Gun violence costs the US $557 billion a year

[Buck F]

Gun violence costs the US $557 billion a year - The Boston Globe

Harvard Medical School researchers found that gun violence costs the US some $557 billion annually, or 2.6% of gross domestic product, according to the peer-reviewed study published in the journal JAMA.

www.bostonglobe.com

 

[PaulR]

Probably saved a lot more than that.

 

[drgrant]

smell like its a stat straight from someones asscrack

It’s “gun violence”. vs violent crime… automatically nakes motives suspect….

 

[snax]

I'm sure. How much $$ is spent enforcing and prosecuting people over stupid gun laws?

 

[pastera]

Gun Violence? Not really
Narco terrorism between rival dealers who can't go through legal commercial dispute resolution processes because the government believes it should tell you what you can/can't to put in your body - yeah that's a good part of it.
Or how about civil anarchy because the government purposely dismantled the family structure in inner cities to gain and retain power causing rapid moral decline - yeah, that too.

We don't have a too many guns problem
We have a too much government problem.

 

[MaverickNH]

With 425 million firearms in the US, that comes to an average of $1311 per gun. That just about accounts for the purchase of the gun, ammo, accessories, club dues, range time, etc. See how silly statistics can be? Especially when the study is conducted by Everytown (note the study issued in July - The Glob was saving it up…)

New Report: Gun Violence Costs the U.S. $557 Billion Each Year

Analysis Shows States With Strong Gun Safety Laws Spend Less on Repercussions of Gun Violence Than States With Lax Laws Updated Calculator Tool Estimates the Economic Cost of Specific Shootings, …

everytownsupportfund.org

”…of which $12.62 billion is paid by taxpayers…”

Chump-change for The Biden Administration.

 

[Palladin]

Calculate the Economic Cost of Gun Violence

Examining the economic consequences of gun violence is paramount to understanding just how extensive and expensive this crisis is.

everytownresearch.org

figuring it out.....mathematically, of course


LMFAO. What a f*cking scam !!!

plug in 'shooting by police, one death, no wounded

cost to MA = $18,391,164.00

 

[drgrant]

so if gun violence costs money does that mean other violence is free of charge?

 

[VetteGirlMA]

smell like its a stat straight from someones asscrack

It’s “gun violence”. vs violent crime… automatically nakes motives suspect….

I'd wager that somewhere at one of the top secret Bloomberg secret headquarters is some elderly 'demanding mom' with an excel spreadsheet and she's just reading a number off of a sheet and declaring this to be the absolute truth. Who checks the work for accuracy? Who cares, the bigger the number the larger the scare factor.

 

[LittleCalm]

Funny, the FBI violent crime stats show that guns are immaterial when it comes to instruments used to cause most violent crimes. So that must mean hands, knives and baseball bat violence is like a trillion trillion dollars of cost to society each year.

And JAMA, how about comparing the 20,000 or so gun homicides each year to the 250,000 medical malpractice deaths each year (which even the beloved Good Morning America actually reported on earlier this year)? The latter = more than 12x gun homicides and yet the focus is on "gun violence". Can our society get any dumber?

 

[Mesatchornug]

Funny, the FBI violent crime stats show that guns are immaterial when it comes to instruments used to cause most violent crimes. So that must mean hands, knives and baseball bat violence is like a trillion trillion dollars of cost to society each year.

umm...you might reread those stats if you're thinking about speaking in public on the topic.

Long guns are a blip, statistically.

Handguns are used in the overwhelming majority of crimes and injuries involving firearms. They are also significantly more prevalent than "personal weapons" in use of force.

 

[Cipher]

>Harvard medical school

Opinion/"research" disregarded immediately.

 

[LittleCalm]

umm...you might reread those stats if you're thinking about speaking in public on the topic.

Long guns are a blip, statistically.

Handguns are used in the overwhelming majority of crimes and injuries involving firearms. They are also significantly more prevalent than "personal weapons" in use of force.

So here is are the 2015-2019 stats. Expanded Homicide Data Table 8

You are right that for homicides, handguns are like 2 to 1 vs all other instruments, so thanks for that correction. Rifles are de minimis. The total homicides is tiny: 13,927, and was falling since 2015. Overall, an immaterial number are attributed to guns (~10K) and 6,400 for handguns. And yet JAMA wants to make a pandemic out of this stat. That's my main point.

 

[Mesatchornug]

I meant homicides.

Me too. From Table 20


or Expanded Homicide Data Table 7

 

[LittleCalm]

Me too. From Table 20

View attachment 667112

I corrected my post and cited to FBI stats. Let me know what you think.

 

[Waher]

Meanwhile:

View: https://twitter.com/catsnoutsoup/status/1574813097117745158

@CatSnoutSoup

 

[Mesatchornug]

So here is are the 2015-2019 stats. Expanded Homicide Data Table 8

You are right that for homicides, handguns are like 2 to 1 vs all other instruments, so thanks for that correction.

comments inline

Rifles are de minimis.

