Shooting Deaths and Gun Control

Almost 2/3 of all murders in the United States involve guns.a The CDC Injury Prevention and Control Center notes thatsuicide firearm injuries were the 4th leading cause of injury deaths in the US in 2006. Motor vehicle accident injuries were the first leading cause of injury death in that year, followed by unintentional poisonings (2nd leading cause) and unintentional falls.a Among U.S. suicide deaths in 2007, firearms were used most often (50.7%), followed by hanging/strangulation/suffocation (23.1%) and intentional poisonings (18.8%).a The most common suicide method for males is firearms Males most often committed suicide with firearms (56%), whereas females most often used poison (40.8%) followed closely by firearms (31.9%).a In 2007, homicide by firearms occurred most often (66.1%), and in homicides of both males (71.7%) and females (46.4%). Sharp instruments were the second-most used method of homicide overall (12.1%) followed by blunt instruments (5.8%).a Men are not only more likely than women to be the victims of gun homicides but they are also more likely to be the perpetrators of homicides committed with a gun. However, firearm-related deaths rates for both sexes have decreased over the past few decades.a African American women had the highest death rate from firearm-related injuries than women of other ethnic groups. Asian or Pacific Islanders females had the lowest rate.a The proportion of the costs for medical treatment versus lost productivity is lower for self-inflected injuries than for assault injuries. This is because the death rate for self-inflected firearm injuries is higher than the death rate for firearm injuries due to assaults.a In some states, gun violence widely exceeds the rest of the country. For example, from 2001 to 2010 in Louisiana, there were 18.9 gun deaths for every 100,000 people, more than six times the rate in Hawaii.j Since 1982, there have been at least 61 mass murders carried out with firearms in 30 states. In most cases, the killers obtained their weapons legally.i