That’s a bit misleading considering the vast majority of those firearm deaths are suicides. Calling it simply firearms makes it sound like murder rates are insanely high and that isn’t the case. That’s not to say firearm deaths aren’t a major problem, just that presenting it in this fashion will lead many to draw an incorrect conclusion about the data.
Yes, but there’s only one of those possible uses that immediately comes to most people’s mind when you use the term firearm death / fatality / injury / etc. If you don’t specify that all of these are included in your statistic then you are leaving the door open for wildly misleading uses of this information. That is explicitly the opposite of the intent behind statistical analysis.
I think I’m a part of most people and I’m well aware that firearms kill people a lot of ways. It’s not just school mass shootings, police brutality, and gangs. Most Americans know, or at least know of, someone who killed themselves with a gun. And many know someone who shot someone by accident.
In other words, you’re fine with leaving room for misinterpretation because you personally have enough background info to understand the context. Cool cool
I’d like to direct your attention to “poisoning,” which is even more vague.
I suppose a person with bad intentions could deliberately pull any of the individual numbers out of context and use it as “evidence” for their political point.
But anyone who reads the whole thing is going to notice that most of the categories include suicides as an unstated percentage. Especially “accidents.”
Yes, and as was pointed out elsewhere poisoning is a very misleading category as well because it includes drug overdoses which is not immediately obvious in much the same way as we are discussing with firearms.
I’m not sure what you think you’re accomplishing here though. You seem to be agreeing with me that some of these categories have the potential to be misunderstood and yet you’re presenting an additional data point that helps make that case as if it disproves what I am saying. Are you just categorically opposed to agreeing with someone else without being a dick about it?
I’m simply stating that it’s not so difficult for anyone to see these are general categories and don’t imply anything about intent. I’m not trying to be a dick, and I certainly hope you’re not either. It’s okay for you to have a different opinion from others.
Over the course of five decades, the data showed that the strongest association between an increase in homicide rates and elevated suicide risk occurred in rural communities and among white populations. A one-point increase in the overall homicide rate correlated to a 3.6 percent increase in the suicide rate the following year, according to the study. The correlation was even more stark between firearm-related deaths: For every one-point rise in the firearm homicide rate, there was a 5.7 percent increase in firearm suicides.
tl:dr, firearm homicide and suicide rates are well corellated with a time lag.
We can say that a big problem is simply too much access to too many guns and say that with data as well.
“These results would suggest violence prevention is suicide prevention, and that we can reduce suicides by reducing violence in local communities.”
“We know that suicide and homicide in some ways have a lot of the same drivers,” said Dr. Emmy Betz, an emergency physician and public health scholar at the University of Colorado who specializes in firearm suicide prevention. “Poverty, lack of access to reliable housing or food, relationship stressors, and domestic violence can all increase the risk of suicide or homicide.”
The… so obvious it hopefully doesn’t have to be stated… but apparently it actually does… part, being:
It is significantly easier to kill either yourself or another person with a firearm, than without one.
Its even easier than via using a car, in the US.
Plenty of people kill themselves and others in car accidents or otherwise using/involving a car… but the above graph is as agnostic to intent, to victim/perpetrator with cars as it is with guns, but for some reason, you don’t bring that up, that doesn’t need to be specifically clarified.
If people assumed that deaths from car crashes were usually intentionally inflicted on others, as they do with firearms, then yes, I would expect you to clarify that most car crashes are accidents when citing statistics about them that are not specific enough to convey that information on their own. If you think clarity in these matters is unimportant then you are in no position to be lecturing me about the proper use of statistics. Thanks for being a dick though, that’s super conducive to meaningful discussion.
For clarity, in this graph, ‘Firearm’ means any death caused by a firearm.
Instead of asserting disingenuousness on the part of the graph or article with more context it was pulled from, which I provided a link to.
That would be how to discuss this constructively, vs antagonistically.
Perhaps you have… evidence for your naked assertion related to the prevelance of assumptions/interpretations around specific terminology/vocabulary, in certain contexts?
As a counter to your personal interpretation… beyond having a career as a data analyst, I’ve also had a bit of and off an on hobby of shooting, at gun ranges.
I can very much tell you that the gun immersed culture has… very different (and often much more precise) understandings of all terminology that is any way related to firearms, than people who have essentially zero experience or familiarity or proper training with firearms.
And, in the US… quite a lot of people are far more dedicated to firearms as a hobby or even lifestyle than in… probably anywhere else in the world, per capita.
We do have more privately owned guns than people here, I can’t say I’m aware of any other country with that kind of a statistic… maybe Afghanistan? Syria?
Switzerland maybe? But… their gun laws work in a way that I really think in an ideal world, the US could somehow move toward, much more restrictve than the US, but much less restrictive than many other countries.
