Gun Deaths Since Newtown now exceeds U.S. Military deaths in 20 war-years

[DreamGypsy]

The tally of Americans killed by guns since the Newtown Sandy Hook shootings on December 14, 2012 now stands at 6734, as reported on the Slate site How Many People Have Been Killed by Guns Since Newtown? on August 1, 2013, 7:28 PDT

Matched Deaths: 6,734 or more since Newtown

Slate characterizes their number as follows:

As time goes on, our count gets further and further away from the likely actual number of gun deaths in America—because roughly 60 percent of deaths by gun are due to suicides, which are very rarely reported. When discussing this issue, please note that our number is by design not accurate and represents only the number of gun deaths that the media can find out about contemporaneously. Part of the purpose of this interactive is to point out how difficult it is to get accurate real-time numbers on this issue.

Using the most recent CDC estimates for yearly deaths by guns in the United States, it is likely that as of today, 8/1/2013, roughly 19,884 people have died from guns in the United States since the Newtown shootings. Compare that number to the number of deaths reported in the news in our interactive below, and you can see how undertold the story of gun violence in America actually is.

The number of days that have elapsed from the Newtown shootings, December 14, 2012 to today, August 1, 2013 is 230. Counting only the 6734 gun deaths reported by Slate, the death rate over that period is 29.28 deaths per day. Taking the extrapolated number of 19,884 gun deaths based on CDC estimates, the death rate is 86.45 per day.

For comparison the number reported by Slate now exceeds, by 8, the number of U.S. military deaths in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars (Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation New Dawn, and Operation Enduring Freedom) as reported by the U.S. Department of Defense as of Aug. 1, 2013, 10 a.m. ED.

The U.S. military war death counts are:
• Operation Iraqi Freedom – 4409
• Operation New Dawn – 66
• Operation Enduring Freedom – 2251 (2123 in Afghanistan, 127 other locations)

The total count of military deaths is 6726. If DOD civilians deaths were to be included the total would increase by 16.

Operation Iraqi Freedom began 20 March 2003, became Operation New Dawn on September 1, 2010, which ended 15 December 2011, so lasted 8 years, 8 months, 3 weeks and 4 days, or approximately 3182 days. The death rate in OIF/OND was 1.406 deaths per day.

Operation Enduring Freedom began 7 October 2001 and is ongoing, so spans 11 years, 9 months, 3 weeks and 2 days as of August 1, 2013. This is approximately 4317 days, so the death rate in OEF is 0.52 deaths per day.

The current combined total time for the three operations is 20 years, 6 months and 17 days or approximately 7499 war-days, so the average death rate over the period is ~.897 per war-day.

Of course, these statistics take a very insular view of the wars and represent a small fraction of the overall carnage, destruction, and upheaval that have occurred and are still occurring due to our military operations.

[Scuba]

1. Chilling. We'd be safer in a war zone.

[geckosfeet]

5. No. You wouldn't.

But it's ok to think that.

[Pelican]

12. Yeah! Fuck math!

Especially statistics...!

[onehandle]

2. Freedumb! nt

[RGinNJ]

3. How sad.

If only the nightly news reported this like the body counts during the Vietnam war.

[DreamGypsy]

4. Times have changed. Slate has taken responsibility for body counts ...

...using the internet and the Twitter feed @GunDeaths to capture the domestic body counts.

I grew up watching the Vietnam body counts. TV was the media. I was 16 when the U.S. casualty count peaked in 1968 at 16,899. The years 1965-1971 accounted for 56,907 of the total U.S. military casualties of 58,220 - the government was counting every body.

Now the domestic deaths are just part of the daily background noise. We need to learn a little compassion.

Luka Bloom's lyrics of the song Background Noise:

So another gun goes off -
Background noise
Two kids in a stolen car -
Background noise
A young man screams in the dead of the night -
Background noise
A family mourns by an early graveside -
Background noise

You hear the cries of the different sides
The bullet hits again
Take a look in anybody's eyes
Our tears are all the same
Our tears are all the same

You can listen to the song here: https://myspace.com/lukabloom/music/song/background-noise-37349290

[pinboy3niner]

6. More names are added to the Wall every year

Those who die now can be added if their deaths are directly attributable to combat injuries (Agent Orange doesn't count).

Four names were added this year. Currently, there are 58,286 names on the Wall.

[DreamGypsy]

9. Long Black Wall...grows longer...

...I didn't know that, but it's not surprising.

Michael Jerling's Long Black Wall:

The vets came back on the G.I. Bill
In their field jackets and jeans
Drank black coffee and smoked cigarettes
And never spoke of what they'd seen
Long black wall
And nothing left to say
Long black wall
So many miles away

The man on TV said ten years had gone
Today a monument was raised
And when they wrote each name one art a time
The roll of dead took four whole days
Long black wall
And nothing is the same
Long black wall
Shining in the rain
Long black wall
And nothing is undone
Long black wall
Sleeping in the sun

I haven't been to the wall in D.C. We lived for several years about half a mile from Portland's Oregon's Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Every few weeks the dogs and I would extend our walk in the Hoyt Arboretum to walk the spiral there...leading us through the morass of that war's death and destruction...out into another time.

[pinboy3niner]

13. And the beat goes on...

I visited Portland's memorial when I lived there. I also worked at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in D.C. when I lived in Northern Virginia. It was a now-defunct nonprofit group formed by the original Wall volunteers that designed the name rubbing forms and provided them, free, to the National Park Service. The group was co-founded by my friend Peggy Donovan, who died of a brain tumor in hospice years ago, and my friend Ira Hamburg, who died of cancer Monday at his home in Virginia.

There also are about half a dozen mobile scale replicas of the Wall that are displayed around the country. My community built one of them--the only one that, with some exceptions, is displayed only in our local area and does not travel around the country. Ours is a half-scale replica that is updated every year to incorporate the changes made to the memorial in D.C.

Information about the schedules of the various 'Moving Walls' can be found by googling that term.

[Drunken Irishman]

11. My father died of Agent Orange. It's bullshit it doesn't count.

[alfredo]

7. Knr

[Snake Plissken]

8. Isn't obvious what needs to be done?

We need to buy more guns.

[Boom Sound 416]

10. It's not that shocking

Less than 200 thousand troops in all those fronts

A little over 300 million people in the US.

It's not so unbelievable.

Now factor the 500 thousand dead Iraqis and you've got shock and awe.