Is the Second Amendment worth the 100 American lives lost to gun violence each day?
By: Mary Wilson
We need bipartisan, common sense gun laws, and we need them now.
Even aside from the mass shootings we as Americans have grown so desensitized and accustomed to– after all, we don’t hear of other countries training their schoolchildren to hide in darkened classrooms in the hopes that they won’t be gunned down during math class–100 Americans are killed by guns each day, according to sources like the Giffords Law Center and Everytown for Gun Safety. That averages out to 36,000 Americans each year.
I’m certainly not a mathematician, but this isn’t complicated: there are 24 hours in each day. That means that four Americans are shot and killed every hour. Or, if that isn’t stark enough: almost every 15 minutes, an American is shot and killed.
Let me repeat that: every 15 minutes, an American is shot and killed.
Aside from the deaths from guns, the Giffords Law Center reports that 100,000 Americans are shot and injured per year. Maybe it’s easy to rationalize this away: after all, surely other countries have similar statistics. Right?
Wrong. The Giffords Law Center claims that “Americans are 25 times more likely to die from gun violence than residents of peer nations.” That means that per 100,000 people, France had 2.4 gun deaths. Canada had 1.9 gun deaths. Germany had one gun death, and Australia, the UK and Japan all had less than one gun death per 100,000 people.
The United States of America had 11.2 gun deaths per 100,000 people.
The United States is only 4 percent of the world’s population. However, the USA accounts for “35 percent of global firearm suicides and 9 percent of global firearm homicides.”
Suicide is a key part of our gun violence crisis, yet it’s rarely talked about. The Giffords Law Center asserts that guns are used in 51 percent “of suicide deaths in America.” Not only that, but “access to a gun triples the risk of suicide death” If that wasn’t enough, “85 percent of gun suicide attempts end in death.”
Less than 5 percent of “non-firearm suicide attempts result in death.”
Everytown For Gun Safety adds that “nearly two-thirds of gun deaths are suicides.” All of this gun violence has an astounding impact on Americans; according to Everytown For Gun Safety, “58 percent of American adults or someone they care have experienced gun violence in their lifetime” and “three million American children witness gun violence every year.”
I know, I know: the Second Amendment is covered by our Constitution. Responsible gun owners do exist. And no one that I know of is talking about taking all of the guns away. These statistics, however, tell a story that we can’t afford to look away from.
It took me about 45 minutes to gather all of the information necessary for this article and write it. In the time it took me to write this article, three Americans were shot and killed by guns.
We need bipartisan, common-sense gun laws, and we need them now.
Who in your life has to die from gun violence before you take action?
