The latest report by Gun Violence Archive indicates 5,742 people have committed suicide using firearms and 4,266 others have died in homicides, murders, accidental discharges and defensive gun use.
As for minors, 59 children aged up to 11 died in those incidents and 347 aged 12-17, according to the tracker.
The report also says there have been 130 mass shootings so far this year, and that the number of mass shootings has gone up significantly in recent years.
In each of the last three years, there have been more than 600 mass shootings, almost two a day on average.
The report was published following a shooting in the US state of Tennessee on Monday, which left three children and three adults dead at a private Christian elementary school.
The attacker, a former student of the school, was killed during a shootout with a five-member police team.
The shooting came as communities around the United States are reeling from a spate of school shootings, including the massacre at an elementary school in Texas last year, in which nineteen students and two teachers were killed.
US President Joe Biden on Tuesday called on Congress to enact federal legislation addressing the country’s gun crisis.
On Monday, he urged the US Congress to reimpose a ban on assault weapons, which existed from 1994 to 2004.
Biden’s call for the ban to be reinstated has faced opposition from Republicans who are staunch defenders of the constitutional right to bear arms.
A Gallup poll from October 2022 showed a majority of Americans are in favor of gun control, with a 57% majority of all Americans saying they want stricter laws covering the sale of firearms.
No comments:
Post a Comment