Hartmann just now: "More Americans have died by gun violence

[Dragonbreathp9d]

Since 1960 than all of combat deaths since and including the Revolutionary War"

Wow

[cantbeserious]

1. More Evidence Of America's Depraved Gun Culture

eom

[HooptieWagon]

2. I doubt that's accurate.

Just the Civil War and WWII combined are well over a million deaths. Even if we assume a fairly high annual homicide gun death rate of 20,000 X 50 years...thats a million in round numbers.

[Junkdrawer]

3. Doubt no more....

http://www.upworthy.com/its-one-of-the-craziest-internet-rumors-about-guns-and-as-it-turns-out-its-true?c=la1

[Dragonbreathp9d]

5. Thanks for the link!

I hate not having an actual cited source

[timdog44]

10. another source

from Wikipedia. Total combat deaths of all US wars and conflicts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_casualties_of_war
Combat deaths are almost 850,000. Sad to say. But so is the number of gun deaths since 1960!!!
A great number of the deaths in the wars were due to illness and infection.

[HooptieWagon]

12. Thats the problem with cherry-picking data.

If you are going to subtract non-combat military war deaths, then I will subtract suicide gun deaths for being non-violent. That reduces gun deaths by over 50%, to less than 700 thousand. There have been more auto-related deaths than that...and far more drug-related deaths, especially if alcohol and tobacco are included.

[HooptieWagon]

9. Okay, here's the breakdown:

Civil war - 625,000
WWII - 405,399
WWI - 116,516
Vietnam - 58,209
Korean - 36,516
Revolutionary - 25,000
1812 - 20,000
Mexican - 13,283
War on terror - 6,280
Philippine - 4,196
These are just the top ten in US military deaths, giving a total of 1,310,399. From Wiki.
Now, the gun deaths figure in your graph appears to be just under 1.4 million (exact figure not stated). It was stated that figure included suicides and accidents - no doubt to pump the number up, since suicides are about 60% of gun deaths. My figures above are only military (and only top ten at that), no doubt they could be padded much higher by including civilian deaths and Native American deaths. So the premise in OP is false.
I doubt that gun deaths since 1960 even add up to auto-related deaths since 1960. I might look that up.
Of course, all these figures pale in comparison to some other death figures.... 7 million Russians killed in WWII. 6 million Jews executed prior and during WWII. Maybe 20 million? or so Europeans dying of the Black Plague. And most horrible of all, something like 100 million combined North, Central, and South American Natives killed by the Spanish Conquistadors.

[Number23]

30. The subject of the OP was quite clear

More Americans (emphasis on Americans) have died from gun violence than combat deaths in all wars combined.

Why you are suddenly including auto deaths and deaths of non-Americans in foreign wars that have absolutely nothing to do with the subject at hand is nothing short of baffling. And suicide by gun is still a gun death so there would be absolutely no reason to not include the number of suicides and accidental shootings.

[HooptieWagon]

35. Why exclude all but one category of war deaths,

and include every possible category of gun death, as Hartman did, if he didn't want to be intellectually dishonest? Its cherry-picking the data to reduce it to a bumper-sticker slogan, like Fox does to their gullible audience.

[Number23]

37. Because gun deaths are much easier to quantify than war deaths

This is not hard. "Did this person die from a gunshot" is about as straightforward a question and answer as you could possibly get.

People can die from wars decades after they are over so this is why the focus is on deaths in combat. This is not hard to understand, if you're not promoting an agenda of some sort.

[Lionessa]

29. Do gun incidents include legal police shooting supposed bad guys and

regular citizens properly defending themselves? I'm just curious what is included in this definition of "gun deaths" since I don't think we want to disarm our police or disarm citizens legally owning, carrying, and defending themselves with standard handguns as opposed to assault weapons.

[Junkdrawer]

33. Should we subtract the enemies killed from the war dead too?

Or maybe subtract the lives we think the "enemy" would have taken if we didn't go to war?

