Gun Violence Epidemic

Gun Violence: An Epidemic Requiring Community Action

In the United States, gun violence claims close to 30,000 lives each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For every person who dies from a gunshot wound, two others are wounded. Nearly 100,000 Americans are victims of gun violence each year. And in addition to those who are killed or injured, there are countless others whose lives are forever changed by the deaths and injuries of their loved ones.

Gun violence touches every segment of our society. It increases the probability of deaths in incidents of domestic violence, raises the likelihood of fatalities by those who intend to injure others and among those who attempt suicide, places children and young people at special risk, and disproportionately affects communities of color.

Mass shootings like the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Colorado – or the 1993 office shooting in San Francisco that led to the formation of Legal Community Against Violence – receive significant media attention. But gun deaths and injuries occur quietly, without national press coverage, on a daily basis in this country.

Consider this information:

• Firearm injuries are the second leading cause of injury-related deaths nationwide, surpassed only by motor vehicle injuries.¹
  
  
• In 2001, 29,573 Americans were killed with firearms – in homicides, suicides and unintentional shootings.²
  
  
• 63,012 Americans were treated in hospital emergency departments for non-fatal gunshot wounds in 2001.³
  
  
• Children and young people under the age of 25 constituted over 40% of all firearm deaths and injuries in 2001.⁴
  
  
• Guns cause the death of 19 young people (those 24 years of age and under) each day in the U.S.⁵
  
  
• The overall firearm-related death rate among U.S. children under age 15 is nearly 12 times higher than that among children in 25 other industrialized nations combined.⁶
  
  
• African Americans make up 13% of the U.S. population, but in 2001 suffered almost 25% of all firearm deaths – and 52% of all firearm homicides.⁷
  
  
• Firearm homicide is the leading cause of death for African Americans ages 15-34.⁸
  
  
• White males, about 40% of the U.S. population, accounted for 80% of firearm suicides in 2001.⁹
  
  
• Once all the direct and indirect medical, legal and societal costs are factored together, the annual cost of gun violence in America amounts to $100 billion.¹⁰

Polls consistently confirm that most Americans want stronger gun laws, for example:

• 87.9 percent of Americans support “child-proofing” firearms, 72.2 percent back technology that “personalizes” handguns, and 74.9 percent favor governmental safety standards for firearms.¹¹
  
  
• 77 percent of likely 2004 presidential election voters, and 66 percent of gun owners who are likely 2004 presidential election voters, support renewal of the federal assault weapon ban.¹²
  
  
• 65 percent of Americans favor strengthening the federal assault weapon ban, including 51 percent of gun owners.¹³
  
  
• 67 percent of Field & Stream readers do not consider assault weapons to be legitimate sporting guns.¹⁴

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Footnotes

1. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, National Vital Statistics Reports, Deaths: Final Data for 2001, Vol. 52, No. 3, p. 91, September 18, 2003. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr52/nvsr52_03.pdf

2. Id.

3. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS) Nonfatal Injury Reports. http://webapp.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/nfirates2001.html

4. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS) Injury Mortality Reports, 2000 – 2001. http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate10_sy.html

5. Id.

6. Centers for Disease Control Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, Rates of Homicide, Suicide, and Firearm-Related Death Among Children--26 Industrialized Countries, February 7, 1997, Vol. 46, No.5. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00046149.htm

7. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS) Injury Mortality Reports, 2000 – 2001. http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate10_sy.html

8. Id.

9. Id.

10. Philip J. Cook and Jens Ludwig, Gun Violence: The Real Costs, New York: Oxford University Press, 2000, 115.

11. Susan B. Sorenson, Regulating Firearms as a Consumer Product, Science, Nov. 19, 1999, at 1481-82.

12. Americans for Gun Safety, Taking Back the Second Amendment: A Seven-Step Blueprint for Democrats to Promote Responsibility and Win the Gun Vote, 7, Oct. 2003 (citing a national poll of 802 likely 2004 presidential election voters conducted by Penn Schoen & Berland from October 1- 6, 2003, with a +/-3.46% margin of error). Another poll of likely 2004 presidential election voters, conducted by the National Annenberg Election Survey (NAES) and published in April 2004, found that 71 percent of all respondents – and 64 percent of gun-owning households – want the federal assault weapon ban renewed by Congress. The NAES survey results can be viewed here: http://www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/naes/2004_03_gun-legislation_4-23_pr.pdf

13. Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Strongly Support Renewing and Strengthening the Federal Assault Weapons Ban, Feb. 2004 (citing a national survey of likely 2004 presidential election voters conducted by Opinion Research Corporation International from February 18-22, 2004, with a +/-3% margin of error).

14. Field & Stream, The 2003 National Hunting Survey, July 2003 (citing an informal survey of 2,897 readers).