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Kois said when you look at the chart you realize there is a Newtown, Conn. happening each day. "It's not in the same place with the same shooter, but it's happening every day." (Image courtesy Slate.com)

How gun deaths are being tracked on a day to day basis

BY Alyssa Kleven  on January 11, 2013 @ 12:49 pm (Updated: 8:53 am - 1/14/13 )

"Basically it's a Newtown every day."

Dan Kois is a writer for Slate, and found that accurate numbers on gun deaths in the U.S. are hard to come by.

As it turns out, no official was documenting these deaths on a real-time basis. Both the FBI's violent crime division and the CDC document gun deaths on year-by-year basis.

As a result, following Newtown, the most recent comprehensive numbers on people killed in the U.S. using guns, was from 2009.

Kois acknowledged why it was a problem on KIRO Radio's Andrew Walsh Show.

"It's the reality of being up to the minute," he said.

As it turns out, finding the same sort of comprehensive data on people that died in car crashes, for example, would be just as hard to come by.

Then writers at Slate discovered the Twitter handle @gundeaths. The Twitter user preferred to remain anonymous, but since the movie theater shooting in Aurora, Colo. this summer he'd been compiling gun deaths on a daily basis.

When he would find a gun death that could be sourced via a newspaper/magazine/news website link, he would tweet it out. As the fall went on, he kept doing this, and the @gundeaths' followers remained around 200.

After Newtown, when the gun debate rose to the top of conversation across the country, his reports of gun deaths picked up.

Slate decided to do their part, and turned @gundeaths' tweets into a chart that that reflects the number of people killed by a gun in a given day, including their gender and approximate age.

Kois said when you look at the chart you realize there is a Newtown, Conn. happening each day. "It's not in the same place with the same shooter, but it's happening every day."

The system isn't perfect, Kois said there are holes in their data. "Fifty-five percent of gun deaths in America are suicide - which are almost always not reported in the news."

Still Kois finds that getting the information out there is important.

"The whole point of this is to make the data available for people as the gun debate accelerates," said Kois. "You can't have this debate without the data."

Alyssa Kleven, MyNorthwest.com Editor
Alyssa Kleven is an editor and content producer at MyNorthwest.com. She enjoys doting over her adorable dachshund Winnie - named for Arcade Fire front-man Win Butler.
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Comments (12)


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  • AceBass wrote...
    Now all we need.....
    January 14, 2013 7:55 am
    Is an app that tracks how many times a day a firearm is used for sport, hobby, law enforcement and personal defense. Lets think outside the vacuum of ignorance for a change.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • Seattle Dad wrote...
    When you focus on what you want to prove
    January 14, 2013 10:51 am
    you often find the result you desire. The approach used here necessarily skews the data to what she is mining.... gun deaths. Now that the model is developed, it's time to expand as AceBASS suggests into the total data set involving firearms. It will be more interesting.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • PHR wrote...
    While we're at it
    January 14, 2013 8:21 am
    Lets track knife deaths, beating deaths and automobile deaths as well.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • Rick W7PSK wrote...
    And break down Auto Deaths
    January 14, 2013 9:03 am
    to Drinking and driving, speeding and texting.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • deltta wrote...
    How many are suicides? LEO use of deadly force and how many
    January 14, 2013 8:30 am
    Are law abiding folks protecting themselves and family?
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • Nervoso wrote...
    How many were caused
    January 14, 2013 9:10 am
    by law-abiding gun owners?
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • shark75 wrote...
    Will this include indicators of jurisdictions with strict gun rules....to bolster your argument about gun control?
    January 14, 2013 9:49 am
    Probably not, it would show clusters in areas where guns are banned and defeat the purpose of this loser's little chart...
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • flipper wrote...
    Are we tracking all the right things?
    January 14, 2013 9:55 am
    Doctors: (A) The number of doctors in the US is 700,000 (B) Accidental deaths caused by physicians per year are 120,000 (C) Accidental deaths per physician is 17.14% Statistics courtesy of the US Dept. of Health & Human Services Guns: (A) The number of gun owners in the US is 80,000,000 (yes that's 80 million) (B) The number of accidental gun deaths per year, all age groups, is 1,500. (C) The number of accidental deaths per gun owner is 0.001875% Statistics courtesy of the FBI So statistically, doctors are approximately 9,000 times more dangerous than gun owners. Remember, guns don't kill people, doctors do. FACT: NOT EVERYONE HAS A GUN, BUT ALMOST EVERYONE HAS A DOCTOR. Please alert your friends to this alarming threat. We should ban doctors before this gets completely out of hand! Out of concern for the public at large, I have withheld statistics on lawyers for fear the shock would cause people to panic and seek medical attention.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • Ron_Spins wrote...
    Listening to Andrew's show
    January 14, 2013 10:48 am
    is cringe worthy in his ignorance of Second Amendment issues..I guess it's his First Amendment right to voice ignorance.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • Roark wrote...
    this is not an accurate portrayal of the situation
    January 14, 2013 11:08 am
    It is not a "Newtown every day". Newtown was unique because it was small children in school. That image is quite different than most gun deaths. Most gun deaths are adults, about half are cops shooting criminals, many are gangs shooting each other, a smaller amount are people legitimately defending themselves, and some are accidental. VERY FEW are anything like Newtown, which is why it's ridiculous to try a 'one size fits all' solution to gun crime. NOTHING they are proposing will prevent or stop a Newtown style massacre from happening in the future.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • rational wrote...
    Roark
    January 14, 2013 5:29 pm
    ...about half are cops shooting criminals...

    I rather doubt that, 55% are people committing suicide, so I don't think we're over 100% in just 2 categories.

    It's ironic that the left is up in arms (pun intended) about people killing themselves with guns while at the same time working to establish right to die laws.

    Just another proof that hypocrisy is a core trait of progressives.

    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • HLC wrote...
    The left kills way more babies then guns ever will.
    January 15, 2013 5:23 am
    Newtowns are very rare. Abortion clinics, not so much. If the left wants to save lives they are looking in the wrong place.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
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