Early in the third presidential debate in Las Vegas, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton got into a back and forth over guns. At one point, Clinton said, "We have 33,000 people a year who die from guns."

Is she correct? According to data from the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention, there were 33,599 people who died due to guns in 2014, the most recent year available. And the number has topped 33,000 for three years running. So Clinton has a strong point.

That said, it’s important to note that she is bundling together homicides, suicides and other types of gunfire, including accidental discharges and legally permissible killings such as those by law enforcement.

As the following chart shows, suicides account for the largest share of gun-related deaths -- about two-thirds in recent years. And while gun-related suicides have risen by 10 percent since 2010, the number of non-suicide gun deaths has remained roughly the same.

Year	Deaths by guns (including suicides)	Suicides alone	Deaths by guns excluding suicides
2014	33,599	21,334	12,265
2013	33,636	21,175	12,461
2012 Featured Fact-check Tweets stated on January 8, 2023 in a tweet Photo shows a copycat ‘QAnon shaman’ at attack on Brazil’s capital.	33,563	20,666	12,897
2011	32,351	19,990	12,361
2010	31,672	19,392	12,280
Average per year, 1999-2014	31,102	18,223	12,879

Clinton phrased her statement carefully -- she referred to people who "die from guns" without specifying the circumstances of how they were shot. Still, the fact that suicides represent such a large share of gun deaths is a detail worth noting.

Our ruling

Clinton said, "We have 33,000 people a year who die from guns." She’s correct that all deaths from guns have exceeded 33,000 during the most recent three years for which we have data. That said, it’s worth noting that roughly two-thirds of these were suicides. We rate her claim Mostly True.

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