(Washington) More than 17,000 dead in 2022, including nearly 650 minors: the toll of victims of gun violence in the United States is terrifying, according to the count of organizations campaigning for better regulation of the sale of personal weapons .
Posted at 11:50 a.m.
111 deaths per day
On average, 40,620 people die each year from firearms in the United States, according to the organization Everytown For Gun Safety, which includes suicides in this figure.
In total, 111 people per day on average therefore die from firearms in the country.
The state of Texas, where the sale of personal weapons is very little supervised, registers an average of 3647 annual deaths by firearm, specifies Everytown.
Since the start of 2022, at least 17,199 people have died from firearms, according to the organization Gun Violence Archive. Among the victims, 7629 were killed during a homicide, voluntary or involuntary, and 9570 died by suicide.
The year 2021 had recorded 45,010 deaths, including 20,920 homicides, a record since 2017 and its 58,114 deaths, according to Gun Violence Archive.
In addition, 14,247 people have suffered a firearm injury for nearly six months.
Children not spared
Children are not spared and are often collateral victims of stray bullets or a weapon found by chance, when they are not directly targeted as in Uvalde.
In 2022, 647 miners died from a gunshot and more than double (1,594) were injured, according to Gun Violence Archive. From this assessment, 140 children aged 11 and under died and 289 were injured.
Last year, 1,560 miners were killed and 4,132 injured.
More than one mass shooting per day
Since the beginning of the year, i.e. 145 days, the United States has experienced 213 mass shootings, according to Gun Violence Archive, which counts in this category events having caused at least four victims (deceased or injured) without including the perpetrator. shootings.
“There are more mass killings than days in the year,” Connecticut Democratic Senator Chris Murphy denounced on Tuesday. The year 2021 had recorded 692, a record since 2014, when Gun Violence Archive began its grim tally.
Records broken
In a country where weapons circulate freely and legislation differs from state to state, the year 2020 saw 19,350 firearm homicides, a “historic” increase of nearly 35% compared to 2019, and 24,245 suicides ( +1.5%), according to the latest statistics available from the American health authorities.
This is a level not seen in 25 years, but still below the peak of the 1980s.
The homicide rate stood at 6.1 per 100,000 population in 2020, the highest for more than 25 years, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in its report released earlier this month. .
For health authorities, this increase was potentially caused by the effects of the COVID-19 epidemic and poverty.
In 2021, several American cities, large metropolises as well as medium-sized cities, also experienced records. Chicago, the third largest city in the country, recorded the highest number of homicides, or 836. But it is Memphis in Tennessee which holds the sad record per capita with 2,352 homicides per 100,000 people.
120 weapons per 100 people
In the United States, where the right to own a weapon is guaranteed by the Constitution, the number of pistols, revolvers and other rifles has soared in recent years.
More than 23 million weapons were sold in 2020, a record, and nearly 20 million in 2021, according to data compiled by the Small Arms Analytics site.
According to the Small Arms Survey project, 393.3 million guns were in circulation among the civilian population in the United States in 2017, or 120 guns for every 100 people.
Added to this is a growing number of “ghost” weapons, sold in spare parts without serial numbers, which are particularly popular in criminal circles.
In June 2021, 30% of American adults said they owned at least one weapon, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center.