Guns and Race: The Different Worlds of Black and White Americans

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{snip} Gun deaths vary dramatically by gender and race:

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In 2013, firearm deaths accounted for over 11 percent of all years of potential life lost among the black population, but less than 6 percent of all years of potential life lost among the white population.

White suicides, black homicides

Gun deaths also vary dramatically by type. The vast majority (77 percent) of white gun deaths are suicides; less than one in five (19 percent) is a homicide. These figures are nearly opposite in the black population, where only 14 percent of gun deaths are suicides but 82 percent are homicides:

The firearm homicide rate among black men aged 20-29 is about 89 per 100,000. To put that fact in some international perspective, in Honduras–the country with the highest recorded homicide rate–there were 90.4 intentional murders per 100,000 people in 2012. That includes all means, not just firearm homicides.

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