The Cost of American Gun Rights

Yes, it's another gun thread.

A paper appearing in the American Journal of Medicine has examined the rates of violent death in America and compared it to that of other OECD countries. What they found will shock you. Or should.

The full paper is not behind a paywall and can be read here:

Violent Death Rates: The US Compared with Other High-income OECD Countries, 2010

Extract from the abstract:

Quote:

Results US homicide rates were 7.0 times higher than in other high-income countries, driven by a gun homicide rate that was 25.2 times higher. For 15- to 24-year-olds, the gun homicide rate in the United States was 49.0 times higher. Firearm-related suicide rates were 8.0 times higher in the United States, but the overall suicide rates were average. Unintentional firearm deaths were 6.2 times higher in the United States. The overall firearm death rate in the United States from all causes was 10.0 times higher. Ninety percent of women, 91% of children aged 0 to 14 years, 92% of youth aged 15 to 24 years, and 82% of all people killed by firearms were from the United States.

Check that again: 82% of all people killed by a firearm in 25 OECD countries were from the United States.

I encourage you to go to the full paper and check the statistics for yourself. From the paper's Conclusion:

Quote:

Overall, our results show that the United States, which has the most firearms per capita in the world, suffers disproportionately from firearms compared with other high-income countries. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that our firearms are killing us rather than protecting us.

via International Skeptics Forum http://ift.tt/1K48jFw