There was an interesting discussion about gun violence today on The Diane Rehm Show. I was particularly interested by some comments by guest Dr. Liza Gold who compared gun deaths to motor vehicle deaths. Because I didn’t have a written text in front of me, this is not an exact quotation, but basically, she said, “In 2009 there were nine states where gun deaths exceeded motor vehicle deaths….By 2011, fourteen states and the District of Columbia had more deaths by firearms that they had deaths by motor vehicles.” She went on to say that because so many people were dying in cars, “We have initiated more interventions on multiple levels to decrease motor vehicle deaths.” We worked on motor vehicle safety. The United States has about 30,000 gun deaths yearly. Gold would like to see us stop talking about gun control and start talking about gun safety. She has an interesting perspective.
Related Statistics
More people died from guns than from motor vehicle accidents in 17 states and the District of Columbia in 2013, according to a new report from the Violence Policy Center.
Using the most recent year for which state-level data is available, VPC found in its annual report that there were more gun deaths than motor vehicle deaths in Alaska the numbers were 144 to 66; Arizona: 941 to 863; Colorado: 619 to 514; Indiana: 857 to 840; Louisiana: 886 to 767; Maryland: 578 to 531; Michigan: 1,190 to 1,063; Missouri: 880 to 781; Nevada: 395 to 281; Ohio: 1,289 to 1,144; Oregon: 462 to 363; Pennsylvania: 1,451 to 1,340; Tennessee: 1,030 to 1,027; Utah: 339 to 234; Virginia: 864 to 780; Washington: 632 to 540; Wyoming 102 to 92; along with the District of Columbia: 71 to 30.
Nationwide, there were 35,612 motor vehicle death in 2013 compared to 33,363 gun deaths, which include gun suicides, homicides and fatal unintentional shootings. Motor vehicle deaths include both occupants and pedestrians (from the Hill).
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