Are Firearms More Deadly Than Automobiles?

I just read Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang post to his Twitter account his case for gun control:

“There is no practical reason for citizens to have assault weapons. We need to treat gun ownership as an awesome privilege and responsibility and regulate accordingly. Guns are more deadly than cars and we take tests to get drivers licenses.”

As these types of arguments are going to heat up over the next 18 to 20 months, I thought it may be useful for all of us to have statistics readily available when debating our leftist friends who want to take away our natural right to self-preservation.

Yang said that firearms are more deadly than cars. In 2017, 40,100 people fell victim to automobile fatality, while firearm-related deaths hit a 20-year high in 2017 at 39,773 deaths. So, we’re already lower than automobile deaths, proving Yang’s point incorrect, but let’s unpack further.

Of those 39,773 deaths, the Center for Disease Control reports that roughly 24,000 were suicides. That leaves us with just under 16,000 homicides or accidents. To understand the depth of the amount of firearm-related deaths are attributed to homicide, we can look back at 2012 and see that 64 percent of firearm-related deaths in the United States were suicides.

In Priorities for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence from the National Academies Press, it is reported that while the media extensively covers mass shootings to push the narrative for gun control, these terrible events only account for a small fraction of firearm-related deaths. The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology reports that the most prolific category of firearm violence is found in urban areas as a result of gang violence.

So, not only is it fair to say that 60 percent of firearm-related deaths are a result of suicide, it’s still not fair to say that this should be a cause for firearm restrictions. The United States ranks 34th in the world in suicides per 100,000 people at 13.7. Guyana ranks first at 30.2 suicides per 100,000 people, and has a population of 800,000, which meagerly compares to the United States population of 325,000,000. Guyana also has no guaranteed right to firearm ownership, which shows that even restrictive firearm regulation would not decrease suicide rates.

To conclude, firearm-related deaths, including suicides at just under 40,000, don’t even crack the surface of a high rate of mortality in the United States. Medical malpractice is responsible for 250,000 deaths a year in the United States, more than six times the rate of firearm fatalities, and taking the spot of the third most common cause of death. And the people who want to make you “safer” by taking away your natural right to self-preservation? They’re the same people who have been slowly but surely taking control of your healthcare, the same health system that is responsible for 250,000 medical malpractice deaths every year.