A Captain I work with recently posted a couple of items to his Facebook page that he forwarded on to me via eMail because he knew I'd appreciate them. I did and I thought all of you might enjoy these as well.



The first post.
After reading an article about the need to for additional gun control I started to wonder (I am also a little bored) what the numbers really tell us. I decided to a little investigative journalism. For my little inquiry I used census reports and CDC collected data. As it turns out 2007 is the most recent year with all the needed applicable data. So for those who are interested here is what I learn...ed today.

In 2007 there was a little more than 2.4 million deaths in the U.S.
Of those, 31,224 were the result of being shot by a gun, including the self inflicted kind. That is to say of the 2.4M deaths in the U.S. a gun was involved 1.3% of the time.
Then I wondered “If guns aren’t’ killing everyone in America, as the article seemed to indicate, what is?
According to the CDC the top 5 killers in the U.S. in 2007 were:
1: Heart Disease – 616,067 (25.4%)
2: Malignant Neoplasm (Cancer) – 562,875 (23.2%)
3: Cerebrovascular (Stroke) – 135,952 (5.6%)
4: Chronic Low. Respiratory Disease (bronchitis and emphysema) – 127,924 (5.1%)
5: Unintentional injury – 123,706 (5.1%)

Gun related deaths were so low they didn’t even make the top ten. In fact it was buried in the “all other deaths” category.
Conclusion: If we are really serious about saving lives we should combat the top 5 killers by; 1: Eating healthy and exercising. 2: Donating to cancer research. 3: Eating healthy and exercising. 4: Stop smoking and start exercising 5: Stop doing stupid things that will kill you.

Oh and one other little factoid. In 2007 there where 97,270 people shot (including the ones that died). Also in 2007 there were 11.5M Motor Vehicle accidents with 44,128 fatalities. So it would appear that the Anti-gunners out there should be focusing on getting cars out of the hands of normal Americans and let public transportation officers get us to and from our destinations safely.



The second post.
Sorry to post twice in one day...particularly on the same subject. After my last post I started to wonder how often are guns used to commit a crimes. So before I start what do you think? That is, how often are guns used to commit a crime? 50% of the time? 80%? 20%? Pick an number before you continue reading and see if you have been mislead somehow or if you have a good grasp on reality. (I guessed...around 40%)

Here are the stats according to the data gathered by The Department of Justice.
Of the "Non-Fatal Violent Crimes" committed in the U.S. in 2008 (the most recent year from DofJ) only 8% of the time a gun of some kind was used. That is to say 92% of violent crimes are committed using something other than a gun. ie knifes, blunt objects ,hands etc.

Aggravated Assaults panned out this way. Of the 731,229 aggravated assaults committed in 2008 160,319 or 21% of the time a gun was involved. In other words, 79% of aggravated assaults were committed with an object other than a gun.

It appears however that guns are used dramatically in one area of the crime world, robbery. In 2008 there were 16,692 robberies. Of those 68% or 11,346 were committed using a gun. (If your going to get robbed maybe you might want a gun for protection...the robber will probably have one.)

Conclusion: If we remove guns from our society we still have not stopped 92% of the violent crimes committed in America. Further, there is no indication that taking guns away would stop violent crimes from happening by "other means". In fact the opposite may hold true. In the past 15 years gun ownership has gone up by about 5%. While crimes committed with guns have gone down by about 4%. Based on these facts its hard to understand why the assault on gun ownership continues. Maybe the media and others have an agenda and are not concerned about reality...and if that's the case what's the agenda...

XXXXXX, Capt, USAF