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American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, and science communicator, Neil deGrasse Tyson, has addressed the issue regarding the unusually high number of Americans who die from gun violence by providing some surprising statistics. All gun control controversy aside, it’s important from an educational standpoint to know all the facts, and to gain new perspectives.
In a series of recent Tweets, Tyson had the following information to share:
1.4 Million: Americans who died in all Wars fought since 1776. 1.4 Million: Americans who died via household Guns since 1968— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) November 9, 2015
Author, Eric March, did some fact checking and found that according to PolitiFact, Tyson’s statistic slightly understates the case as American war deaths were closer to 1.2 million as of 2013.
400,000: Americans who died fighting in World War II. 400,000: Americans who died by household Firearms since 2001— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) November 9, 2015
3,400: Americans who died by Terrorism since 2001 3,400: Americans who died by household Firearms since five weeks ago.— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) November 9, 2015
It is said that estimates vary, but according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; 2015 is expected to see approximately 33,000 total gun deaths, which equals nearly 3,200 every five weeks. As Eric March points out, this is comparable to the 3,400 Americans who have died from terrorist attacks since 2001, and this statistic includes the attacks on 9/11 which alone claimed nearly 3,000 of those people.
Additional statistics provided by March includes this report from the National Center for Biotechnology Information which states that “for every time a household gun is used legally in self-defense, there are four unintentional shootings, seven assaults or murders, and 11 attempted or completed suicides-by-firearm.” Firearms are the most popular weapon used to kill others, and people who attempt suicide with a firearm are far more likely to succeed than by other means.
No matter your stance on the gun control issue, the numbers cannot be ignored, and it is clear the U.S. has a problem. As mentioned in Eric March’s report, action needs to be taken on both a personal and political level.
This Article (Neil deGrasse Tyson Gives Some Surprising Gun Statistics) is a free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author and AnonHQ.com.
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What are the statistics of Jews and others slaughtered in concentration camps in comparison to home related gun deaths. Tyson skipped that one
Yes. he did. However, he was talking about Americans.
he calls all of the american deaths household firearms, is this accidents or robbers being shot, or combined shootings of outside the home by robbers, members of gangs or what. easy to show americans as bad guys by using generalizations and not the truth, ANOTHER DEMOCRAT. DEBBIE
In a healthier society, people are not obsessed with guns for pleasure, self defense, assault and suicide. That in itself makes a safer place.
Amend the 2nd amendment!
The US has a problem alright. Idiots owning guns. Wo think it’s all fun and games to own guns who think because I have a gun and because I love guns that they’re not dangerous and either don’t store it properly or use it incorrectly. This is why this figure is so damn high. Give everyone mandatory training if they decided to purchase a firearm. This should be a thing.
Agree. Mandatory at less that much, who to disagree with education.
These statistics are very inaccurate. Tyson is not a statistician, or sociologist . He is marginal as an astrophysicist. He is great on television for children.
What these f^^^ing liars don’t say is that 80% of these gun deaths were suicides. Your propaganda is horse sh^t.
Oh please, if you listen to NDG about anything more down to earth than a supernova you ought to have your head examined. Once he steps outside of his area of expertise he becomes a clone of Bill Nye the actor guy. They both run around pushing progressive causes and claiming it is science.
I like Black space man.. and this makes me like him slightly less… Cold but true and he should know this better then anyone, that even though this isn’t the point I want to make its one that needs to be in everyone consideration. All those gun deaths? They help over population. Not to mention that one of the biggest reasons why this country and the rest of the world is so bad is because all the stupid people no longer die.. Either they don’t get shot for “trying to jump you” (which they then go to prison and either try it again/or kill themselves in the long run because of the Prison institutionalizing them and can’t cope with the outside world. So we spent all that tax money on that…..)(Some do come out better) or they get healed by our ever advancing medical care.
