Comments on: Study: “Better medical care has kept gun deaths constant, but total number of people shot has risen dramatically in the United States”

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 17:17:05 +0000

Maybe, but I think the numbers in this study may date to the post caliber transition.

By: george.w

george.w — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 17:10:01 +0000

I remember a radio interview with a senior (as in AARP member age) Peoria emergency room doctor who said he was seeing an increase in the calibre and power of handgun wounds over the years. When he started, lots of people shot with a .22 and now a lot more 9mm.

Which is to say, if shooting numbers are going up and fatalities are holding steady, then trauma care has gotten really good.

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Links 1/14/12 | Mike the Mad Biologist — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 22:10:55 +0000

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By: SundogA

SundogA — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 01:19:20 +0000

Too small a sample. If claims are going to be made about people getting better at treating gunshot wounds over the past 25 years, we need a 25 year sample. The evidence must match the claim.

By: itzac

itzac — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 20:27:31 +0000

I’m with unbound. The data are way to erratic to claim any kind of trend here. Otherwise you have to ask what happened between 2000 and 2002 to cause doctors to temporarily become so much worse at treating gunshot wounds.

By: rob

rob — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 18:18:34 +0000

good point Greg. kindergartners would probably start out as very poor shots, which would help reduce the death rate. but as they entered middle and high school, their accuracy would improve and perhaps reverse the trend.

i gotta rethink this.

By: Gav

Gav — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 17:24:09 +0000

No.

“There are more people being shot, and of those, more survive.”

Evidently shooters are getting less accurate over time. Although at this rate it will take an age before there are no deaths.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 16:35:44 +0000

But shooters would probably get more accurate over time. Have you factored that in?

By: rob

rob — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 16:21:12 +0000

the trend is obvious. in 2000 the percentage killed was 72% and in 2002 it was 66%. that is a 6% improvement in 2 years. extrapolating the 6% decrease per two years means in 22 more years the percentage of deaths will decrease to 0%. we should try to shorten this time span. if we arm everyone when they go to kindergarten, medical professionals will get even *more* practice treating gun shot wounds. a 0% gun death rate could be attained in only two decades or less.

if you don’t care about the thousands of lives this plan would save, think about the economic boon: more jobs in small arms production and medical science will bolster our economy.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 15:48:14 +0000

Norman, that is correct, and as far as I can tell, appropriate. The basic question is “how many people are killed with a gun” and “how has this number changed owing to intervention after the shooting”

It is interesting to break it down, though. For instance, here is the number of deaths due to suicide:unintentinoal over the period 2000 – 2007, (suicide rounded off to the nearest thousand, unintentional in raw numbers):

17:776
17:802
17:762
17:730
17:649
17:789
17:642
17:613

showing that suicide is stable, important (that’s a lot of people dying every year) but only a small percentage, while accidental deaths (hunting accidents, shooting self or other while cleaning gun, etc.) is relatively low.

The thing about that number of unintended deaths is that they are so preventable. Well, the suicides too, of course, but the unintentional deaths could be significantly reduced with the most basic regulatory intervention.