Leading cause of homicide

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Thedub88

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The thread about homicide dropping of the list of the most leading cause of death, got me thinking of the leading cause of homicide. A google search only talked about homicide not on the death list. Anyone have any info?
 
I think the leading cause of homicide is humans.:D I am sure the anti's believe it is the hardware component although the increase in gun sales of late should have increased the homicide rate if that were true. It is an interesting question that I have not seen explored before. Human failings such as greed, envy, jealousy, or anger is probably involved in most but there seems to be some who kill just for the thrill. Maybe we are becoming a more moral society but I sure haven't seen any indications of that in the press.
 
An interesting statistic came out in the local paper. More hunting accidents were "caused" by gravity than firearms this past Fall. In other words more deer hunters were killed or injured by falling out of tree stands than were accidently shot. ATV accidents also hurt a lot of people. The truth is that gravity, rifles and ATV's are not at fault. Human error caused practically all of these accidents.
 
Here's the report itself from the CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr60/nvsr60_04.pdf

And the top 15:
1 Diseases of heart
2 Malignant neoplasms
3 Chronic lower respiratory diseases
4 Cerebrovascular diseases
5 Accidents (unintentional injuries)
6 Alzheimer’s disease
7 Diabetes mellitus
8 Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis
9 Influenza and pneumonia
10 Intentional self-harm (suicide)
11 Septicemia
12 Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis
13 Essential hypertension and hypertensive renal disease
14 Parkinson’s disease
15 Pneumonitis due to solids and liquids
 
Are we to assume that the fifth leading cause "Accidents" includes all firearm related accidents? I would like to see a further statistical breakdown of accidental causes of death to see how far down this list firearm accidents rank.
 
Don't see the breakdown for 2010 but for 2007 the CDC reported;
Firearm—In 2007, 31,224 persons died from firearm injuries in the United States (Tables 18–20), accounting for 17.1 percent of all injury deaths that year.

Firearm suicide at 55.6 percent and homicide at 40.5 percent were the two major component causes of all firearm injury deaths in 2007.

In 2007, the age-adjusted death rate for firearm suicide and homicide was unchanged statistically from 2006.

The age-adjusted rate for all firearm injuries was the same in 2007 as in 2006—10.2 deaths per 100,000 U.S. standard population (Tables 18–20). In 2007, males had a firearm-related, age-adjusted death rate that was 6.7 times that for females.

By comparison with the rate for the white population, the rate for the black population was 2.2 times higher; AIAN, 18.0 percent lower; and API, 67.4 percent lower (Table 19). The non-Hispanic white population’s rate was 1.2 times that for the Hispanic population, and the rate for the non-Hispanic black population was 2.7 times that for the Hispanic population (Table 20).
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In the table mentioned in the blurb above, 613 people were listed as dying from accidents involving firearms. Here's the info about firearm-related deaths.

Unintentional.......613
Suicide..........17,352
Homicide........12,632
Undetermined.....276
Legal intervention/war ..... 351
 
I don't think the numbers ever change significantly enough in direct relation to anything to be able to say they are ever more than coincidence. I think the number of murders we have, on average, is just that --the number of murders we have on average. If they go up or down, it doesn't really mean much unless they go up or down a lot and stay that way relative to another change in culture.

If the numbers go down they seldom mention it. If they go up by just one or two, it is a national news story and the story that follows it is the one that calls for new bans and that "America is getting more violent". It never gets more peaceful, just more violent. Sad thing is the news isn't just the news anymore, they want to affect your decisions now. Take it all with salt. A lot of salt.
 
You can sort all kinds of injury and death data at the CDC WISQARS website.

The interface, like all government-run websites, is about as intuitive to navigate and friendly as an East German DMV branch office, but once you figure it out, the information it contains is extremely interesting.
 
It appears that unintentional firearm deaths are relitivly rare and in almost all cases stupidity was involved.
 
There has been a movement among some doctors, especially pediatricians, to ask if patients keep guns in their homes. The implication is that guns are a health issue, and ought to be regulated as such. As scoundrels often do, this subset of doctors drags out the "save the children" canard to lend legitimacy to their purely political cause.