I told you that the statistic was presented in a misleading manner and clarified the correct context which is exactly what you’re now suggesting I should have done. If you inferred anything else from my original comment then that’s on you.
That’s a bit misleading considering the vast majority of those firearm deaths are suicides. Calling it simply firearms makes it sound like murder rates are insanely high and that isn’t the case. That’s not to say firearm deaths aren’t a major problem, just that presenting it in this fashion will lead many to draw an incorrect conclusion about the data.
USA used to point to suicide rates in CCCP countries as evidence of winning in te Cold war era…but US rates are now much higher.
Suicides and murders and accidents, in each case it’s the killing efficiency of firearms that makes such high rates possible.
Yes, but there’s only one of those possible uses that immediately comes to most people’s mind when you use the term firearm death / fatality / injury / etc. If you don’t specify that all of these are included in your statistic then you are leaving the door open for wildly misleading uses of this information. That is explicitly the opposite of the intent behind statistical analysis.
I think I’m a part of most people and I’m well aware that firearms kill people a lot of ways. It’s not just school mass shootings, police brutality, and gangs. Most Americans know, or at least know of, someone who killed themselves with a gun. And many know someone who shot someone by accident.
In other words, you’re fine with leaving room for misinterpretation because you personally have enough background info to understand the context. Cool cool
I’d like to direct your attention to “poisoning,” which is even more vague.
I suppose a person with bad intentions could deliberately pull any of the individual numbers out of context and use it as “evidence” for their political point.
But anyone who reads the whole thing is going to notice that most of the categories include suicides as an unstated percentage. Especially “accidents.”
Yes, and as was pointed out elsewhere poisoning is a very misleading category as well because it includes drug overdoses which is not immediately obvious in much the same way as we are discussing with firearms.
I’m not sure what you think you’re accomplishing here though. You seem to be agreeing with me that some of these categories have the potential to be misunderstood and yet you’re presenting an additional data point that helps make that case as if it disproves what I am saying. Are you just categorically opposed to agreeing with someone else without being a dick about it?
I’m simply stating that it’s not so difficult for anyone to see these are general categories and don’t imply anything about intent. I’m not trying to be a dick, and I certainly hope you’re not either. It’s okay for you to have a different opinion from others.
Its only misleading if you are not capable of realizing a person can shoot themselves or another person.
Calling it simply a firearm means that a firearm caused the death.
Thats it.
If you automatically read context into that, context that is not there, that’s either a you problem or a literacy problem.
Also:
https://www.thetrace.org/2025/07/gun-homicide-suicide-data-link-study/
tl:dr, firearm homicide and suicide rates are well corellated with a time lag.
We can say that a big problem is simply too much access to too many guns and say that with data as well.
The… so obvious it hopefully doesn’t have to be stated… but apparently it actually does… part, being:
It is significantly easier to kill either yourself or another person with a firearm, than without one.
Its even easier than via using a car, in the US.
Plenty of people kill themselves and others in car accidents or otherwise using/involving a car… but the above graph is as agnostic to intent, to victim/perpetrator with cars as it is with guns, but for some reason, you don’t bring that up, that doesn’t need to be specifically clarified.
If people assumed that deaths from car crashes were usually intentionally inflicted on others, as they do with firearms, then yes, I would expect you to clarify that most car crashes are accidents when citing statistics about them that are not specific enough to convey that information on their own. If you think clarity in these matters is unimportant then you are in no position to be lecturing me about the proper use of statistics. Thanks for being a dick though, that’s super conducive to meaningful discussion.
You literally just could have said:
Instead of asserting disingenuousness on the part of the graph or article with more context it was pulled from, which I provided a link to.
That would be how to discuss this constructively, vs antagonistically.
Perhaps you have… evidence for your naked assertion related to the prevelance of assumptions/interpretations around specific terminology/vocabulary, in certain contexts?
As a counter to your personal interpretation… beyond having a career as a data analyst, I’ve also had a bit of and off an on hobby of shooting, at gun ranges.
I can very much tell you that the gun immersed culture has… very different (and often much more precise) understandings of all terminology that is any way related to firearms, than people who have essentially zero experience or familiarity or proper training with firearms.
And, in the US… quite a lot of people are far more dedicated to firearms as a hobby or even lifestyle than in… probably anywhere else in the world, per capita.
We do have more privately owned guns than people here, I can’t say I’m aware of any other country with that kind of a statistic… maybe Afghanistan? Syria?
Switzerland maybe? But… their gun laws work in a way that I really think in an ideal world, the US could somehow move toward, much more restrictve than the US, but much less restrictive than many other countries.
I told you that the statistic was presented in a misleading manner and clarified the correct context which is exactly what you’re now suggesting I should have done. If you inferred anything else from my original comment then that’s on you.