Fact-Check: No, 33,000 Not Killed with Guns Each Year

During the third presidential debate, Hillary Clinton claimed that “33,000 people a year…die from guns.” 

Fact-Check: FALSE

This is a claim Clinton often makes to make gun violence appear to be raging out of control; to justify the government stepping in with more rules and regulations to keep the American people safe. 

However, a Fact-Check shows Clinton’s claim is not only false, but is exaggerated by 66 percent. 

She is using figures from 2013, and reporting them in a way that distorts what really happened with guns that year. Clinton first began making this claim in November 2015, repeated it in April 2016, and has since repeated it again and again.

In April Breitbart News highlighted the method Clinton used to swell the numbers:

In 2013, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported 11,208 firearm-related homicides in the United States. An additional 505 accidental firearm-related deaths occurred in the US–a figure that pales in comparison to the 38,851 deaths by accidental poisoning or the 30,208 deaths caused by falls. So Clinton and gun control proponents who think like her increase these figures by adding in suicides. In this way, 11,713 firearm-related deaths–homicides and accidental deaths–quickly become 32,888 “gun violence” deaths in 2013 and an impetus for gun control.

AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of “Bullets with AWR Hawkins,” a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.