Right

The total homicides is tiny: 13,927, and was falling since 2015.

Total crime in the US has been falling since the early 90s, with the exception of a couple blips including 2012-15. Early reports of the years that FBI hasn't yet published is that we're heading in the wrong direction lately. (This really shouldn't surprise anyone, though)

Overall, an immaterial number are attributed to guns (~10K) and 6,400 for handguns.

So more than half of the associated crimes include handguns, and you want to argue that's "immaterial"? I think we use language differently.

If you're trying to say that 13K homicides per year isn't all that bad because it's only 4.25/100K, I'll defer since this is question of subjective opinion.

Or, you're once again using "guns" to mean "long guns." In which case, I again say you might revisit your use of language before making arguments in public. It might be my public schooling, but when I learned English, "gun" refers to the superset that includes handguns and long guns and "long gun" is a superset that includes rifles and shotguns.

And yet JAMA wants to make a pandemic out of this stat. That's my main point.

I agree they're making mountains out of molehills.

My point is that if we're going to argue about stats, we should be up on ours.

 

[enbloc]

 

[LittleCalm]

comments inline


Right


Total crime in the US has been falling since the early 90s, with the exception of a couple blips including 2012-15. Early reports of the years that FBI hasn't yet published is that we're heading in the wrong direction lately. (This really shouldn't surprise anyone, though)


So more than half of the associated crimes include handguns, and you want to argue that's "immaterial"? I think we use language differently.

If you're trying to say that 13K homicides per year isn't all that bad because it's only 4.25/100K, I'll defer since this is question of subjective opinion.

Or, you're once again using "guns" to mean "long guns." In which case, I again say you might revisit your use of language before making arguments in public. It might be my public schooling, but when I learned English, "gun" refers to the superset that includes handguns and long guns and "long gun" is a superset that includes rifles and shotguns.


I agree they're making mountains out of molehills.

My point is that if we're going to argue about stats, we should be up on ours.

Thanks. Yes, my point is that 13K of superset "gun" homicides is immaterial and frankly de minimis relative to the 320m U.S. population. Further, I suspect that the vast majority is violence related to organized crime/gangs/drugs, not being helped by the lack of prosecution in many major cities that have become soft on crime of late. Finally, medical malpractice apparently accounts for a much greater amount of "violence" and should be considered much more of an urgent "public health" crisis if we believe the 250k number stated on MSM (which of course is always suspect).

Edit: I should add that violence is violence. Eliminate gun violence and I suspect you simply reallocate the mix to non-firearms related instruments. The question is how much less violence would there be if the 2A was repealed. Again, I suspect nothing would change because bans do not work. You'd still end up with the same amount of gun violence or perhaps some violence would be reallocated to other instruments. It is an interesting debate.

 

[Rob Boudrie]

Did they credit:

- SS not paid to early shootees
- Medicare claims not incurred
- Medicaid costs
- Criminal justice expenses if the subject was of the criminal class
- Public defenders not hired?
- Economic loss of crimes not committed by the dead
- EBT, SNAP, etc. benefits not paid
- But, of course, exceptional contributions not made by the dead must be considered a "cost".

Some of the savings only apply if the shootee is of the "taker" class, however others (SS not paid, Medicare claims, etc.) are saved no matter what the class of the individual.

 

[Mesatchornug]

Thanks. Yes, my point is that 13K of superset "gun" homicides is immaterial and frankly de minimis relative to the 320m U.S. population. Further, I suspect that the vast majority is violence related to organized crime/gangs/drugs, not being helped by the lack of prosecution in many major cities that have become soft on crime of late. Finally, medical malpractice apparently accounts for a much greater amount of "violence" and should be considered much more of an urgent "public health" crisis if we believe the 250k number stated on MSM (which of course is always suspect).

I think I'm clear on what you're saying now.

If I were trying to make that argument, I would avoid all conversation of implement types: talking about knives and fists is at best a red herring. I would point the discussion simply to the fact that even when murder numbers are high, they're a small fraction of other human loss of life annually, e.g., medical malpractice. Of course, then I might use the CDC numbers, as the FBI isn't really tracking that particular number.

The problem, of course, is that this study in JAMA isn't tied only to homicide. In fact, they're going to be particularly interested in injuries resulting from violence (e.g., aggravated assault, robbery) where the victims have ongoing medical bills related to their injuries. Their argument (which isn't entirely wrong) is that of the injuries resulting from these crimes, firearms generally cause the worst - i.e., longest lasting, most debilitating, most expensive. To continue your earlier point, I would ask "How do medical malpractice injuries stack up?" Of course, to have that conversation, I would suddenly be doing my own study. But I'm not installed in an academic institution, so I'd be sponsoring it myself. And I'm poor, so I'm more driven to spend that research effort on other things.

