Alcohol plays role in gun violence

Alcohol use plays a primary role in gun violence, wrote Deni Carise of the University of Pennsylvania Medical School in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
A startling 48 percent of homicide offenders were reportedly under the influence of alcohol at the time of the offense, and 37 percent were intoxicated, according to an analysis by University of North Carolina researchers who reviewed more than 23 independent studies examining 8,265 homicide offenders in nine countries.
In the United States, guns are the leading cause of homicide and suicide.
"Both acute alcohol intoxication and chronic alcohol misuse are strongly associated with risk for committing firearm violence, whether that violence is directed at others or at oneself," said Garen J. Wintemute, founding director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis. He added that of the nearly 400,000 firearm-related U.S. deaths in 12 years, "it is probable that more than a third of these deaths involve alcohol."

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