GUNS NOW PUT CARS IN THE BACKSEAT AS NUMBER ONE CAUSE OF TRAUMATIC DEATH, U.S.
Cars have been a central, driving force in cultures all over the world for several generations now. But the wave of exhaust started in the US, with the old Ford Model T changing everything, almost overnight. And once it became the new normal for everyone to have a car, it also became normal for people to die in car crashes. Just think about how many years it took to have seatbelt laws! And even with those, car crashes have been the number one cause of traumatic deaths for… decades. Well, till now, that is. Because the gun craze that keeps growing in America has put cars in the backseat as the #1 cause of traumatic death in the US.
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TRAUMATIC GUN DEATHS IN US HAVE GROWN, SUICIDES, HOMICIDES, ACROSS DEMOGRAPHICS
Traumatic death has long been the bane for Americans aged 46 and under, though there is some disagreement among analysts and historians. But now guns are everywhere in America, and that availability has left bullets flying around like never before. Yet it’s worth noting that it’s not mass shootings putting cars in the backseat now. It’s the increase in suicides, especially from older white men. Black Americans remain much more likely to die from homicide involving guns. Yet over the last 10 years, these numbers have grown to such a degree that cars have fallen by the wayside.
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TRAUMATIC GUN DEATHS HAVE GREATLY INCREASED RATES OF EXPECTED MORTALITY LOSS
Take the year 2018, which had 39,000 traumatic deaths in the US caused by guns. A paltry 37,000 died from a car crash that year. Researchers looked at these numbers in another context: the years of potential life lost, or how many years younger people died compared to their expected mortality. In 2017, researchers hypothesized that 1.44 millions years were lost to traumatic deaths from guns, and 1.37 million years to cars. And the gap only grew in 2018 as a new trend. This news comes from the publication, Trauma Surgery & Acute Care Open. If you want to see more numbers and their breakdowns, you can find them here. Maybe it’s time to have a conversation about some stronger gun control laws? It’s just a thought.