The main point I want to put out though is the fact that WE NEED GUNS! Maybe it wouldn’t have been this bad if they weren’t over produced in the first place and maybe had some stricter license Qualifications. But it is what it is. We need guns now to protect ourselves.. If you think that your protected because your government is there to protect you then you are an ARROGANT FUCK! If we don’t have guns then who is going to be the one to stand up to your government? They could just do whatever they want. We need guns now more then ever. We need to protect ourselves!
You Sir, are a first class jackass and a piece of shit. I can’t believe I’m hearing “population control” as an argument for guns. You’re a true American. If this is actually your opinion, why don’t you do the world a favor and start with yourself. Take your favorite gun, put the barrel in your mouth, and pull the trigger. It will keep one less violent American with Nazi-esque ideals from procreating.
I second the other Guy’s proposition. If you’re worried about overpopulation, you have a gun and a mouth.
Everyone dies, thats the constant. Don’t get so outraged at the subject of population control, tobacco and alcohol are forms are population control. Fucking video games are a form of population control, its not mandatory that you die FROM population control. You dont have to do shit if you don’t want to, respect others right to fucking die/kill themselves. Lives generally speaking are important, excess lives (we can likely agree “excess” meaning the amount of lives it takes to destroy the environment)are bad, this old planets days are coming to an end, global warming, i mean, long term that’ll be the shit that kills HUMANITY, short term SOME people get shot. Either way people die, we are all supposed to die, why not have some fucking freedoms while your alive, shoot some cool guns, drive fast cars, fucking hike awesome places, get stoned, meet new people and cultures, fucking live, don’t just sit in your apartment with your beard, taking your online classes, sipping your tea listening to NPR’s latest broadcast on maximum safety… (spine shivers in disgust)
Faulty Comparison
(also known as: bad comparison, false comparison, incomplete comparison, inconsistent comparison)
Description: Comparing one thing to another that is really not related, in order to make one thing look more or less desirable than it really is.
try again anon
Yes we have a lot more gun deaths than other “civilized” western nations. However statistics don’t tell the whole story. A statistic assumes that all deaths were of innocent people. A large percentage of our gun deaths are gang related. In many of these attacks, today’s murder victim was yesterday’s murderer. Unless you put some sort of filter of “innocence” on your stats, they don’t really point to the tragedy NDT is trying to portray.
Secondly, when comparing the US gun homicide rate to other country’s, statisticians almost always forget to factor in illegal immigrants properly. When they get shot and die, they get counted as a homicide. But since the total population of illegals is mostly unknown, most statisticians just divide the total population (not including illegals) by 100K, thereby skewing the numbers another 10%.
Finally, NDT fails to acknowledge that as gun laws have become less strict over the last 20 years, the overall gun homicide rate has declined. Texas is a perfect example. Concealed carry was passed in 1996. In the 19 years since, violent gun crimes have dropped 42% by FBI statistics and 30% by alternate statistics. That alone should show that strict gun laws do not make the public safer.
Kyle, you can’t ONLY attribute a conceal carry gun law to a state’s declining gun crime rate. Crime rates are on the decline everywhere in the US because of several factors including higher incarceration numbers, greater police presence, more youth programs, decreasing youth population (younger people commit gun crimes), higher incomes…and the list goes on. Unless all of these factors stay constant, you can’t credit the gun law to be the reason.
How can five people comment and not one come with a valid argument against the statistics? Instead you go after the man? Does it matter who the man is, if the statistics are correct?
And if they are not correct, please give proof. Otherwise gtfo.
