General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: If you have a gun and the other guy doesn't . . . [View all]alcibiades_mystery
(36,437 posts)But it is very, very rare for somebody to be killed in a fist fight.
It is a rare form of murder at 5.7%, though that's not the correct gauge of its rarity among fist fights, since that includes huge variations. Of that 5.7%, however, just shy of 20% are victims under the age of 4 - in other words, not people engaged in a fist fight, but victims of child abuse; add those over 70, and the category begins to break down significantly. But that's just the percentage of all murders. The real number, probably unknowable, is the number of fist fights that end in death relative to all fist fights.
How rare it must be among all fist fights, reported and unreported, severe and otherwise, stranger and known. I'd suggest it is far less than .01% of all fist fights end in a death. Maybe it's more, but I doubt it. Which is precisely why very few people in fist fights ever imagine that they are in the midst of being killed: they are right to think that; it is a severe statistical anomaly.