Any more sand you'd like to kick in our eyes?

[Lionessa]

34. Enemies already are subtracted since it says, "Americans killed" not "people killed"

Would you like to bury your head in the sand any further?

[HooptieWagon]

36. The statement includes...

every possible category of gun deaths, and excludes every possible category of war deaths except in direct combat.
:rolleyes:

[Lionessa]

39. Exactly, I agree that those stats are biasly hyped and therefore useless and lack any connection

to logical comparisons.

[HooptieWagon]

42. They even include accidents in one category, and exclude them in the other.

Thats the kind of propaganda we'd expect from Fox.

[Sekhmets Daughter]

4. It depends on how you count the deaths....

Last edited Sat Feb 9, 2013, 07:31 PM - Edit history (1)

If you subtract non-combat deaths from the totals for the Civil War, WW I & WW II you get 848,163 war dead. There have been 1.3 million people killed by guns since 1960. If you include the non-combat deaths for those three wars it's close, with 26, 612 more people dying as a result of war.

[HooptieWagon]

11. All war deaths, as stated in the OP

Add up to over 1.3 million...and I counted just the top ten military deaths. As you said, civilian deaths put the figure higher. And it seems logical to me to include deaths of Native Americans in wars against them, once the territories they lived were claimed by the US. That puts the figure much higher. Therefore the premise in the OP, intending to be an AGZ talking point, is proven false.

[Sekhmets Daughter]

17. Civilian deaths are not included...

Non-combat means they didn't die in combat, but rather from disease or some accident. WW I saw more soldiers die from the Spanish Flu than combat, for example. No, we don't count the deaths of Native Americans...they were enemy combatants and their women and children were civilian deaths, thus not included.

The premise is not false, although I can appreciate that you would like it to be so.

[HooptieWagon]

18. So why are non-violent gun deaths, sucides and accidemts, included?

Lets see, one data set includes accidents and non-violent deaths, and the other set doesn't. Is that not a dishonest representation of the data? Is being dishonest to make a talking point not a RW tactic? Now Dems have resorted to it?

[Sekhmets Daughter]

19. Just exactly what is a non-violent gun death?

[HooptieWagon]

22. Suicides are in a different category than homicides.

Since self-inflicted, they fall more in a mental health problem category than a violence problem category.
But, since suicides are over 50% of gun deaths since 1960 (currently over 60%) I guess those numbers had to be included in the data to make a point...even if a intellectually dishonest one.

[Sekhmets Daughter]

23. Since when?

Gun deaths are gun deaths. Have you even seen a room in which someone committed suicide using a gun? The issue is the easy access to guns for criminals and crazies.... You are the one who is being intellectually dishonest, not the OP.

[HooptieWagon]

25. I know 5 suicide victims.

None were by gun.
My point is, in order to make his point Hartman had to include every possible statistical category of gun deaths, and exclude every possible statistical category of war deaths except in direct combat. That is intellectually dishonest...something along the lines of what Fox News does.

[Sekhmets Daughter]

27. I respectfully disagree.

I think he was comparing gun deaths to combat deaths in order to give people some perspective on the numbers of people who die from having bullets introduced into their bodies.

Look, I am not one who wants to ban all guns, I don't even want to ban those long guns y'all are so crazy about.... I just want a really strict and workable system to keep guns out of the wrong hands. I would issue a moratorium on those 30 round thingys for say 10 years, or until such a time as we can feel certain the proper safe guards in place and the only people having access to them are honest, sane Americans.

[NoGOPZone]

26. The CDC and the WHO include suicide as an act of violent death

http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/NVDRS/index.html

http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/violence/world_report/en/abstract_en.pdf Page 3 of report

also worth mentioning that the CDC is also including accidental gun deaths

[HooptieWagon]

28. Absent mental health issue, no death.

[NoGOPZone]

31. You commented that suicides and homicides are in a different category

I presented evidence of respected medical organizations that do consider them both to be violent deaths. Your reply has little to do with how these deaths are categorized.