In the February issue of Guns & Ammo, page 12, the rate of accidental death by gun is compared to the rate for medical errors, and here are the numbers (per year):

Doctors in the U.S.: 700,000
Accidental deaths caused by doctors: 120,000

Gun owners in the U.S.: 80,000,000
Accidental deaths caused by guns: 1500

Accidental deaths per doctor: 0.171
Accidental deaths per gun owner: 0.000188

You are over 900 times more likely to die accidentally from a medical error than than you are by a gun.

Source: U.S. Dept of Health & Human Services
 
There has been a movement among some doctors, especially pediatricians, to ask if patients keep guns in their homes. The implication is that guns are a health issue, and ought to be regulated as such. As scoundrels often do, this subset of doctors drags out the "save the children" canard to lend legitimacy to their purely political cause.

In the February issue of Guns & Ammo, page 12, the rate of accidental death by gun is compared to the rate for medical errors, and here are the numbers (per year):

Doctors in the U.S.: 700,000
Accidental deaths caused by doctors: 120,000

Gun owners in the U.S.: 80,000,000
Accidental deaths caused by guns: 1500

Accidental deaths per doctor: 0.171
Accidental deaths per gun owner: 0.000188

You are over 900 times more likely to die accidentally from a medical error than than you are by a gun.

Source: U.S. Dept of Health & Human Services
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Let me play Devil's advocate here for a moment. Doctors also save infinitely more lives every year than guns and nobody would argue that the cost to society of eliminating doctors would be justified to prevent accidental medical deaths. Its really not a valid comparison.
 
Interesting thread.

You are over 900 times more likely to die accidentally from a medical error than than you are by a gun.
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This is pretty wrong. Using the raw numbers, which is also misleading, you are about 80x more likely to die by doctor than by gun. (120,000 / 1500)

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The more interesting speculation, which I never hear asked by either side, is this:

Gunshot is the cause of 31,000 deaths per year.

Now lets have a nation where guns have been banned. No guns. Virtually none for civilians, none for off-duty police, etc.

This is easily possible, and would be the case after a few years, for example, if there were a serious complete ban with strict enforcement and consequences.

Then, of these 31,000, how many would have still been killed anyhow. By bats, knives, fists, etc., INSTEAD of guns. Call this number D1.

And also, how many new deaths would occur because guns were not available. There would surely be some. Call this number D2.

Add D1 + D2, call it D3. D3 is the comparable number of deaths in a gun-free U.S.

Anti's will say D3 would be far smaller than 31,000, we say it would not. Eithere way, this difference (31,000 - D3) is the yearly cost in human life of allowing gun ownership.



N.B. Increase D1 by whatever number you like to account for contraband gunshot deaths, if any. But it would be a small number. Why? How many machine gun deaths occur in the U.S. each year? Almost none. New machine guns really are bannedl, and existing are very heavily regulated, licensed, hyperexpensive, and so on. So I don't think this increase will skew the resulting speculation much.
 
Interesting thread.

You are over 900 times more likely to die accidentally from a medical error than than you are by a gun.
Click to expand...

This is pretty wrong. Using the raw numbers, which is also misleading, you are about 80x more likely to die by doctor than by gun. (120,000 / 1500)

The more interesting speculation, which I never hear asked by either side, is this:

Gunshot is the cause of 31,000 deaths per year.

Now lets have a nation where guns have been banned. No guns. Virtually none for civilians, none for off-duty police, etc.

This is easily possible, and would be the case after a few years, for example, if there were a serious complete ban with strict enforcement and consequences.

Then, of these 31,000, how many would have still been killed anyhow. By bats, knives, fists, etc., INSTEAD of guns. Call this number D1.


And also, how many new deaths would occur because guns were not available. There would surely be some. Call this number D2.

Add D1 + D2, call it D3. D3 is the comparable number of deaths in a gun-free U.S.

Anti's will say D3 would be far smaller than 31,000, we say it would not. Eithere way, this difference (31,000 - D3) is the yearly cost in human life of allowing gun ownership.