Did they credit:

- SS not paid to early shootees
- Medicare claims not incurred
- Medicaid costs
- Criminal justice expenses if the subject was of the criminal class
- Public defenders not hired?
- Economic loss of crimes committed by subjects?
- EBT, SNAP, etc. benefits not paid

Some of the savings only apply if the shootee is of the "taker" class, however others (SS not paid, Medicare claims, etc.) are saved no matter what the class of the individual.

I'm sure you know someone who has access to the Journal. Even JAMA wouldn't publish without a "Methods" section.

 

[LakeTrout]

Whats it cost Mexico where almost half of the world's most violent cities are located and only 1 gun shop?

 

[richc]

That number is only about 20% lower than the US military budget...

I don't think so...

 

[Parker Schreiber]

I downloaded the JAMA article, and not surprisingly, what's published lacks model or methodology. (Recent articles are free on JAMA) But here are two quotes and some math:

The health case for reducing firearm injuries is clear—more than 45000 US deaths and likely twice as many nonfatal firearm injuries occurred in 2020

This is called "assuming your conclusion." Note too that the 45,000 figure includes suicides, and there's no evidence that reducing access to firearms reduces suicides. Note also the use of the word "likely." More about that below.

The total economic toll of firearm injuries in the US is estimated to be $557 billion annually or 2.6%of gross domestic product, 88%of which is attributed to quality of-life losses among those injured by firearms and among families.

Amazing that they can come up with this figure despite not have a solid number of firearm related injuries. But just for fun, let's assume 100,000 such injuries a year. That works out to 4.9 million a year per injury. They also assert that more than half the people injured by firearms don't have any health insurance at all based on 2006-2014 data. It's also a massive jump from the $30,000 of direct healthcare costs they assert per gun injury in the first year.

It also seems that, despite the insured percentages, an equal distribution of victims across employers and pay scales. In short, to my eye it cherry picks a bunch of studies and does a lot of hand waving to come up with a headline number.

 

[Mesatchornug]

I downloaded the JAMA article, and not surprisingly, what's published lacks model or methodology. (Recent articles are free on JAMA) But here are two quotes and some math:



This is called "assuming your conclusion." Note too that the 45,000 figure includes suicides, and there's no evidence that reducing access to firearms reduces suicides. Note also the use of the word "likely." More about that below.



Amazing that the can come up with this figure despite not have a solid number of firearm related injuries. But just for fun, let's assume 100,000 such injuries a year. That works out to 4.9 million a year per injury. They also assert that more than half the people injured by firearms don't have any health insurance at all based on 2006-2014 data. It's also a massive jump from the $30,000 of direct healthcare costs they assert per gun injury in the first year.

It also seems that, despite the insured percentages, an equal distribution of victims across employers and pay scales. In short, to my eye it cherry picks a bunch of studies and does a lot of hand waving to come up with a headline number.

So they're double-counting cherry picked stats into a model to fit their conclusion?

The heck you say! And this is presented as research, not an opinion piece?

Even for JAMA, that's low. Here's hoping it lands on RetractionWatch sooner rather than later...

EDIT - I just looked. It's a "Viewpoint." The Business Case for Reducing Firearm Injuries

This isn't science. It's not research. It's the opinion of one kid at Harvard, trying to make a name, in JAMA's own "Firearms and Violence Theme Issue." We've already given it more attention than it deserves.

Corresponding Author: Zirui Song, MD, PhD, Department of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School, 180A Longwood Ave, Boston, MA 02115 ([email protected]).

Conflict of Interest Disclosures: Dr Song reported receiving grants from the National Institutes of Health and Arnold Ventures LLC; receiving personal fees from the Research Triangle Institute for work on Medicare risk adjustment; receiving personal fees from Google Ventures, VBID Health, and the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans for academic lectures; and receiving personal fees for providing consultation in legal cases.

Disclaimer: Dr Song is Associate Editor of JAMA Health Forum, but he was not involved in any of the decisions regarding review of the manuscript or its acceptance.

Additional Contributions: I thank Mia Giuriato, BBA, MA, of Harvard Medical School for excellent research assistance without compensation.

 

[MaverickNH]

Did they credit:

- SS not paid to early shootees
- Medicare claims not incurred
- Medicaid costs
- Criminal justice expenses if the subject was of the criminal class
- Public defenders not hired?
- Economic loss of crimes not committed by the dead
- EBT, SNAP, etc. benefits not paid
- But, of course, exceptional contributions not made by the dead must be considered a "cost".

Some of the savings only apply if the shootee is of the "taker" class, however others (SS not paid, Medicare claims, etc.) are saved no matter what the class of the individual.

And they all vote - some several times!

 

[alan226]

I'd love to see the dartboard they threw at to come up with this random dollar amount.....

 

[MGnoob]

IMO, “ Gun violence” Is the solution to “climate change”… There are too many people on this planet

 

[KBCraig]

We should obviously seek reparations from Democrat-governed cities of over 500,000 population.

 

[LittleCalm]

Parker thanks for doing the homework. So it’s basically a “feelings” piece. Classic. And disappointing to see JAMA sink that low but it is a sign of the times.