A Look at Gun Deaths in America

Posted on Dec 27, 2012

Screenshot via The Washington Post

“You know that line, ‘guns don’t kill people, people kill people?’ It’s true, so far as it goes,” writes Ezra Klein on The Washington’s Post Wonkblog. “But in the United States, when people decide to kill people, or kill themselves, they typically reach for a gun.”

Klein is referring to a chilling infographic in the entry that looks at the causes of violence-related deaths by age from 1999 through 2007. The color-coded graph includes a category for suicide because, as Klein notes, “those are more common than homicides.”

According to the graph, firearms—whether used for homicide or suicide—are the leading cause of death in every age group except for “less than 1 year,” “1 to 4” and “10 to 14.” Most notably, perhaps, guns are responsible for more than 30,000 murders in the age groups of “15 to 24” and “25 to 34.”

To take a closer look at the graph, click here.

—Posted by Tracy Bloom.

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