The latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) numbers show heroin deaths surpassed firearm-related homicides for the first time ever in 2015. The number of heroin deaths was 12,989 and the number of firearm-related homicides was 12,979.
The Washington Post published the CDC numbers, which show the deaths from all opioids combined topped 33,000 in 2015. That means opioid deaths outnumbered firearm-related homicides nearly 3 to 1.
Opioids include heroin and prescription drugs like oxycodone, hydrocodone, fentanyl, and oxymorphone.
In November 2015 Breitbart News reported Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) numbers which showed the death rate from all drugs combined–opioid or otherwise–was 46,471 in 2013. For that same year, the death firearm-related death rate–including homicides, suicides, and accidental deaths–was 33,636. So drug-related deaths surpassed all types of gun deaths by nearly 13,000.
Car-related deaths surpassed gun deaths in 2013 as well. There were 33,636 gun-related deaths that year and 35,369 car-related deaths. And Breitbart News reported that Duke University researcher Chris Conover explained that car deaths, when viewed as a percentage, were so much higher than gun deaths that evidence showed that owning a car is “80 percent” riskier than owning a gun.
Conover explained this by pointing to the fact there were nearly 100 million fewer cars than guns in 2013. Yet even with 100 million fewer cars the number of people killed in or by cars surpassed the number of people who died in a gun-related death.