Stats Prove Gun Violence

To the Editor:
I think it was irresponsible of the paper not to include some sobering statistics about gun violence, which our county is not immune to, in the report on the freeholders designating Cape May County as a “Second Amendment/Lawful Gun Owner Sanctuary.”
There are approximately 36,000 gun deaths per year and 100,000 injuries per year in the country, according to the CDC, Web-Based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS).
Firearms cause more fatalities than motor vehicle accidents. The majority of gun deaths are Suicide (61%), Homicide accounts for 36%, Law-Enforcement 1.4%, Accidental 1.2% (WISQARS).
U.S. firearm fatality rate is 24.9 times higher, and suicide rate 9.8 times higher than other high-income countries, (Preventive Medicine 123(2019)20-26.
Guns are used in 51% of suicide deaths, access to a gun triples the risk of a suicide death, (WISGARS), Annals of Internal Medicine 160, 2(2014); 101-110.
Also, 1,500 children are shot and killed each year (WISQARS). Every year 600 women are shot to death by their intimate partners, and 4.5 million women alive today report that an intimate partner threatened them with a gun. (Trauma, Violence & Abuse 19,4 (431-442).
There are sensible ways to protect gun rights, hunting as a sport, collectors, and at the same time reduce gun violence-especially suicides and gun deaths and gun violence in the home.
The statistics give us an opportunity. It will require legislators to substitute political calculations for courage, and gun rights representatives discard their unyielding posture and examine the facts.
In my opinion, the freeholders’ action was an act of pander; the Cape May County residents haven’t been served.