4 Surprising facts about gun violence.

4 Surprising facts about gun violence.

1. The scariest guns kill the least amount of people.

Despite the extensive coverage dedicated to “assault weapons” by the media following mass shootings, it appears as though such coverage excludes a few important details. For one, “assault weapons” are functionally no different from any other firearm. As one study has noted of the 1994-2004 “assault weapons” ban:

"The AW [assault weapon] provision [of the ban] targets a relatively small number of weapons based on features that have little to do with the weapons operation, and removing those features is sufficient to make the weapons legal."

That’s right, the difference between an assault weapon and any other firearm are purely superficial, one is far more disturbing than the other, but they are both the same on the inside.

Despite the media craze about the danger of “assault weapons” like the AR-15, FBI data shows that ALL rifles were only confirmed to have been used in 322 homicides in 2012. And when justifiable homicides committed in self-defense are excluded, the number is a mere 266. This is in comparison to 1,554 unjustifiable homicides committed with knives, 518 committed with blunt objects, and 667 committed with hands or feet. Thus, a US citizen’s chance of being murdered by a person with a rifle was 0.000085% in 2012. 

According to the US Congressional Research Office, there were approximately 110 million rifles in the United States in 2009. Assuming that number stayed the same (it probably grew) in 2012, that implies that 0.00024% of rifles are involved in unjustifiable homicides. In comparison, of the 312 million pairs of hands and feet in the United States, 667 were used in homicides. That implies that 0.00021% of pairs of hands/feet were used in unjustifiable homicides, a percentage insignificantly different from percent of rifles involved in unjustifiable homicides. Ultimately, this means that the rationale that the government should ban rifles like the AR-15 in order to save lives makes about as much sense as cutting off everyone’s hands and feet so we can’t strangle each other to death.

2. Banning high capacity magazines doesn’t work.

Banning magazines over a certain size is a popularly accepted gun control measure. The logic behind it is simple; if criminals have less bullets to fire, than they will kill less people. The problem is that most gun crime doesn’t even involve more than a few bullets being fired. According to a study analyzing the effect of the 1994 “assault weapons” ban on gun violence reported to the Department of Justice in 2004:

“[A]vailable studies on shots fired show that assailants fire less than four shots on average, a number well within [a] 10-round magazine limit”.

However, this information didn’t stop the US government from banning magazines which held over 10 bullets between 1994-2004. Despite this ban the DOJ report noted earlier found that:

“[C]riminal use of [large capacity magazines] was rising or steady through at least the latter 1990s, based on police recovery data… Post-2000 data... suggest that [large capacity magazine] use may be dropping from peak levels of the late 1990s but provide no definitive evidence of a drop below pre-ban levels.”

So the ban on high capacity magazines didn’t stop or even cause a decline in their use, and even if it did, most crimes don’t involve more than 4 shots being fired  and thus wouldn’t be affected by the ban anyway.

3. The majority of gun deaths are voluntary

Gun control advocates cite often cite the statistic that there are 30,000 gun deaths per year. While this is true, it is misleading because the majority of those gun deaths are completely voluntary. In 2010, the latest year for which data is available, the CDC documents 19,392 suicides by firearm. Additionally, the FBI reports that there were 8,874 homicides committed with firearms that same year. That means that 69% of firearm deaths in 2010 were suicides. However, even with the 69% of gun deaths being attributed to suicide, a few hundred more gun deaths are considered justifiable (e.g self-defense). In 2010 there were 617 justifiable homicides using firearms by police and private citizens. This brings the true number of unjustifiable homicides committed with firearms to 8,257.

However, many gun control advocates will argue that restricting gun ownership is a good thing since it could reduce the number of suicides. While it is true that gun ownership is positively correlated with overall suicide rates in individual states in the US, a Harvard study found that there is no correlation between international suicide rates and firearm ownership. For example, Japan has a suicide rate double that of the US despite having near zero gun ownership.

Many things correlate with suicide, that doesn’t mean that they cause it. Take for example a study which found that the amount of country music radio stations play is strongly related to the suicide rate, even when controlling for other variables like gun availability and poverty. Should we believe that country music causes people to off themselves? Maybe, or maybe there is another unrecognized variable driving the relationship.

Regardless, if one believes the government should restrict gun ownership to protect people from their own choices, than stopping people from listening to country music, as well as forcing people to have healthy diets would also seem like legitimate government interventions into a person’s life. Such draconian and authoritative interventions could not possibly be supported by any believer in human free will.

4: Fatal accidents with guns are nearly nonexistent.

A favorite argument for restricting gun ownership is that having a gun in the home increases the risk of accidental death dramatically. However, this is not the case. According to the Center for Disease Control, 606 people died due to accidental discharge of firearms in 2010. This is in comparison to 35,332 accidental deaths due to motor vehicles, 33,041 due to poisoning, 26,009 from accidental falls, 3,782 due to drowning, and 2,782 due to fire.

Cause of accidental death	Number of accidental deaths among children (all ages)
Cut/ Pierce	105
Bicycle accidents	551
Firearm	606
Fire	2845
Suffocation	6,165
Drowning	3,782
Falling	26,009
Poisoning	33,041
Motor Vehicle	33,687

And if we look solely at children (age 14 and below), it is clear from CDC data that accidental death by firearm is not a statistically significant problem (see below).

Cause of accidental death	Number of accidental deaths among children (Age 14 and below)
Cut/ Pierce	4
Bicycle accidents	58
Firearm	62
Falling	62
Poisoning	94
Fire	308
Drowning	726
Motor vehicle	1,418

While the media may scare people into thinking firearm accidents are a major cause of accidental death among children, the data shows that such accidents are extremely rare and comparable in number to fatal bicycle accidents. For the public at large, firearm accidents are the least of our worries. Accidental poisoning, drowning, falling, etc are far more likely to occur.

It’s also worth noting that fatal accidents by firearm have decreased 58% since 1991. It appears that this problem is one that is taking care of itself.