Originally posted here on FR as a vanity, but based on an article in the Seattle main newspaper (which only included deaths from medical accidents). The vanity part added the numbers for accidental firearms deaths from federal statistics, and calculated the ratios.
It was picked up from here and spread LOTS of places, including the NRA's American Rifleman magazine, and "bounced back" to FR numerous times. The original vanity was lost completely in one of the early FR database.
The original sense was that more people die accidentally from "medical misadventure" (i.e. medical "accidents" from all causes, which includes nurses and pharmacists errors) than by "firearms accidents", so it wasn't "killed by doctors" vs. "killed by guns", though the latter is also true.
The latest shows about 100,000 deaths/year due to "medical misadventure", and about 35,000 deaths per year from guns (including murder, suicide, as well as accidents). But the ratio comparing accidental gun deaths is more germane, as the number of "medical misadventure" deaths that were murders or suicides is not knowable.
I often wonder how many of the deaths by “medical misadventure” aren’t accidents. Let’s face it; there are cases of people who are terminal, comatose with a few days left at most getting an extra 10 mg of MS to end it.
I don’t have the figures at hand but the number of accidental deaths from firearms is way down on the list, and I mean way down.
The total number of deaths is also misleading as it includes criminals killed by police and also justifiable homicides, or criminals killed by citizens protecting themselves.