Firearms overtake car crashes as leading cause of U.S. traumatic deaths: study

Photo taken on Oct. 8, 2021 shows the vases of flowers installed to memorize gun violence victims at the Battery Park in New York, the United States. (Xinhua/Wang Ying)

"The data reveal that the resulting access to firearms has equated to magnitudes of death due to firearm suicides in the same individuals demanding access to firearms," study says.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 24 (Xinhua) -- Firearm deaths have become the leading cause of traumatic deaths in the United States, according to a recent study.

The study published Tuesday in the journal Trauma Surgery and Acute Care Open finds that firearm deaths have overtaken motor vehicle crashes as the main cause of years of potential life lost (YPLL) since 2017.

The analysis is based on data from 2009-2018 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

In the study, YPLL was calculated by the CDC standard of subtracting the age at death from the standard year of 80, and then summing the individual years of YPLL across each cause of death.

Photo taken on Aug. 31, 2021 shows a gun shop in Plano, a suburban city of Dallas, Texas, the United States. (Photo by Tian Dan/Xinhua)

Suicide is responsible for the most YPLL due to firearm deaths and continues to increase in the United States at an alarming rate.

Males comprised the majority, around 85.4 percent, of the firearm deaths. White males had the most YPLL due to suicide, while black males had the most YPLL due to homicide, according to the study.

The largest number of suicides by firearms was in older white males.

"The main argument is that the right to bear arms to prevent injury or to defend against aggressors may result in a small number of preventable deaths is a plausible theory," the researchers wrote.

However, "the data reveal that the resulting access to firearms has equated to magnitudes of death due to firearm suicides in the same individuals demanding access to firearms," they wrote.