Gun Deaths Since Newtown Now Surpass Number of Americans Killed in Iraq

[Pholus]

3. Interesting number when you extrapolate it a bit.

A while back I found two references that indicate that currently we annually IMPORT 38 times the ammo used in the peak year of the Iraq war in 2004. (http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2832429)

Add info from this link: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_small_arms_ammunition_is_produced_each_year_in_the_US

There we find two numbers (fraction of world ammo produced in the US, and total estimated world production) and combine them to estimate that 6 billion rounds per year produced in the US. That means that we produce ammo at 83 times the rate we used it in Iraq -- or 83 Iraq-war-years per year. Found another number here (http://business.highbeam.com/industry-reports/metal/small-arms-ammunition) that says 10% of US production is exported. So domestic production is about 75 Iraq-war-years per year. That means that annually the US creates or imports 103 years of Iraq-war-years ammo that are released in this country.

So, making some handwaving arguments here, not completely trusting the numbers yet but getting an order of magnitude feel...

1) Eight Iraq war years worth of production in a combat zone kill 4409 people (over 8 years at 1 war's worth per year).

2) 52 Iraq war years worth of production killed 4499 people (103 war's worth per year over 6 months).

Bullet per bullet, we run roughly 15% of the risk of a US military member in Iraq from gun owners in the U.S. I guess that probably tracks. Bullets are primarily used for target practice or hoarding from socialists here and are primarily used in cover fire there.

Needs refinement, but an interesting first thought.