Deaths from firearms are set to outstrip car fatalities for the first time, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and reported by Bloomberg News.

The CDC estimates that auto-related deaths--long on the decline as more motorists wear seat-belts and face harsher penalties for drunk driving--will fall to 32,000 in 2015. Deaths from firearms, which include suicides and accidents, are estimated to rise to 33,000 over the same period.

Every day, 85 Americans are shot dead, about 53 of them in suicides. This figure is still lower than 1993's peak in gun deaths (37,666), but has risen significantly since firearm deaths reached a low in 2000 (28,393). The data goes back to 1979.