[Mello2u]

A_McDougal

age-adjusted cause of mortality info
For perspective, the leading causes of injury-related death are automobiles, poisoning, and then firearm-violence.

I infer from this graphic that the peak age of BG's with guns is 19 to 24. Good to know.

The CDC says that the poisoning-death rate is driven by drug overdoses. To me, this data seems unbiased compared to surveys and polls about who admits to using. Granting that younger bodies are more resilient, this suggests that the peak age of narcotic-addled junkies is 44-54. In worrying about home defense and situational awareness, I've never really thought about middle-aged folks as being worst-case adversaries. But this graphic seems to say I should worry more about old men trying to rob me for drug money, than punk kids? Am I reading too much into the data?

I think you greatly misunderstand the meaning of the statement of the study's conclusion: "they are primarily related to drug overdose and their rates of increase have outpaced those of all poisonings".
Medical related deaths are the third leading cause of death among all Americans after heart disease and cancer. The drug over doses the study is most likely referring to are misuse or abuse of prescribed drugs.

If you want an interesting slant on statistics find an authoritative number for all firearms in the U.S and the number of unjustified homicides. Compare that to the number of medical doctors and the number of deaths attributable to medical mistakes. I think you will find that someone is 4000 times more likely to be killed by a doctor than by someone using a firearm.

Assuming that there are 800,000 active medical doctors in the U.S. and that there are 225,000 deaths caused by them (AMA Journal 2000), that is 0.281 deaths per doctor. Could be stated as a 1 in 4 chance.

Assuming that there are 200,000,000 privately owned firearms in the U.S. and that there are 12,791 (CDC 2006), that is 0.000064 per firearm. Could be stated as a 1 in 15,625 chance.