I’m encouraged to see that the most recent gun-related tragedy is stimulating serious discussion of gun policy here and throughout the internets, but I’d like to try to put it in perspective relative to the overall scope of the problem.
First off, here is a pie chart of the Newtown massacre compared to the number of Americans killed by guns in 2011:
Source: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr61/nvsr61_06.pdf
Here is a comparison of Americans killed in Iraq from 2003 to 2008 (inclusive) with the number of Americans killed guns back home during the same time period:
Sources: http://icasualties.org/, Bureau of Justice Statistics
Finally, here is the trend in gun homicides and other homicides in the U.S. over thirty years of reporting:
This last chart gives us a good sense of how the problem has been trending over the long term, and how guns have consistently been the dominant tool of murder in our culture. Gun-assisted homicide is a chronic and pervasive problem that goes far beyond Newtown, and we need to keep talking about regardless of whether the latest mass shooting is dominating the news cycle.