[HooptieWagon]

40. If you want to include all gun deaths,

then intellectual honesty would be to include all war deaths. Otherwise, its the same crap Fox feeds to their gullible audience.

What possible justification can there be to include every single possible category of gun deaths, and exclude every single possible category of war deaths except direct combat?

[NoGOPZone]

41. Not the point I'm arguing

so if you want intellectual honesty, don't flirt with strawmen. My point is that there are legitimate reasons for considering suicides as violent deaths.

[HooptieWagon]

44. And civilian war deaths aren't violent or war-related?

[NoGOPZone]

46. Another point I'm not arguing

At first I though Sekhmets Daughter was being unfair for saying you were the one being intellectually dishonest in post 23. No I'm not so sure. In answer to that posters comment about what gun deaths are non violent, you made a statement separating suicides from homicides. My comments have only related to that issue, including my first reply

[HooptieWagon]

47. Its the point I'm arguing.

Common standards should exist for both sets of data.
I don't object to suicides being included in gun deaths, but then civilian deaths should be included in war deaths. And accidental deaths should likewise be included in both sets of data.

[NoGOPZone]

49. Then you might try to argue it

with someone who's expressed an opposing view.

[LittleBlue]

6. Makes me wonder about the obsession over terrorists

Who have killed an insignificant fraction of people compared to our own armed populace!

It's a farce to claim we care about "threats" in Yemen when America is armed to the teeth and killing one another.

[Marengo]

8. Misread the citation, so self-deleted

[timdog44]

13. I think the point is still made

regardless of whether cherry picking is done or not. But the OP said combat deaths. And I suppose semantics plays in to this, but lots of deaths in the Civil War were infections and dysentery, etc.

And the deaths of the Russian, Jews, Gypsies, and others in WW2 makes all this pale in comparison. And if you include the people killed in Russia by Stalin -- where does it end.

[krispos42]

14. Well, here's the problem with that

If go with that presumption, then you can't also attribute most of the deaths typically considered to be due to:

Gang wars
Drug wars
Domestic violence
Hate crime
Depression.


2/3rds of all homicides are done with guns. If you want to attribute that to gun availability, then that means you automatically cut all homicides due to gang violence, domestic abusers, etc. If a man kills his wife with a gun, it's death by gun violence. If he uses a knife, it's death by domestic violence.



Guns are the tool, they are not the motivation.

[kenny blankenship]

15. Does this mean we should drone strike US gun owners?

Since they are manifestly more lethal to America than "terrorists" on the other side of the planet who are for the most part in conflict with their local governments?

[indepat]

16. These are but small prices a right-wing-soused society willingly pays for the right to pack

mega-heat of the AR-15-type military-grade weapon of mass carnage.

[krispos42]

51. Your hatred of the AR-15 is not based in reality

All rifles account for about 400 deaths a year.


I think what you hate is the kind of person that would buy an AR-15 in the first place.

[indepat]

52. The need for an American to pack a military-grade weapon that can fire 600-700

rounds per minute is not based in reality, imo, particularly in view of so few being killed by military-grade assault weapons. Thom Hartmann has stated more Americans have been killed by guns since 1960 than have been killed in combat during all wars going back to the Revolutionary War. I don't hate the AR-15, I just hate seeing jerk-wads toting such, and might very well own more guns than you and most Americans, for that matter, if you count pistols, rifles, and shot-guns, but I don't own/don't got no assault weapons, be it an assault rifle, a machine gun, a missile launcher, a mortar, or the like. Have a good day.

[krispos42]

57. Military grade, huh?

So people shouldn't have a dependable, ergonomic, accurate rifle?

"Military grade" or "military style" arguments are irrelevant; being military-grade or military-style does not change the fact that they are semi-automatic rifles. They shoot common ammunition of no special ability, power, or construction.

