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As above - seems either scary or unlikely? Is this claim accurate?

Washington Post: More Americans were shot to death by March 6 this year than died on D-Day

From the linked article:

Line chart of US gun deaths over time w/DDay figures highlighted

PoloHoleSet
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user1703844
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  • Note that the WaPo article says "shot to death", and the number is accumulated from the first of the year: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/06/06/more-americans-were-shot-death-by-march-this-year-than-died-d-day/?utm_term=.3c5909e6577c – Daniel R Hicks Jun 07 '19 at 12:10
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    The image doesn't support the claim, as 4414 is greater than 2501. – Brythan Jun 07 '19 at 23:35
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    @brythan: I can't read the paywalled article, but I think the 2,501 line represents US [troop?] deaths on D-Day, and the 4,414 line represents the deaths of US and its allies [troops?] on D-Day. – Oddthinking Jun 08 '19 at 00:19
  • @Oddthinking Why would you think that? The image claims to compare cumulative shooting deaths to D-Day deaths. It only has two data points. Once matches the March 6th date is similar in magnitude to involuntary shooting deaths (about 10,000 a year in gross magnitude, so 2500 in two months is believable). – Brythan Jun 08 '19 at 00:25
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    @Brythan: I can't support my argument with references here, because of the paywall, so I have to be tentative. I think the data points are the red line - cumulative shooting deaths by day this year. They highlight where it crosses two important (to them) milestones: D-Day US and D-Day Allied death counts - and highlight the days on which the milestones were reached. The OP is asking about the first one. From gut feel, I agree the claim is believable, but that obviously doesn't make an answer. – Oddthinking Jun 08 '19 at 01:19
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    The claim is believable and trivial. What's surprising is D-day's death toll being so small. I thought it was a much bloodier battle. –  Jun 08 '19 at 05:52
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    @fredsbend the 4400 is just allied DEATHs. It doesn't include injuries, including those that died later after evacuation. It also doesn't include German deaths, which numbered over 9000 or German injuries. – jwenting Jun 11 '19 at 11:02
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    @jwenting Yes, I it's still less than I thought. I thought both sides were well in excess of 10K deaths. Compare to American Civil War deaths at some battles. I thought it was on par with those. –  Jun 11 '19 at 23:47
  • @fredsbend ikr, I was always under the impression the casualty count had been a lot higher too until I started researching things myself. – jwenting Jun 12 '19 at 03:24

1 Answers1

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According to the CDC (Table 18) in 2013 there were 33,636 deaths due to firearms, of which 21,175 were suicides. That leaves 12,461 (of which 281 were "undetermined", so could have been suicide). 12,461 deaths per year is 34.1 per day. At that rate reaching 2,501 would take 74 days, which was March 15th.

The WaPo article claims that for this year the date was March 6th. That would be reasonable.

Paul Johnson
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