KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - Firearms deaths have surpassed motor vehicle fatalities as the leading nonmedical cause of deaths in Missouri, and some experts predict that for the first time in decades that will be the case nationwide.
In 2013, according to the most recent federal data available, firearms killed 880 people in Missouri while car crashes killed 781. The Missouri State Highway Patrol says 759 people lost their lives on Missouri roads last year, which is the lowest number in the state since the 1940s.
A combination of effective safe-driving campaigns and a rise in gun-related suicides is credited for pushing the firearms death count higher than auto fatalities, The Kansas City Star (http://bit.ly/1zjXOWy) reported.
From 2003 through 2012, homicides dropped by 17 percent nationally, but firearm fatalities rose by nearly 14 percent from 2004 to 2013, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A rise in gun suicides is the biggest reason for that. For instance, in 2013 there were 80 firearm homicides in Kansas, but 240 firearm suicides.
The decline in vehicular deaths follows long-sustained campaigns by consumers, highway safety advocates and law enforcement officials to make driving safer. Advocates credit seat belts, padded dashboards, airbags, rumble strips and highway median guard cables for lowering highway deaths.
Those successes have encouraged safety advocates to take similar approaches to reducing gun deaths, said Jennie Lintz, director of public health and safety for the Washington-based Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
"So that is the model. But that currently doesn't exist in our field because we are not looking at guns rationally," she said. "It is a very emotionally charged issue for a lot of people, and that is clouding the effort to reduce gun deaths."
There's no connection between firearms and vehicular deaths, and thus motor vehicle safety strategies don't apply to guns, said Kevin Jamison, head of the Gladstone-based Western Missouri Shooters Alliance.
"The people who are talking about car safety are not trying to outlaw cars," he said. "But the people who talk about gun safety are trying to outlaw guns. Most of these people really don't know how guns work, and what they have promoted is nonsense simply designed to make guns more expensive or less available."