DID YOU KNOW? In one year on average, almost 100,000 people in America are shot or killed with a gun.
In one year, 31,593 people died from gun violence and 66,769 people survived gun injuries (National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC)). That includes:
12,179 people murdered and 44,466 people shot in an attack (NCIPC).
18,223 people who killed themselves and 3,031 people who survived a suicide attempt with a gun (NCIPC).
592 people who were killed unintentionally and 18,610 who were shot unintentionally but survived (NCIPC).
Over a million people have been killed with guns in the United States since 1968, when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated (Childrensâ Defense Fund, p. 20).
U.S. homicide rates are 6.9 times higher than rates in 22 other populous high-income countries combined, despite similar non-lethal crime and violence rates. The firearm homicide rate in the U.S. is 19.5 times higher (Richardson, p.1).
Among 23 populous, high-income countries, 80% of all firearm deaths occurred in the United States (Richardson, p. 1).
Gun violence impacts society in countless ways: medical costs, costs of the criminal justice system, security precautions such as metal detectors, and reductions in quality of life because of fear of gun violence. These impacts are estimated to cost U.S. citizens $100 billion annually (Cook, 2000).
.