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Guns and deaths in America: The numbers
San Jose Mercury News - 2/28/2018
Feb. 28--With all the talk about stricter firearm regulations in the wake of this month's shooting massacre at a Florida high school, how deadly is gun violence in America? Data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention help frame the issue.
According to the most recent figures from 2015 on the leading causes of death in America, homicide of all sorts isn't among the top 10 for all age groups. But that's because everyone eventually dies from something, and most often its diseases of old age.
For all age groups, the top five killers are heart disease (633,842), cancer (595,930), lower respiratory disease (155,041), unintentional injury (146,571) and stroke (140,323).
Homicide of all sorts however is a leading cause of death for Americans in the prime of life, at ages where it's more unusual to die from disease. Homicide is the third biggest killer of children ages 1-4 (369), and for teens and young adults ages 15-24 (4,733) and 25-34 (4,863). Unintentional injury was the top killer among those age groups: 1-4 (1,235), 15-24 (12,514) and 25-34 (19,795). Suicide ranked second for those 15-24 (5,491) and 25-34 (6,947), while birth defects was the second biggest killer of the 1-4 age group (435).
Homicide was the fourth biggest killer of those 5-9 (140) and 10-14 (158), behind cancer, birth defects and for the 10-14 group, suicide.
Boring into the 146,571 unintentional injury deaths for all age groups, homicide by firearm was the fifth-leading cause (12,979) behind suicide by gun (12,979), accidental fall (33,381), motor vehicle collisions (36,161) and accidental poisoning (47,478).
Homicide by firearm was the second leading unintentional-injury category for those 15-24 (4,140), behind traffic collisions (6,787), and third for those 25-34 (3,996) behind traffic collisions (6,327) and accidental poisoning (11,231)
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