More specifically, gun homicide rates are 25 times higher in the US and, while the overall suicide rate is on par with other high-income nations, the US gun-related suicide rate is eight times higher.
For the study, researchers from the University of Nevada-Reno and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health analyzed mortality data gathered by the World Health Organization in 2010. What they found was an alarming “stark truth about living and dying in the United States.”
According to the study, when compared to other high-income nations, an American is seven times more likely to be killed violently, twenty-five times more likely to be killed violently with a gun, six times more likely to be killed accidentally with a gun, eight times more likely to commit suicide using a gun, and ten times more likely to die from a firearm-related death overall.
“Homicide is the second leading cause of death for Americans 15 to 24 years of age, and the third leading cause of death among those 25 to 34 years of age,” publisher Jane Grochowski wrote in an American Journal of Medicine press release. “Investigators found that for these two groups, the risk relative to their counterparts in other developed nations is alarmingly elevated. Americans 15 to 24 years of age are 49 times more likely to die from firearm homicide compared to similarly aged young people in other high-income nations. For those aged 25 to 34, the risk is 32 times higher.”
“Overall, our results show that the US, which has the most firearms per capita in the world, suffers disproportionately from firearms compared with other high-income countries,” observed Erin Grinshteyn, an assistant professor at University of Nevada-Reno’s School of Community Health Science, about America’s addiction to guns. “These results are consistent with the hypothesis that our firearms are killing us rather than protecting us.”
