US gun violence statistics
THE US must hang its head in shame for the seemingly relentless deaths of innocent persons from gunrelated violence.
Despite the condemnation by informed and educated Americans, led by President Obama, the killing goes on at the rate of more than 30 people being shot and murdered each day.
Efforts by the US President and Congress to limit the sale and firepower of guns come to nothing since the powerful National Rifle Association (NRA) has successfully fought most limits on gun use and manufacture.
The NRA is one of the largest contributors to every election in the USA.
American columnist, Nicholas Kristoff said that more Americans have been killed by guns since 1968 than in all US wars.
Kristoff source was a PolitiFact article that fact-checked commentator Mark Shields’ claim that since 1968, “more Americans have died from gunfire than died in… all the wars of this country’s history.”
According to the Internet, Shields used the year 1968 because it was the year presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated by gunman Sirhan Sirhan.
The statistic is true: There have been 1,516,863 gun-related deaths since 1968, compared to 1,396,733 cumulative war deaths since the American Revolution.
That’s 120,130 more gun deaths than war deaths – about 9 percent more, or nearly four typical year’s worth of gun deaths, Shields said.
To see how pervasive gun ownership is in the US, statistics says that America has an estimated 283 million guns in civilian hands, out of a population of 318.9 million.
Homicide is the second leading cause of death among 15-24 year-olds in America and gun homicides there have killed more than 10,000 yearly, while in Canada, it is less than 200; Germany, Italy, France, less than 150; and Japan, less than 50, according to the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) of the United Nations (UN).
Despite call to limit gun ownership, the average number of guns per owner has increased from 4.1 in 1994 to 6.9 in 2004, the latest record available shows.
The US lifetime medical costs for gunshot injuries total is estimated at $2.3 billion, while American taxpayers pay for almost half or $1.1 billion of lifetime medical costs for gunshot wounds.