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Where have all the gun deaths gone?
Richard Matzopoulos1, Pamela Groenewald, Naeemah Abrahams
1South African Medical Research Council Burden of Disease Research Unit, Cape Town, South Africa; School of Public Health and Family Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town, South Africa. richard.matzopoulos@mrc.ac.za.
Summary
South African death records show a significant decrease in firearm deaths after 2000. This trend in gunshot injury deaths suggests stricter gun control laws may be effective.
Area of Science:
- Public Health
- Forensic Epidemiology
- Gun Violence Research
Background:
- Discrepancies exist between Statistics South Africa's reported firearm assault deaths and other crime data.
- Official death notifications underrepresented firearm assaults and related fatalities.
Purpose of the Study:
- To analyze trends in gunshot injury deaths using death notification data from 1997 to 2013.
- To investigate the accuracy of cause-specific coding for firearm-related fatalities.
Main Methods:
- Reviewed all death notifications from 1997-2013 coded for gunshot injuries (ICD-10).
- Analyzed 105,694 gunshot-related injury deaths over the 17-year period.
Main Results:
- An average of 6,217 annual gunshot deaths were identified.
- Firearm deaths peaked in 2000 (9,540 cases) and decreased by over 60% by 2011 (3,793 cases).
- Significant misclassification of gunshot injury deaths was observed in cause-specific profiles.
Conclusions:
- Misclassification explained the low reported numbers of firearm assaults in official statistics.
- The observed decrease in gunshot injury deaths supports the effectiveness of the Firearms Control Act of 2000.
- Stricter gun control measures appear correlated with reduced firearm fatalities.