The Truth About Guns
TTAG reader RN writes:
Gun control is a huge American political issue right now (especially right after the mass shooting in Orlando, Florida). Democrats are all about infringing on Second Amendment rights because of school shootings, gun-related homicides, firearm deaths, and crime rates.  They claim that Republicans and NRA members are mainly responsible for âgun violenceâ and are the reason why âcommon sense gun reformâ laws need to be enacted to restrict firearm ownership. Like everyone else on TTAG, I had my doubts about their gun deaths claims and decided to crunch some numbers to see which political partyâs members commit more firearms murders in the United States.
I began by finding the most recent number of firearms murders (strictly murders, this doesnât include suicides or justifiable homicides). The .gov source I used: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention WISQARS website. I chose the most recent year they had available (2014). According to the CDC, there were 10,945 murders involving firearms in 2014.
Next, I needed to find an accurate source for murder rates by race. This violent crime stat needs to be broken down by race because each race will have different murder rates and voting rates, which is important for getting an final product based on political affiliation. The source I used was the US Department of Justiceâs homicide report published in 2011. The information contained in this report was averaged from 1980 to 2008. Here are the murder rates that can be found on the third page of the report:
52.5% were black perpetrators
45.3% were white perpetrators
2.2% were perpetrators of other races
