UMEM Educational Pearls

Category: International EM

Title: Death by Firearms

Keywords: Injury, guns, firearms, high-income countries (PubMed Search)

Posted: 12/2/2015 by Jon Mark Hirshon, MD, MPH, PhD (Updated: 12/5/2015)
Click here to contact Jon Mark Hirshon, MD, MPH, PhD

On a day when the 355th mass shooting this year in the USA occurred in San Bernardino, California, it seems appropriate to discuss gun violence.

 

A recently accepted publication in the American Journal of Medicine compared morality data from the USA to other high-income countries, and found the following:

 

The US homicide rates were 7.0 times higher than the aggregated rates of all other high-income countries.

  • This is driven primarily by a gun homicide rate that is 25.2 higher
  • For 15-24 year olds, the gun homicide rate is 49.0 higher

 

The overall US suicide rate is average

  • However, in the USA the firearm-related suicide rates were 8.0 times higher

 

Unintentional firearm deaths were 6.2 times higher in the US.

 

The overall firearm death rate in the US from all causes was 10.0 times higher.

 

Bottom line: As stated in the article: “The US has an enormous firearm problem compared to other high-income countries with much higher rates of homicide and firearm-related suicide.”

References

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/12/02/the-san-bernardino-mass-shooting-is-the-second-today-and-the-355th-this-year/

 

Grinshteyn E, Hemenway D. Violent Death Rates: The United States Compared to Other High-Income OECD Countries, 2010. Am J Med. 2015 Nov 6. pii: S0002-9343(15)01030-X. doi: 10.1016/j.amjmed.2015.10.025.