The Relationship Between Firearm Design and Firearm Violence

IN 1994, an estimated 39720 persons died from firearm-related injuries.1Firearms now rank a close second to motor vehicles as a cause of traumatic death nationwide. This convergence results not so much from an increase in the firearm-related death rate, which has remained relatively stable for the past 15 years, as from a steady decrease in the death rate from motor vehicle injuries.2That decrease stems in large part from an explicit focus on the contribution to motor vehicle death rates made by the design and marketing of motor vehicles themselves.3,4