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

2015 U.S. Firearm Deaths

  Number % of total
Suicides 22,018 60.74%
Murders 12,979 35.80%
Accidents 489 1.35%
War 282 0.78%
Undetermined 484 1.34%

Information in the table above came from data presented in Table 11 on page 48 of the report.

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:

Data from previous years

2009 U.S. Firearm Deaths

  Number % of total
Suicides 18,735 60.41%
Murders 11,493 37.06%
Accidents 554 1.79%
War n/a  
Undetermined 232 0.75%

Information in the table above came from data presented in Table 13 on page 107 of the report.

 

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.

 

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.

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.

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.


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original web posting: Thursday, December 10, 1998
last modified: Friday, February 16, 2018