Style is about looks; grade is about quality. Neither of which turn an AR-15 into anything more than a semiautomatic rifle.


And an AR-15 does not shoot 600-700 rounds per minute. The full-auto version that the military uses, if you take the time between firing-pin strikes, would have a rate like that until it ran out of ammuntion and the magazine had to be changed.

You might as well claim that a .45 pistol can shoot 1,200 rounds a minute, because that's the cyclic rate of a full-auto conversion.


And people aren't killed by guns, they're killed with guns. The War on Drugs, domestic violence, gang violence, robberies, etc. Are those issues suddenly no longer a problem? Do those issues no longer count as contributing to the homicide rate if it's a gang shooting or a domestic violence shooting?

Thom doubtless failed to mention that more Americans were killed since 1960 with non-gun weapons than died in WW2.

He has an agenda. Like you, even though the Republican-leaning owners of tactical rifles are only a minor slice of the murder pie of America, he does not like their fantasies about keeping the government in check with threats of violence, or their weird anti-government views, or who they vote for.

He's a great guy; I used to listen to his show up until he began charging for them. And I generally agree with him, but not on this issue.

[The Straight Story]

20. They used guns in those wars too. Does this count suicides?

Because if there were no guns people would find other ways.

It is like attributing deaths to smoking, even if someone was killed accidentally/malpractice/etc, because the death certificate has a check box that relates to whether the person was a smoker or not.

Helps inflate numbers and agendas, but is not very scientific (which is something I usually expect from the rw since they hate science)

[timdog44]

21. I understand what you are getting at.

Big pharma and big ag use those tactics.

And you are right, other ways would be found to kill people or themselves. Knives? Probably not as many deaths?

When I research I always look for the agenda first. Sometimes the agendas are correct, lots of times, not. Lots of times the agenda boils down to $$$$$$.

[HooptieWagon]

24. Russia has had far more combat deaths than gun deaths.

Should we conclude Russia has a war problem?

[Junkdrawer]

48. For all X not equal to the USA, Nation X has had far more combat deaths than domestic gun deaths.

No other nation would tolerate the domestic gun deaths we do. Why pick on Russia?

[HooptieWagon]

50. Its an example.

Since the thread is about comparing gun deaths to war deaths, thus "proving" the US has a gun problem...then the same logic can be applied to Russia, "proving" it has a far greater war problem.

[Egalitarian Thug]

32. That's true. It is also true that the number of traffic fatalities dwarfs both of these.

That's the problem with this kind of factoid. It leaves the recipient with the impression desired, but without any useful information.

We have a big problem with gun violence in America, but the proposed "solutions" serve only to make some people feel better while doing nothing of significance to solve it.

[libtodeath]

38. What a sad reality

[Junkdrawer]

43. Fear not. Before the NRA statisticians are done, we'll find that guns have given birth....

to more people than they've killed.

It's their specialty.

[Junkdrawer]

45. Hence the phrase "F*cking Guns". n/t

[geckosfeet]

53. And tobacco killed more in less than 5 years than all US wars combined.

Remind me of what your point is....





Image borrowed from The Rifle on the Wall: A Left Argument for Gun Rights


FYI - this is interesting as well: List of preventable causes of death

[derby378]

54. Ahhhh, but that would require people to sit down and take a hard look at the data

Your graph has 9 bars on it. That earlier graph had only two. Much easier to digest.

[Zoeisright]

55. That is the stupidest thing I have EVER seen.

WTF is the matter with you? Government has been trying to reduce tobacco use, alcohol use, and obesity. Infectious diseases, toxins and STDs are a fact of life. But the gun violence in this country is completely fucking sick and deranged.

[geckosfeet]

56. Smoking! Are u serious. Completely preventable. Completely.

Don't tell me that it's stupid. It's not stupid. Hyperbolic cherry picked nonsense like the op is stupid.