a dimwitted little head. Maybe you should be prosecuted and spend the rest of your life under house arrest. Oh, if only Galileo had our first amendment rights back then.

    Perhaps you'd like to educate yourself and read exactly what the church found to be disrespectful:

    http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials...

    Though I doubt it.

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    CaryNickel
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    And during that same time period, around 190,000 people were killed by automobiles. So outlawing cars will still save almost four times as many lives as outlawing guns.
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  • View all 40 replies >

  • Bobolinsky
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    I can see it now... One week after it's announced that cancer has been cured the headlines will read... "Gun Deaths, HIV, and Too Much Salt Surpass Cancer as Cause of Death: Democrats Blame Republicans for Inaction"
  • Fishbone345
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    Nah. This is America. Heart Disease will still be number one regardless the year.
    Lots of fatties here ya know and they ain't getting any thinner!
  • Bobolinsky
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    @Fishbone345-- I was assuming that heart disease was already top of the list, so it didn;t fit the headline I was going for. But you are right. Heart disease tops the list.

    But how about this perspective? Setting aside for a moment, obesity and other causes of early death from heart disease that deserve attention... Isn't that the way we want it? If something is going to top the list as "cause of death" in a population... wouldn't "his/her ticker just got too tired" be preferable to just about anything else?
  • martydotcom
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    why not lot at reality Think about it, there is a real reason for reduced highway deaths and it's called the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety -The people who crash cars to make them safer. They did roll over tests, the head on and side impact crash tests tests resulting in safer cars Add to better design the advent of front and side air bags, anti lock brake stability control, etc. Gun industry hasn't changed

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  • jmann88
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    Well we know this site is all about gun control. Load of garbage. 30,000+ is probably a yearly rate for car wrecks. How about we report some real head lines like : USA is in the tank and about to go bankrupt because of wreck less spending from the White House. Or obamas unwillingness to budge on taxes and wants America to be broke.

    I and probably many are tired of hearing about gun control.

    Say if a hummer plowed through that class room killing those poor children would we have a issue with car control? Probably not
  • jmann88
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    @Polusalo idk what don't they try? Them Dems are pretty good at slide of hand and lies so they both could be great magicians.
  • u
    Polusalo
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    @jmann88
    Sleight of hand*
    Sleight of hand, also known as prestidigitation or legerdemain, is the set of techniques used by a magician (or card sharp) to manipulate objects such as cards and coins secretly.

    Doesn't even make sense. What you said there.
  • u
    Polusalo
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    @jmann88
    You're*

    And no. But having atleast a middle-school reading level helps when you're trying to prove a point, discussion, debate or argument.

    Republicans made you believe that voter suppression meant suppressing voter fraud.

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  • ace19636
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    Um..... when the amount of people who are killed by guns is like 10,000-20,000 I call BS Unless they are including suicide whit guns witch dose not count because those people would kill themselves ether way.
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    EMS_Servant
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    I wonder what percentage of those are violent gun deaths (assault) as opposed to suicide or accidental (gun cleaning, bad gun smithing, using wrong ammo, hunting accidents, not beig sure of what is on the other side of your target or not having a good back stop, etc)? I would love to see the entire report...
  • DARSB
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    This ought not be a surprise to anyone. Automobile safety has been increasing steadily for decades while firearms continue to be efficiently deadly.
  • MarkJM
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    Propaganda, plain and simple. First, that's 3 years from now and anything can happen between now and then. Second, motor vehicles outnumber firearm deaths by more than 3:1 (34,485 motor vehicle deaths to 11,493 firearm deaths, source FBI). And if people are so worried about weapons, according to the FBI, the number one "weapon" used in the commission of a homicide is a Baseball Bat (falls under non-firearm homicides, which number at 16,799). All these numbers are from 2011 levels.

    http://www.conservativedailynews.com/2012/12/...
  • u
    Belin
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    Automobiles are safer now than they have ever been! The laws requiring seatbelt and rules on children in car seats and toddler seats have also greatly diminished the mortality rate. I believe that comparing them now is not equitable.
    Gun violence has been around my entire life and am sure it was there before I was borne! The evil criminals are not going to buy their guns legally. There is more important things our nation needs to be working on like the fiscal cliff.
  • Dan_Tien
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    Junk science.

    "The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has released a preliminary report estimating that 32,310 people died on the nation's highways (in 2011).

    "In 2011 - the latest year for which detailed statistics are available - there were 12,664 murders in the US. Of those, 8,583 were caused by firearms."

    That means that there were 23,727 more deaths in traffic accidents in 2011 than murders by firearms.

    Neither traffic accidents nor gun related murders can be considered diseases, so why is the CDC expressing an opinion and who is trying to use "trends" to predict a future that does not resemble current reality?
  • Pragmatist
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    You are only counting murders. If you include suicides and accidental deaths due to firearms. Since then the total has risen to 31,328 in 2010.

    http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/injury.htm

    Maybe you could argue that suicide by firearms doesn't count... but then to make it match with the traffic deaths, you would have to restrict that number to voluntary manslaughter (where someone intentionally tries to harm another with their car).
  • Dan_Tien
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    @Pragmatist According to data provided by the CDC, total firearm deaths for 2011 amounted to 31,347. Firearm suicides in 2011 amounted to 18,735 people (over twice as many as people murdered by firearms). If 8,583 murders were committed with firearms that would mean that there were 4029 accidental deaths related to firearms.

    Suicide was the 10th leading cause of death in that year and accidental deaths was 5th. Murder was not in the top 15 list. Total suicides were 38,285, total accidental deaths was 122,777. This means that almost half of all suicides in 2011 were carried out with a gun, whereas 1/30th of all accidental deaths resulted from firearms.

    I saw no data concerning suicides by car crash. It would be difficult to prove that someone had killed themselves deliberately by staging an "accident" unless they left a note or threatened to do so beforehand. If you somehow prevented people from owning a gun with which to commit suicide, would that prevent them from killing themselves, or just force them to find another way to do it? Could that alternate method end up being a head-on collision with another car? If so, then gun laws that successfully lowered the total number of deaths by firearms could end up raising the number of traffic fatalities, not only by the increased number of people who killed themselves in traffic, but also by the number of people that they killed in other cars while doing so.
  • o
    Big-R
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    This is a false report. Gun violence would have to increase by 300% to surpass auto deaths. That's a fact for you. As the article explains, both traffic, and gun deaths are declining! So if it is declining, how can gun deaths increase by 300%, preposterous reporting at best.
  • o
    Big-R
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    @woodtick57 Yes they are but they are still less than previous years. Again they would have to increase by 300% to break 33,000 deaths.
  • u
    fistv
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    I find it interesting that traffic fatalities have been reduced once gas prices moved to over $3 a gallon and most of the commuters we had moved back into NYC and LI where they work. Lets also mention that those cdc statistics include law enforcement shootings of suspects and criminals.
  • u
    S-N-A-F-U
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    In this morally corrupt culture of ours, its not surprising -- everything negative will also increase exponentially as time goes on. With Gratuitous violence and sex pumped out daily by Hollyweird with govt corruption growing and mollified almost at the same pace...What could go wrong?
  • u
    Yank
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    @woodtick57 they are seasonally droping. Compair them to last year and the national average is actualy 3 cents higher.
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