Study: Most US Gun-Related Deaths Are Suicides

Reportedly, suicides consistently outpace homicides in the U.S.

The people most affected by gun violence in the United States don’t look much like the images of shooting victims on television, movies or the news, according to a recently released study from UC Davis.

They’re old. They’re white. And they haven’t fallen victim to a violent crime – nearly two-thirds all Americans who died from gunshot wounds in 2012 killed themselves.

“People think of firearm violence as a crime problem, but the most fatal firearm violence is self-inflicted,” Garen Wintemute, the director of the UC Davis Violence Prevention Research Program, told The Sacramento Bee. “And when it comes to suicide, firearm violence is an old, white guy problem.”

His study, which analyzed firearm deaths from 2003 through 2012, found that while gun-related deaths have remained fairly constant for years, homicide rates have dipped while suicide rates keep climbing.

Since researchers began keeping track of how people die, suicides have always outpaced homicides in the United States, Wintemute said. As of 2012, an average of 82 people died every day as a result of gunshot wounds, the study showed. Of those, 50 were suicides.

Frankly, this is news to me. However, I wonder whether the reported practice of making sure every youngster gets a medal and nobody keeps score in sports contests contributes to the inability of some individuals to cope with failure.