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The Surprising Story Told By CDC Numbers

People usually don’t want to talk about death. It isn’t a pleasant subject, even though it is the inevitable outcome of life. However, the CDC compiles numbers of people who die and why they died. Some of these numbers are surprising, to say the least. They are also enlightening.

According to the CDC statistics, the 10 leading causes of death in the United States, in order, are:

  • Heart disease
  • Cancer
  • Lower respiratory diseases
  • Accidents
  • Stroke
  • Alzheimer’s disease
  • Diabetes Flu and pneumonia
  • Nephritis and nephrosis
  • Suicide

Many of these deaths are preventable. Even considering that, heart disease accounted for 633,842 deaths in 2015. Accidents, most of which are preventable, were the cause of 146,571 deaths; less than a quarter of the number of deaths due to heart disease. Suicide accounted for 44,193 deaths.

The suicides are especially sad because even though a person was 10 times more likely to die from heart disease, suicides are preventable.

Also sad is the fact that 16.3 people out of every 100,000 died from drug overdose. This is also preventable. In fact, the number of people who died from drugs was higher than those who died in car accidents (11.4 per 100,000 people).

Gun-related deaths accounted for 5.7 deaths per 100,000 people. This includes those killed while committing crimes, gang shootings, drug shootings, suicides, accidents, and homicides. The number is still large, but it is about half of what it was in 1970 and it has been steadily declining. Incidentally, the number of deaths due to uncontrolled (but controllable) high blood pressure was 52.8 per 100,000, for comparison.

It is extremely telling that of the actual 12,253 murder deaths, only 258 were caused by rifles. More people were actually murdered with knives, hands or fists, and blunt objects than those killed with a rifle, despite the huge drive to ban one particular rifle. (This number comes from the FBI.)

Interesting, too, that according to the FBI, since 1970, 97.1 percent of gun-related murders have been in places where guns were prohibited (gun-free zones). The percentage is even higher for mass shootings, where three or more people have been shot.

All of these statistics show why I personally don’t support adding more gun control laws to the over 20,000 gun control laws that already exist. The numbers are pretty clear that adding more laws or bans are definitely not the answer to gun violence.

It wasn’t mentioned initially, so it will be now: Total deaths in the US from all causes was 733.1 per 100,000. The good news is that this is actually down. In 1970, the deaths from all causes were 869 per 100,000. This is probably one big reason that the average life expectancy in the US has increased since 1970, from 76.8 years then to 78.8 years now.

This means that the actual trends and news isn’t all bad, even if it isn’t reported.

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What do you think?

-1 Points

Written by Rex Trulove

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