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When a person dies at the hands of a gunman,
who most often pulls the trigger?

• answer: the victim.

• The National Vital Statistics Reports, Vol. 56, No. 10, April 24, 2008 presents the following numbers for 2005:

2005 U.S. Firearm Deaths
	Number	% of total
Suicides	17,002	56.22%
Murders	12,352	40.84%
Accidents	789	2.61%
War	n/a
Undetermined	221	0.73%

Information in the table above came from data presented in Table 10 on page 34 of the report.

• I have consistently found that students are unwilling to believe numbers like these.   They usually dismiss them as "government lies".  In the early 90s I asked a group for evidence to support its assertion that murders far outnumbered suicides.  I was told to go see the movies New Jack City and Boys 'n the Hood.  A bit later, one student asked, "If there are so many suicides, why don't we see them on the news?"  It was a good question and it prompted a good discussion, but afterwards their beliefs remained. What they had repeatedly experienced, if only vicariously, was murder not suicide.
• On September 27, 2006, Poynter Online published a column about the challenges of covering suicide.
• To explore a related mass-mediated misperception, look at What is the most common crime committed in the U.S.?
• Look at firearm death data from previous years

Other commonly reported misperceptions about murder are put to rest by the annual report of the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) on crime victimization.  The section of its 2005 report on murders states:

• The relationship between victim characteristics and homicide tends to remain the same [from year to year].
• Most murder victims were male (78%).
• When the race of the murder victim was known, about half were white (49.8%), and about half were black (47.6%). 2.6% of murder victims were of another race.
• When information on the victim/offender relationship was available, 77% of the offenders were known to the victim, while 23% were a stranger to the victim.
• Firearms were used in the majority of murders (70%).
• Offenders were most often male (90%), and most often adults (92%).
• Homicide is generally intraracial (meaning whites generally murder whites, and blacks generally murder blacks).
• Arguments were the most often cited circumstance leading to murder (44%).
• Homicides occurred in connection with another felony (such as rape, robbery, or arson) in 23% of incidents.

Data from previous years

• The National Vital Statistics Reports, Vol. 54, No. 10, January 31, 2006 presents the following numbers for 2002:

2002 U.S. Firearm Deaths
	Number	% of total
Suicides	17,108	56.57%
Murders	11,829	39.11%
Accidents	762	2.52%
War	300	0.99%
Undetermined	243	0.80%

Information in the table above came from data presented in Table F on page 9 of the report.

• The National Vital Statistics Reports, Vol. 52, No. 21, June 2, 2004 presents the following numbers for 2001:

2001 U.S. Firearm Deaths
	Number	% of total
Suicides	16,869	57.04%
Murders	11,348	38.37%
Accidents	802	2.71%
War	323	1.09%
Undetermined	213	0.78%

Information in the table above came from data presented in Table E on page 7 of the report.

• The Statistical Abstract of the United States presents the following numbers in its 1998 edition.   The rankings from previous years are unchanged.

1995 U.S. Firearm Deaths
	Number	% of total
Suicides	18,503	53.17%
Murders	15,073	43.31%
Accidents	1,225	3.52%

Suicide data is from table #150.
Murder data is from table #339.
Accident data is from table #148.

• other commonly reported misconceptions about murder

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original web posting: Thursday, December 10, 1998
last modified: Friday, June 27, 2008