Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America's Heartland

by Jonathan M. Metzl

To put these additional white male deaths in perspective, 52 deaths in a year would exceed the reported gun deaths by defensive use, home invasion, or accidental shooting in Missouri in every year since 2012. The 413 deaths over eight years equals the total number of reported gun deaths from mass shootings in the entire United States in 2015. The number of additional deaths in Missouri between 2008 and 2015 dwarfs the number of Americans killed by terrorist attacks over this same period. According to a terrorism tracker produced by the nonpartisan New America Foundation, “in the fifteen years after 9/11, jihadists have killed 94 people inside the United States.” According to US State Department reporting, 145 Americans died by “overseas terrorism” between 2007 and 2015, for an average yearly mortality rate of 18, while 70 Americans died via “domestic terrorism” over this eight-year period, for an average yearly death rate of 8.75. (According to WISQARS, the total number of persons killed by terrorism in Missouri between 2008 and 2015 was zero.)