CDC: Gun death rate rose again in 2016
The rate of gun deaths in the United States rose in 2016 to about 12 per 100,000 people, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a report released Friday. That was up from a rate of about 11 for every 100,000 people in 2015, and it reflected the second consecutive year the mortality rate in that category rose in the United States.
The report, compiled by the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics, showed preliminary data that came after several years in which the rate was relatively flat.
“The fact that we are seeing increases in the firearmrelated deaths after a long period where it has been stable is concerning,” Bob Anderson, chief of the mortality statistics branch at the health statistics center, said in a telephone interview Friday. “It is a pretty sharp increase for one year.”
Anderson also said the rates for the first quarter of this year showed an upward trend, compared with the same threemonth period of 2016. “It clearly shows an increase,” he said, while emphasizing the data was preliminary.
More than 33,000 people die in firearm-related deaths in the United States every year, according to an annual average compiled from CDC data. Anderson said the data was not broken down by states, which each have different levels of comprehensiveness in their reporting to the federal agency.
The data released Friday did single out other causes of death in the United States that were higher than the firearmrelated rate. The drug overdose rate, for example, was almost 20 deaths per 100,000 last year, up from 16.3 in 2015. The death rate for cancer was about 185 per 100,000 people, and heart disease about 196 per 100,000.
Suicides account for about 60 percent of firearm-related deaths, and homicides about 36 percent, Anderson said. Unintentional firearm deaths and those related to law enforcement officials account for about 1.3 percent each. The rest are undetermined.
The final data for 2016 will be released in the first week of December, Anderson said. “It could be this is a sort of blip, where it will stabilize again,” he said. “It is hard to predict.”