This may be the best way to measure gun violence in America
In Canton, Ohio, one of the most common complaints that police chief Bruce Lawver hears is about gunfire. Shots fired. That unnerving pop of a firearm being discharged.
Last year, at least 772 bullets were fired in one tiny part of Canton, a city of 73,000 people. That is more than two bullets every day.
Yet, either by luck or intent, relatively few of these projectiles hit anyone. Gunfire across the entire city of Canton resulted in eight homicides, 11 suicides and 25 non-fatal injuries in 2015, according to police statistics.
This is how gun violence is usually measured — in the cold calculation of deaths and injuries.
But that familiar yardstick misses a lot.
It does not account for all the times when a gun is fired in anger, fear or by accident and the bullet simply misses its mark. Yet whether a bullet kills or injures someone is an almost random outcome from a violent act. It is influenced by the shooter’s aim, if the bullet happens to strike vital organs and even how far a victim must travel to reach a hospital trauma center.
“It’s just not the whole picture,” said Jennifer Doleac, an assistant professor of public policy at the University of Virginia, who studies the connection between gunfire and crime. “There’s a lot more gun violence than what is reflected in homicide rates.”
The more telling number about gun violence might be “shots fired.” And now, thanks to broader adoption of new technologies, it is getting easier to show just how common gun violence is in America.
Last year, there were 165,531 separate gunshots recorded in 62 different urban municipalities nationwide, including places such as San Francisco, Washington, D.C., St. Louis and Canton, according to ShotSpotter, the company behind a
technology that listens for gunfire's acoustic signature and reports it to authorities....
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