Americans and immigrants who died of gun violence in the United States this year were more than 13,900, as shootings have continuously made headlines in the first few months of the year.
According to Gun Violence Archive, as reported by CBS, at least 13,959 people have died from gun violence in the US in 2023 as of May 1 – which was an average of approximately 115 deaths each day.
The report stated that there were 491 teenagers and 85 children among the casualties.
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It also said deaths by suicide have made up the vast majority of gun violence deaths this year.
There has been an average of about 66 deaths by suicide per day in 2023.
The majority of these deaths have occurred in Texas, California, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Illinois and Louisiana.
According to the Gun Violence Archive, the figure of deaths includes 460 people killed in officer-involved shootings.
There have also been 494 “unintentional” shootings as revealed by the report, CBS said.
About 184 mass shootings were recorded already as of May 1, 2023, which was defined by the Gun Violence Archive as an incident in which four or more victims are shot or killed. These mass shootings have led to 248 deaths and 744 injuries.
There has been at least 13 kindergarten to 12th-grade school shootings so far this year, including a recent incident in Nashville, Tennessee, on March 27 when three children and three staff members were shot and killed at the Covenant School, a Christian school for students in preschool through sixth grade.
In Michigan, three students were killed and five others were injured when a gunman opened fire at two locations on Michigan State University’s main campus in East Lansing on February 13, police said.
California saw three mass shootings in a matter of days in January, with one shooting leaving at least 11 people killed and 10 others injured after a gunman opened fire at a dance studio near a Lunar New Year celebration in Monterey Park, California.
There are many others that have claimed the lives of innocent citizens, which have called the attention of political leaders in the US including President Joe Biden.
Meanwhile, the question popping into the minds of Americans and other concerned people is how many guns are there in the US?
While calculating the number of guns in private hands around the world is difficult, the latest figures from the Small Arms Survey – a Swiss-based research project – estimated that there were 390 million guns in circulation in the US in 2018.
The US ratio of 120.5 firearms per 100 residents, up from 88 per 100 in 2011, far exceeds that of other countries around the world, which is of great concern to a country with flexible gun laws.
(Vanguard)