Sadly, Devon, you are right. One of the gun owner’s favorite fallbacks is, “A bad guy will always get a gun”. They can see the future. What theythey don’t stop to ask themselves is “Where do the bad guys get them in the place?” The answer is they get a) buy them at private sales or gun shows in many states where there is no registration or accountabilty or they steal them from good guys who, after they’re stolen, will go ut and buy more. Remingon, Winchester, Mossburg and all the others just keep making them so, of course, there are more for the bad guys to obtain illegally! Unless Congress gets some balls and enacts a law that forbids gun manufacturers from produing any weapon that doesn’t have some sort of biometric protection so tha these guns can’t be stolen and us by others AND renders the weapon useless if the system is disabled, they will maintain the power and controlt they have come to take for granted that enables them to nd the NRA and corrupt Congres. I also noticed someone else saidthat 80% of gun deaths are suicide. Not sure where that figure came from but sources I’ve seen have closer to 40%. In any case, gun owners possess the same mindset that many Republicans pracice and that’s DENIAL
He forgot that most of those gun deaths are people ending their own life…
He also forget that a lot of them are people, including police, defending themselves from an attacker….
i want to see his data. the numbers reported on the fbi site do not agree with him.
The other thing they never want to talk about is the fact that in countries where firearms have been banned the final statistics do not change. what changes is the fact that you may not be killed by a gun but instead a baseball bat. the “violent Crime” numbers when totaled remain the same.
this is a page with some stats and facts concerning gun control such as since Britain has banned guns, gun crime has doubled.
forgot the link.
http://www.gunfacts.info/gun-control-myths/guns-in-other-countries/
I wouldn’t ask this Clown how to wind a Watch. He is running around with partial truths spinning it to fit “His” narrative. That might fly when he is selling Global Warming on a possible planet 5 light years from here. But real world stuff?, he needs to park it.
Legal defensive use of a firearm occurs over 2 million times a year. This doesn’t mean actually shooting it, but brandishing it as well. if the stats are correct, there should be at least 14 million assaults/homocides and 22 million suicides. The statistics that they listed are horribly skewed.
America is the freest modern country in the world. I have many guns and never have they killed anyone. I am a law abiding citizen. Why would you ask me to give up my freedom because others abuse the freedom? With freedom comes some risk. Our freedom is very important to us and we accept some risk for these freedoms. These freedoms have made the U.S. the greatest country on earth. We safeguard democracy all over the world and practically rebuilt Europe after WWII. Our freedom fuels our great economy, our great discoveries in the medical world, technology etc. All are the envy of the world. I thank God that I live in the U.S.A.
Remove all shooting by democrats. That would be interesting. I think all those household gun related deaths would go way down, maybe 80 to 90%. What is a household gun related death anyways?
How many by NRA members? None, maybe. I’d assume we would hear about everyone of those.
I’ve never met a liberal democrat with common sense.
Then take guns away from all law abiding citizens and I do have to wonder what the increase in home invasion robberies, muggings and other violent crimes & deaths will be. I would think considerable, given the fact that criminals will still have guns, knives, clubs, rocks, bare hands. Just look at Detroit, Chicago, NY, East LA. Strict gun laws do not seem to help much, except to make it harder for good people to protect themselves.
Maybe that is the point?
Vast majority of those are reportedly suicides. Giving a lump sum figure is misleading and doesn’t tell the full story. Just the story Mr Neil-degrasse-tyson wishes to tell.
Where is he getting his numbers? Here is what the US government (CDC) says:
There are roughly 32,000 deaths a yar due to gun violence.
60% are suicides (19,200)
3% are accidents (960)
4% are justified (1,280)
33% are homicides (10,560)
80% of homicides are gang related (8,448)
That leaves 1,712 in a society of 312 million people.
That leaves a 0.00010256410256% chance of death by gun.
AND
0.000008564102564% chance if you don’t hang out in the hood, are not planning on committing suicide, and not planning a crime.
Thank you JTA for sharing the real facts. Add to this the fact that studies have found that there are between 800,000 to over 2,000,000 defensive uses of handguns each year in which no one died. In fact, most of the time no shots are fired. Plus, over 97% of homicides are committed by “prohibited persons” in illegal pocession of a firearm; NOT the more than 83 million legal law abiding gun owners.
Now how many of those deaths are actually suicides and how many are from Chicago?THAT should drop the number by way more than half.We’re not that stupid,you know.
Didn’t notice JTA’s post.But anyway,we’re right.