Gunshot wounds and death cost $12 billion a year

[sinkingfeeling]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/03/04/gunshot-wounds-medicaid-insurance-costs/1956445/

WASHINGTON — Gunshot wounds and deaths cost Americans at least $12 billion a year in court proceedings, insurance costs and hospitalizations paid for by government health programs, according to a recent study.

"I think people probably don't understand that as well as they ought to," said Ted Miller, author of a study that found that gunfire deaths and injuries incur a direct societal cost of $32 per gun.

He found that medical care in 2010 cost $3.2 billion for 105,177 deaths and injuries. In 1992, medical care cost $3 billion for 171,800 deaths and injuries, including 31,674 BB gun shootings, which were not included in the 2010 numbers.

According to government statistics analyzed by Miller for the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, costs to the government in 2010 broke down this way:

•$5.4 billion in tax revenue lost because of lost work
•$4.7 billion in court costs
•$1.4 billion in Medicare and Medicaid costs for firearm injuries and deaths
•$180 million in mental health care costs for gunshot victims
•$224 million in insurance claims processing
•$133 million for responding to shooting injuries

Miller also found that Medicaid covers 28% of hospital admissions for firearm injuries, 37% of hospital days and 42% of medical costs. But in another study, he found that even if people weren't on Medicaid when they were injured, about 8% ultimately enroll in Medicaid after their injuries. "So about half of the medical costs borne by Medicaid may be the best estimate," he said.

[xchrom]

1. du rec. nt

[onehandle]

2. Yes, but how else are you going to get Walmart to accept your coupons?

Last edited Tue Mar 5, 2013, 12:05 PM - Edit history (1)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022461702

[slackmaster]

3. That $32 per gun figure is considerably less than the federal excise tax paid on guns and ammunition

http://www.atf.gov/firearms/guides/importation-verification/general-information-excise-tax.html

[sinkingfeeling]

4. Yeah, because so many of our guns are imported. Tax only applys to imports.

[pipoman]

8. Wrong

It's on every gun and every box of ammunition sold retail in the US.

http://www.ttb.gov/tax_audit/atftaxes.shtml

[slackmaster]

9. pipoman is correct. Manufacturers have to pay the excise tax as well. Here's the quarterly form...

http://www.ttb.gov/forms/f530026.pdf

[sinkingfeeling]

16. Your first link only spoke to importers.

[slackmaster]

17. Yes, I know. Sorry for the confusion. The tax is the same, charged on transfers to retail dealers.

[Earth_First]

5. Even more data to support firearms owners paying insurance fees to own weapons...

If smokers, overweight and pre-existing conditions should influence your insurance premiums, the data supports firearms owners ought to pay into a higher risk pool for owning a firearm.

[slackmaster]

7. If simply owning a firearm created a significant and measurable risk, insurance companies would...

...already be charging higher premiums for insuring homeowners and renters who own them, or offering gun-free home discounts similar to those that are commonly given to non-smokers and to people who maintain smoke detectors in their homes.

ETA my agent is aware that I own two firearms. He told me that if the value of my collection ever exceeds an amount that he stated, that I should document the collection and get a floater added to my policy. The cost would be minimal, similar to what people pay to specially insure pieces of fine jewelry or artworks.

[Robb]

11. Not true.

There is plenty of significant, measurable risk associated with firearms, but little accountability. The law currently exempts gun owners and manufacturers from responsibility.

That is not the same thing as an absence of risk.

[slackmaster]

12. There is a federal law that explicitly shields gun manufacturers from damages caused by criminals...

Last edited Tue Mar 5, 2013, 01:02 PM - Edit history (1)

...who misuse their products, but I'm going to have to raise doubt on and request proof of your claim that gun owners enjoy any kind of blanket protection from liability.

Most states, including mine (California) have Castle Doctrine type laws that define, narrowly, circumstances under which people who use deadly force in legitimate acts of self-defense are protected from criminal liability, but (in California, YMMV) not civil suits. Families of burglars who get shot in California can and do occasionally sue the people who shot their criminal members. The success rate of those suits is low because the lack of a criminal conviction puts the shooter in a strong position for civil defense, but it still happens.

A person who commits a crime with a gun and causes damages can certainly be sued in any state.

There is plenty of significant, measurable risk associated with firearms...

I'm going to go ahead and say the risk is not easily quantifiable, because it depends on circumstances.

Visualize two identical guns, both six-shot revolvers.

One is owned by John Jones, a retired widower who lives at 123 Main Street. Mr. Jones keeps the gun unloaded and locked in a safe. He hasn't even looked at it in over a year.

The other gun is owned by Rich and Linda Davis across the street at 124 Main. Rich keeps the gun loaded, in the top drawer of his night stand at all times. Rich works long hours, Linda runs an after-school day care in the home, for grade K-6 kids Monday through Friday.

The risk posed by the presence of the same type of gun in those two situations isn't even remotely comparable. So how would an insurer evaluate the risk posed by the presence of a gun in general? I say it's not practical for them to do that, so the small risk is simply distributed among all policy holders, as are many other kinds of low-probability risk situations.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

6. That's just the Price Tag of Freedom, mister!

This is really good information. You know, many states have personal property taxes on cars (in lieu of paying for registration tags every year). Maybe we should do the same thing with firearms. This way, a moderately sane person who owns 1-2 guns (hunting or personal protection) pays less that the lunatic who is assembling a small arsenal in his basement.

[pipoman]

10. Yeah!

Because in the complete absence of gunz we could save all that money, eh?

No, not all or even most..

[madville]

13. That's just trickle down economics

Seriously though, if anyone really wanted to end gun violence they would advocate ending the war on drugs, where a large portion of the violence originates.

[B2G]

14. I'd love to see the numbers around the lost tax revenues

Because I have a hard time believing that.

The article states "A 2012 study by the Vanderbilt Medical Center in Nashville found that 79% of gunshot victims in greater Nashville were enrolled in Medicaid".

This demographic pays 5.4 billion in taxes?

[Progressive dog]

15. And he didn't include funeral costs

This was a very conservative calculation, but we all know that the gun nuts on here will spew their NRA talking points along with their partial sentence constitution, so that they can tell us again and again that weapon ownership is an absolute and unlimited right.

[B2G]

18. Has anyone actually looked at his methodology?

I'm thinking no.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/abrambrown/2013/01/14/how-guns-and-violence-cost-every-american-564-in-2010/