Guns used in half of violent deaths in US: study
CHICAGO (AFP) — Guns were used in nearly half of the slayings studied in the most comprehensive examination of violent deaths in the United States.
More than half of those deaths were due to suicide while 30 percent were the result of homicide, according to a study released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The remainder were from undeterminable causes, such as poisoning, and accidental discharges of a firearm, according to the study of nearly 16,000 violent deaths in 16 states.
African-Americans and Native Americans were killed at rates about 50 percent higher than whites, while Asians had violent death rates about 60 percent lower than whites.
The Hispanic violent death rate was about 15 percent lower than that of whites.
Males were more than three times more likely to die violently than females, with an overall violent death rate of 31.9 per 100,000 people.
Men were most commonly murdered because of an argument or during the commission of a crime. Women were most commonly killed by a current or former intimate partner.
Men were also the suspects in 90 percent of the cases where more than one person was killed and women were the victims in 74 percent of murder-suicides.
The bulk of all the deaths occurred in someone's home while about 10 percent happened on a street or highway and about five percent in a park, playground or natural area.
Men were nearly four times more likely to kill themselves than women and 20 percent of suicides were current or former members of the military.
Only a third of suicide victims left a note.
Guns were used in nearly two thirds of homicides and sharp or blunt instruments in 18 percent. Women were seven times more likely than males to have been killed by strangulation or suffocation.
Just 1.1 percent of homicides were considered to be random acts and 4.3 percent were gang related. Drugs were involved in 17 percent of the cases.
An estimated 50,000 people die violently every year in the United States, which is about 137 a day.
