Resources

Monitor Tweets about #guns
Monitor Tweets about #guncontrol

Articles from the JAMA Network

Firearm Legislation and Firearm-Related Fatalities in the United States

Responding to the Crisis of Firearm Violence in the United States

Mental Illness and New Gun Law Reforms: The Promise and Peril of Crisis-Driven Policy

A Systematic Plan for Firearms Law Reform

Curbing Gun Violence: Lessons From Public Health Successes

Weapons of Mass Destruction

Silencing the Science on Gun Research

Protecting the Patient-Physician Relationship in Florida

Firearm Injuries as a Public Health Issue

Gunshot wounds and deaths cost Americans at least $12 billion a year in court proceedings, insurance costs and hospitalizations paid for by government health programs, according to a recent study by the National Institute of Justice.

“A USA TODAY analysis of FBI records has identified 186 mass killings since 2006. That includes 146 mass shootings, which are defined by the FBI as incidents where four or more people are killed. Nearly half of those involved someone killing family members.”

From HHS via NVSS:

Cause of Adult Deaths in U.S. (Source: Health and Human Services)

Leading causes of death state-by-state Deaths: Leading causes  [PDF 2.8 MB].
Leading cause of death state-by-state previous years http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/mortality/lcwk9.htm

From the CDC: Leading causes of death in the United States

• Heart disease: 597,689
• Cancer: 574,743
• Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 138,080
• Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 129,476
• Accidents (unintentional injuries): 120,859
• Alzheimer’s disease: 83,494
• Diabetes: 69,071
• Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 50,476
• Influenza and Pneumonia: 50,097
• Intentional self-harm (suicide): 38,364

Source: Deaths: Final Data for 2010, table 10  [PDF – 3.1 MB]

More Data

• Deaths and mortality
• Deaths: Leading Causes for 2009  [PDF – 2.5 MB]
• Deaths, percent of total deaths, and death rates for the 15 leading causes of death: United States and each State
• Deaths: Preliminary Data for 2011  [PDF – 1.7 MB]

KEY Findings in CDC data (source CDC)

• The top two causes, Diseases of heart (heart disease) and cancer, accounted for 47.9% of all deaths in 2009.
• Completing the top 10 for 2009 were Alzheimer’s disease (6th), Diabetes mellitus (diabetes) (7th), Influenza and pneumonia (8th), kidney disease (9th), and suicide (10th)
• In 2009, the 10 leading causes of death accounted for about 75% of all deaths occurring in the United States.
• The rank order of causes in 2009 remained unchanged from 2008 .
• The number of deaths due to three causes increased in 2009 from 2008: Intentional self-harm (suicide) by 2.4%; Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis (kidney disease), 1.4%; and Malignant neoplasms(cancer), 0.4%.
• The number of deaths for each of the other leading causes decreased during this period. The largest decreases were observed for Influenza and pneumonia at 4.6%; Alzheimer’s disease, 4.2%; Cerebrovascular diseases (stroke), 4.0%; and Accidents (unintentional injuries), 3.2%.

In Britain mugging is more common than in Harlem.

The Economist reports:

“According to data from America’s National Safety Council, 27 people died in 2008 in America from contact with dogs (a one in 11m chance of death). The chart below compares the odds of dying in any given year from choking, cycling, being struck by lightning or stung by a bee.”

Guns

Reporting Resources:
(From The Washington Post)

• Data hint at assault gun ban’s effects
  Data from Virginia show a drop in criminal firepower during the period that the assault weapons ban was in place.
• Over 62,000 guns unaccounted for in U.S. since 2008
  The firearms have disappeared from inventories of licensed gun dealers.
• Searchable database Licenses revoked, denied
  Have gun stores in or around your community had their licenses revoked or denied? Search for dealers near you to find out.
• Confidential Documents Deconstructing a gun trace
  Explore a confidential gun trace report to learn about the challenges that face criminal investigators.

From New York Times Archive

A list of resources from around the Web about veterans as selected by Journalist’s Resource, a project of the Shorenstein Center at Harvard.

• The Effectiveness of Policies and Programs That Attempt to Reduce Firearm Violence: A Meta-Analysis Crime and Delinquency, March 2012
• Gun Rights, Abortion, Gay Marriage Views Over Time Pew Research Center, 2012
• 2011 Global Study on Homicide United Nations, 2011
• Reassessing the Association Between Gun Availability and Homicide Rates at the Cross-National Level American Journal of Criminal Justice, December 2011
• Household Firearm Ownership and Rates of Suicide Across the 50 United States Journal of Trauma, April 2007
• More Resources

FRONTLINE: Raising Adam Lanza
PBS NewsHour: The Science of Violence & the Brain

NOVA: Mind of a Rampage Killer
After Newtown: The Path to Violence

After Newtown: Guns in America

A COLLECTION OF WASHINGTON POST RESOURCES:

NRA’s electoral influence

How much did the NRA spend in your district in the 2010 midterm elections? See how NRA-backed candidates fared in your community.

Interactive Map

511 officers down

Have police officers been killed in your community? Learn more with our interactive map.

Interactive Map

How guns move across state lines

Is your state a gun importer or exporter? Where do its guns go to, and where do they come from?

Graphic

Time to crime in Virginia

At one Virginia gun store, guns moved quickly from sales counter to crime.

Graphic

Protecting themselves from the ATF

The ATF’s odyssey of trying to revoke the license of one Maryland dealer.

Gallery

 

Gallery

A city rebounds from gun, gang violence

In 2007, there were seven slayings in National City, Calif., involving guns. In the past three years there have been only three.

Mexican violence, U.S. guns

Authorities have struggled to keep U.S. firearms out of the hands of drug cartels as violence increases south of the border.

Photo Gallery

When cops become victims

Photos of some of the 511 police officers killed by guns since early 2000, and their families.

• More photos: Two officers’ lives cut short

Photo gallery

Dealers on the front lines

Sellers say they work to keep guns out of the wrong hands — doing background checks and watching out for attempted “straw purchases” — but that there’s only so much they can do.

Video

‘Outfitting private armies’

An ATF agent explains how Texas guns fuel Mexico’s drug war, and a killer reenacts shooting to death a Houston police officer.

Documentary Video

Tracing guns by hand

Staff at the ATF’s National Tracing Center fielded 300,000 requests last year.

• Photo gallery: Tracing center

Documentary Video

Bob’s Gun Shop

Shop owner Robert Marcus said he turns away a suspicious buyer almost every day.