N.B. Increase D1 by whatever number you like to account for contraband gunshot deaths, if any. But it would be a small number. Why? How many machine gun deaths occur in the U.S. each year? Almost none. New machine guns really are bannedl, and existing are very heavily regulated, licensed, hyperexpensive, and so on. So I don't think this increase will skew the resulting speculation much.
 
Now lets have a nation where guns have been banned. No guns. Virtually none for civilians, none for off-duty police, etc.

This is easily possible, and would be the case after a few years, for example, if there were a serious complete ban with strict enforcement and consequences.
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How is this easily possible short of a draconian police state? I would venture that the US has far more guns per capita than other countries that have tried and a much larger pro gun population.
 
Not sure of your definition of 'draconian police state', but how to do it is simple, and doable if enough people decide to. No police state needed:

  1. Delete the 2nd Amendment. [Remember: we came within ONE vote of exactly this in Heller. Don't think it cannot happen.]
  2. Outlaw private posession of all firearms & ammunition by anyone, no exceptions. [DC did most of this and nearly made a precedent of it, except, again, by the one vote Heller win.]
  3. Severe fine 1st offence, felony 2nd offence for posession of guns or ammo.
  4. Nearly everyone would decide it's not worth it immediately, the few who didn't would get be caught sooner or later.
  5. In 10 - 15 years I'd speculate that getting any sort gun would be a difficult, dangerous, and expensive proposition. See Machine Guns - They priced far too high for nearly anyone, and they ARE legal.

In 20 years or less, effectively no guns left.

But that's really not the point - the arithmetic of deaths with guns available v. deaths without guns available is the crux of the anti argument, at least the (few) honest ones I've ever run across.
 
I stand corrected on your odds of dying in a medical accident vs. a gun accident (120,000/1500). You are "only" 80x more likely to die by a doctor's error than a gun owner's.

But the rate at which doctors accidentally kill people is 900 times the rate at which gun owners accidentally kill people (0.171/.000188).
 
gun doesn't kill people, but does make killing easier, it's a killing tool

so following scenario:

1. no one have guns, either for law abiding citizens or crimals, i think violent crime rate will drop, but criminals can and will use knives or other means to do harm

2. everyone have guns, both law abiding citizens and crimals, i think crime rate will drop since every crime will be life and death for criminals, making it very dangerous and costly for them

3. worst case is criminals have guns and citizens don't, since right now millions guns are out there and crimals are well armed, so the only sensible way to reduce crime is let citizens get armed too
 
Delete the 2nd Amendment. [Remember: we came within ONE vote of exactly this in Heller. Don't think it cannot happen.]
Outlaw private posession of all firearms & ammunition by anyone, no exceptions.
Severe fine 1st offence, felony 2nd offence for posession of guns or ammo.
Click to expand...

That's essentially what England did with handguns. You get a bit more than just a fine there for the first offense though.
 
Shooting, stabbing, poisoning, etc. are means of homicide, not causes.

The way the title of this thread is worded -- "cause of homicide" -- makes it impossible to sort out. Here's why:

"Cause of death" is a well-known term. It means, medically speaking, the thing that made this person's life functions cease. Homicide is not a cause of death. A gunshot or stab wound may have caused dramatic soft tissue trauma leading to critical loss of blood, shock, and ultimately brain function cessation due to lack of oxygen, but homicide did not cause the death. The cop and lawyer shows may refer to murder as the cause of death, but it's not accurate to state it that way.

So we can see that "cause of homicide" cannot mean the same as "cause of death." Yet that is where the thread went.

The definition of "cause of homicide" would have to be: What caused the person who committed violence against the deceased to decide to commit the violence which ultimately led to the victim's death?

What makes people decide to kill other people? Who knows?

Homicide is a decision. Shooting someone is nothing more than one means of carrying out that decision.
 
gbw: Let's use Great Britain as your example as they have done mostly what you proposed. Did crime or murder drop? Who needs a gun when you have a car bomb, package bomb on a subway train, or people to cowed to prosecute you for not respecting someone else's right to live and possess things.
 
Whew, I thought this thread had something to do with casters or reloaders who are exposed to lead.
 
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