Figures from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show there were a total of more than 38, deaths from guns in - of which more than 23, were suicides. A study published in the American Journal of Public Health found there was a strong relationship between higher levels of gun ownership in a state and higher firearm suicide rates for both men and women.
The number of mass shootings fell last year during the pandemic. According to investigative magazine Mother Jones, which has been tracking such incidents since , there were only two in the whole of Mother Jones defines a mass shooting as three or more people shot dead. It does not include violent crimes like robberies or gang-related violence in its statistics. Other figures from the Gun Violence Archive suggest mass shooting may have risen last year.
It uses a broader definition of shootings including those where victims are shot and injured, as well as robberies.
The Las Vegas attack in was the worst mass shooting in recent US history - and eight of the shootings with the highest number of casualties happened within the past 10 years. US public opinion on gun laws has fluctuated over recent years. Opinion polling by Gallup suggests that a majority of Americans would like to see the laws covering the sale of firearms made more strict.
Some states have taken steps to ban or strictly regulate ownership of assault weapons. Constitution states: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. This statement has taken on quasi-theological importance for many in the United States even though it is clearly being misinterpreted by those who believe it provides every individual the right to own such guns — including advanced, highly-destructive automatic weapons.
The misinterpretation begins with the deliberate ignoring of the first half of the sentence associating the right with the need for a "well-regulated militia. Strangely, many of those who consider the Second Amendment sacrosanct would vigorously support those subsequent adjustments to the document.
Congresswoman Giffords, the targeted victim of this attack , was a supporter of "Second Amendment rights. Consider the case of the shooter, a drug-using, clearly unhinged loser who responded to a requirement from his community college to seek a mental evaluation due to troubling behavior not by seeking help but by going out and buying a weapon … legally.
The attack also rightfully raises a question about the tenor of political discourse in the United States. This was not an attack by the venom-tongued and reckless political extremists and hate-mongers who have become so common in recent years. But it was certainly a consequence of the culture of disrespect and violence they have fomented. With some luck this attack my cause all parties to be more circumspect and embrace civility.
Many will reflexively note that other societies also have similar shortcomings. That is no doubt the case. But no society that holds itself up as an example to the world should, as the United States does, brazenly shrug off what are clearly deep national character flaws when it comes to our love of guns or our celebration of hate politics.
The problem is that we are not talking about the aberrant behavior of a lone gunman here. If the NRA prevails, the nearly million guns in the United States will show up in even more places than they do now. The legalistic approach to restricting gun ownership and reducing gun violence is failing. So is the assumption behind it. We need to stop deceiving ourselves about the importance of this distinction. Pre-pandemic, about 30 percent of American adults owned a gun, according to a Pew Research Center survey.
Another 33 percent rejected the idea of gun ownership. The remainder, about 36 percent, did not happen to own a gun at the time they were asked the question—but had either owned a gun in the past or could imagine owning a gun in the future. In , the future came, and millions of them queued at gun shops, pandemic stimulus dollars in hand. They were not buying weapons for hunting. Only about Nor were they buying weapons to play private militia. Fewer than 10 percent of Americans amass arsenals of five weapons or more.
And for all the focus on assault rifles, they make up a small portion of the firearms in private hands: approximately 6 percent of all guns owned. The weapon Americans most often buy is the modern semiautomatic handgun—affordable, light, and easy to use. This is the weapon people stash in their nightstand and the glove compartment of their car.
This is the weapon they tuck into their purse and shove into their waistband. Two-thirds of American gun buyers explain that they bought their gun to protect themselves and their families. The hard-core gun owner will never accept this truth. But the 36 percent in the middle—they may be open to it, if they can be helped to perceive it. From the January issue: Erik Larson on the story of a gun. The weapons Americans buy to protect their young children are years later used for self-harm by their troubled teenagers.
Or they are stolen from their car by criminals and used in robberies and murders. Or they are grabbed in rage and pointed at an ex-partner. The record shows case after case of guns escalating ordinary disputes into homicides or attempted homicides. In March , a man was fatally shot in the head after an altercation over a parking space at an Atlanta shopping mall. In August , a year-old Nashville homeowner reportedly shot and wounded a landscaper for not properly hauling brush from his property.
In November , a gun owner shot and killed a teenager for playing music too loudly in the parking lot of the motel they were both staying at, police said.
These incidents are unusual in only one way: The victims were all men. A frequent use of guns in American life is to dominate and terrorize women. According to a study, some 4. Almost 1 million American women have survived after a gun was used by a partner against them. Altogether, about Americans a year die from unintended shootings.
Yet this grim statistic still understates the toll of Americans fooling around with weapons. Unintended shootings tend not to be lethal. They account for only about 1 percent of all U. But they account for more than one-third of American gun injuries—injuries that can leave people disabled or traumatized for life. A majority of gun owners fail to store their weapons safely, according to research by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Above all else, guns are used for suicide. In any given year, twice as many Americans die by suicide as by homicide.
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