I love this, the more attention every individual gun death gets the more people will realize that each statistic is a real person, with a tragically avoidable end. Great job by Slate.
While the amount of gun deaths is tragic, more people are killed by alcohol and car accidents each year. Also the guns commonly demonized by the media can be attributed to least amount deaths when compared to other weapons.
We can only blame the breakdown of society for these deaths, not weapons. Man will find a way to kill no matter what if he is set out to do so. Like the bath school disaster, no guns were used but it was the deadliest school killing in history.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_School_disaster
I heard about this info graphic. Very grabbing. I didn't read it super carefully but are they combining suicide and crime? (Yes, suicide is a crime, but you know what I mean.) Also, worth noting: Alcohol kills 75K/year. http://www.nbcnews.com/id/6089353/ns/health-addictions/t/alc... 35K from disease related to alcohol
40K from car crashes related to alcohol -XC
I remember there being a lot more "gun accidents" when I was a kid - the light bulb just went off that this was reluctance to report suicide. Duh. Bjorn Lundstrom made a compelling argument that, from a policy standpoint, one should concentrate on clean water and ignore global warming when considering how to spend environmental dollars. Quite aside from the clarity of the meaning of the second amendment, I say the same thing about policy designed around preventable injury. -XC
Well I actually tend to agree with you, but I think this graph is a very interesting resource for a debate that's ongoing in the media. That's why I posted it. But to your point about auto accidents causing huge numbers of death, that is very true, and its why we've spent tons of effort to increase the safety of automobiles. Looked at in absolute numbers there are still many deaths, but the rate of injury and death in auto accidents, as well as the number of drunk drivers on the road, have decreased a ton due to stricter law enforcement, public awareness, and better designed cars. It seems that any suggestion to do the same with guns is automatically called tyranny by a very loud minority of the population. IMO there are only two ways to solve the gun violence problem. 1) Take away all guns. Obviously not a good idea, and not going to happen ever. 2) Allow for tracking of serial numbers, and make the legal owner of a gun civilly liable for any violence committed with his weapon. That would dry up the illegal gun market in about a day with the propensity for litigiousness that we collectively have.
"better designed cars" they are trying to design guns so that to prevent accidents and crime. It's just not that easy.
It is also difficult to design weapons to be safer when you have a very powerful organization opposed to any such changes. The NRA in the United States is hugely influential when it comes to public policy regarding guns. This is not to say that they haven't opposed certain regulatory reform for good reasons, or that some of these suggestions for gun safety are silly. Some of them are. But it seems that they have a pretty strict let's change nothing sort of stance. -but this is just my perception of their organization, I'm jot a member and perhaps I am wrong regarding this. Any NRA members out there on Hubski?
"death in auto accidents, as well as the number of drunk drivers on the road, have decreased..." "public awareness" This guy did lot in terms of public awareness to lessen gun accidents. "better designed cars" they are trying to design guns so that to prevent accidents and crime. It's just not that easy. Guns are whole lot safer these days than what they used to be in 17th century. It's just lot older tech than cars, so most of the improvements are not in recent memory. IMO there is no way to solve gun violence problem. You can only lessen it. In my country they have "draconian gun law" and it failed to protect us from two school shootings. What good our gun law has done is this "year of mercy". In 1998 police gave six moth long period to give in any unregistered firearm without punishment, the result was 17,000 confiscated firearms. Most of them went to scrap, some to museums and few we're auctioned to licensed firearm holders. This practice was found to be so good that now they have a permanent law that if you report yourself an unregistered firearm, you don't get punished. Common criminals in Finland do not carry firearms. The thing is that well kept firearm is good to go forever. Colt 1911 from the year 1911 can be just as deadly than one from year 2012. Your country lacks any flux away from market for guns. So any malfunctioning, ugly, old or impractical gun just gets resold until it ends up in the wrong hands. I think it's to some extent the same problem game designers have when they try to prevent inflation of money in on-line role playing games. But I don't think you should do everything like we have. Police officers are not allowed to concealed carry when off duty. Same goes for military personnel. People can't buy a pistol if they don't belong to "shooting club". What if your local shooting club is full of neo-Nazi idiots? That's the end of good hobby because you aren't racist enough.
If you go read the first, second, third, and fourth amendments you'll see why draconian gun regulation is greeted with howls of protest. I also think you might want to read up on the Canadian gun registry - it's relevant to your second point. -XC PS - I am pretty sure we haven't reached the 80/20 rule on automobile safety.