By Fatima M. Sambo.
Gun violence is attaining wearisome dimensions in the USA, beside the loss of lives and properties, it is also coming at a serious cost to taxpayers.
Most disturbingly is that the majority of the death were suicidal, one will only but wonder why are people killing themselves in supposed El Dorado, a country of Honey, Milk, and surplus?
According to a report by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention National Center for Health Statistics “As of May 1,at least 13,959 people have died from gun violence in the U.S. this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which is an average of roughly 115 deaths each day.
Of those who died, 491 were teens and 85 were children.
Deaths by suicide have made up the vast majority of gun violence deaths this year. There's been an average of about 66 deaths by suicide per day in 2023." The report added.
This is a considerable rise from the 2021 statistics that pen the figures at “48,830 people died from gun-related injuries in the US during 2021, according to the latest data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).”
“Data shows more than 50 people are killed each day by a firearm in the US.
That's a significantly larger proportion of homicides than is the case in Canada, Australia, England and Wales, and many other countries.”
As the number of casualties from gun violence continues to rise, one can only but wonder as to why a vast majority of Americans are dying to keep their guns “More recent data out of the US suggests that gun ownership grew significantly over the last few years. A study, published by the Annals of Internal Medicine in February, found that 7.5 million US adults became new gun owners between January 2019 and April 2021.
This, in turn, exposed 11 million people to firearms in their homes, including 5 million children. About half of new gun owners in that time were women, while 40% were either black or Hispanic.”- www.economist.com.
This is quite contrary to the narrative that America is the most secured, most advanced, and the best place to live on earth. It is even more scary if one considers that no one and no where is safe in America. You can be shot by some random guy in every inch of the United States' worst if you're Black, Brown, or Hispanic, no one will even care.
To make matters worst and to confirm the saying that no where is safe from gun violence in the US, it will be worth noting that” At least eleven assassination attempts with firearms have been made on U.S. presidents (over one-fifth of all presidents); four sitting presidents have been killed, three with handguns and one with a rifle."- www.economist.com