Great News! Gun Deaths and Automobile Death rates have been falling!
Now this is a lesson in how the Violence Policy Center and others use data in interesting ways.
OBTW, if anyone talks about swimming pool deaths or slips in tubs in a gun conversation, it's an NRA talking point.
Comparing data between guns and automobiles, however, is fine if it's to try to make a gun control point, or if you're the VPC.
This was just posted elsewhere on DU:
http://www.vpc.org/press/1205gunsvscars.htm
"WASHINGTON, DC--A new Violence Policy Center (VPC) state-by-state analysis of government data comparing firearm deaths and motor vehicle deaths shows that gun deaths outpaced motor vehicle deaths in 10 states in 2009, the most recent year for which state level data is available. The 10 states which experienced more firearm deaths than motor vehicle deaths in 2009 are: Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, Michigan, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Virginia, and Washington (see alphabetical listing of states with mortality figures below). Nationally, there were 31,236 firearm deaths in 2009 and 36,361 motor vehicle deaths according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control."
- Snip -
"Motor vehicle deaths are on the decline as the result of a successful decades-long public health-based injury prevention strategy that includes safety-related changes to vehicles and highway design informed by comprehensive data collection and analysis. Meanwhile, firearms are the only consumer product not regulated by the federal government for health and safety.
VPC Legislative Director Kristen Rand states, “Americans are reaping the benefits of smart safety regulation of motor vehicles. The idea that gun deaths exceed motor vehicle deaths in 10 states is stunning when one considers that 90 percent of American households own a car while fewer than a third own firearms. It is also important to consider that motor vehicles--unlike guns--are essential to the functioning of the entire U.S. economy. It is time to end firearms’ status as the last unregulated consumer product.”
Two things to point out: The graph below is from the VPC article, the link. It shows raw numbers, not rates. The slow increase in gun deaths is not adjusted for population growth; rates have actually been falling!
Second, it's very nice that automobile deaths have been falling, but it has nothing to do with guns or gun control or gun rights.
Be careful what you read, be especially careful of your logical fallacies and always check what the variables are on a graph and where the origin point is.
= new reply since forum marked as read
These factors are probably enough to account for the declines.
Remember Cash for Clunkers? That might have gotten some deathtraps off the roads.
And the economic downturn actually lowered our gross consumption of energy from prior years, that is probably accompanied by fewer miles driven.
See the graph at the bottom.
And, oh, yeah, and I quote:
Now for the graph, seems that drop in gas sales fits the drop in auto deaths:
these decades... 
)
That would be the kind of triggering event I'm thinking of (and I'm sure it helped), but it doesn't seem like enough: that document estimates ~120 fewer fatalities/year after all cars comply, and the graph in the OP shows a decline of 10,000 fewer/year over half a decade.
It would seem to me that safety improvements like the TPMS should lead to more of a gradual decline--as individual measures trickle into practice--rather than that sudden sharp drop... 
Think of the children.
...adequate 'car-control' in those states. This is likely due to numerous private sales and trafficking from neighboring states.
