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Smokewagon, your skepticism is well-founded.

According to the US Department of Justice, in 2001 there were 29,573 TOTAL firearm deaths in the United States, of which:

802 were unintentional

16,869 were suicides

11,671 were homicides*

and 231 were undetermined.

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs////glance/ ... frmdth.htm

*Although the data isn't broken down, this likely includes all justifiable homicides as well; there is no statistic for justifiable homicide, so it must be inside this number.


I can't dig up the cite right now, but a 1991 survey from the DOJ indicated that there were between 108,000 and 2.5 million civilian defensive uses of a gun in any given year. The discrepency is high because of differing surveys; the 108,000 was from a survey that eliminated false positives. The defensive use of a gun does not mean that a gun was fired, only brandished. Keep in mind the survey eliminates LEO/military and is concerned only with civilians.

Thus, the math comes out to something like this:

Today, 31 people were killed by a firearm (of which an undetermined amount were killed justifiably by police or civilians; this number does not include suicides or accidental deaths.)

Today, 125 civilians used a firearm to defend themselves from death or serious bodily injury.

Today, 1 child (Age 0 to 14) was killed by a gun (including suicide, homicide, undetermined causes, and accidental deaths.)

Today, 2 children (Age 0 to 14) drowned in swimming pools. (http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheets/drown.htm)

Today, 116 people died in car accidents (according to statistics provided by the USDOT's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, based on 2003 numbers.)