Every day, 375 Americans get shot — and 100 die
Only large mass shootings make national news, but epidemic fatal gun violence is an unrelenting daily reality in the United States.
Guns kill about 100 people and wound 275 more every single day in our country.
Mass shootings comprise less than 1% of all US gun deaths, but those massacres can help us conceptualize the impact of 100 daily gun deaths: That’s like 2 Orlando nightclub shootings every day, or 3 Virginia Techs, 4 Sandy Hooks, 5 El Pasos, 6 Parklands, 7 San Bernadinos, 8 Auroras, 9 Pittsburgh synagogues, 10 Santa Fe High Schools, or 11 Charleston church shootings.
Every. Single. Day.
This happens because we allow it.
Firearms murder and maim hundreds of American men, women, and children every day because we want this carnage.
Because we choose to have this daily flood of blood on our hands.
This unremitting mass tragedy is eminently preventable. We know exactly how to end this epidemic of daily gun deaths. If we chose to do so, we could, within a few years, cut gun violence by 90% — to the levels seen in the rest of the world’s richest nations.
Before reviewing those remedies, we need to unpack the statistics on firearm casualties to understand the broad outlines of our country’s gun violence epidemic.
Today, 243 US residents got shot by someone with hostile intent, and 36 of them died. 19 of those dead were African-Americans. Gun violence is the leading cause of death for black youth, and the second-leading cause of death for all US children.
Today, 2 women were shot dead by a husband or boyfriend — a gun death rate 21 times higher than women in other rich countries. 71% of women who survive domestic violence report their abusers threatened them with firearms.
By refusing to end gun violence, we choose daily terror and death for American women and children.
On an average day, 52 people get shot accidentally, and 1.3 of them die.
Today, 71 Americans shot themselves on purpose, and 60 of them died as a result. Without guns, less than 30% of suicide attempts end in death. But suicide by firearm is fatal 85% of the time.
Although veterans comprise less than 10% of the US population, fully one-third of the people who shot themselves dead today — 20 out of 60 — once served in our armed forces.
Every other day, a law enforcement officer commits suicide by firearm.
Once a week, a cop gets killed by a criminal with a gun.
Today, law enforcement officers shot 6 Americans, and 1 or 2 of them died. US cops are more than 10 times more likely to shoot suspects than law enforcement officers in other countries — mostly because US criminals are far more likely to be armed with guns.
By refusing to end gun violence, we choose death for veterans and law enforcement officers who risk their lives to protect us and our freedoms.
Or, you could choose action to end this daily mass slaughter in our homes and on our streets.
Coming soon: Solutions
