Salient to Investors:

By 2015, firearm fatalities will probably exceed traffic fatalities for the first time. 85 Americans are shot dead daily, 53 of them suicides.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports motor-vehicle deaths dropped 22 percent from 2005 to 2010, gun fatalities are rising again after a low point in 2000.

Garen Wintemute at University of California said the fall in traffic deaths results from safer vehicles, restricted privileges for young drivers, and seat-belt and other laws, while we’ve made the widest array of firearms available to the widest array of people under the widest array of conditions. Wintemute said fewer households have guns, but people who own guns are buying more of them.

Daniel Webster at Johns Hopkins University said the murder rate from 2006 to 2011 fell 19 percent, to 4.7 for every 100,000 people. Over time, higher levels of gun ownership are associated with increased rates of homicide and suicide Webster said the Sandy Hook killings are a potential game changer for gun-control laws. Webster said a survey 8 years ago put the number of firearms around 300 million.

Traffic fatalities in 2011 were the lowest since 1949 – 1.1 deaths for each 100 million vehicle miles driven.

Read the full article at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-19/american-gun-deaths-to-exceed-traffic-fatalities-by-2015.html

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