Gun violence: A US scourge that refuses to die

Suicide attempts

Firearms accounted for about 8 percent of suicide attempts but slightly more than half the 47,511 suicide deaths in 2019, the American Association of Suicidology says. Men are nearly four times as likely as women to die in a suicide attempt, mainly because they are much more likely to use a gun.

In 2020, 54 percent of all gun-related deaths (24,292) were suicides, and 43 percent were murders (19,384), the CDC says.

Two demographic groups bear the brunt of escalating gun violence in the US and are most likely to die of a gunshot wound: young black men and older white men.

White men are six times as likely to die by suicide as other US citizens. Black men are 17 times as likely to be killed with a gun fired by someone else.

Nearly 8 in 10 murders in the US in 2020, or 19,384 out of 24,576, involved a firearm. That was the highest percentage since at least 1968, the earliest year for which the CDC has online records. Fifty-three percent of all suicides in 2020, 24,292 out of 45,979, involved a gun, a percentage that has generally remained stable in recent years.

How has the number of US gun deaths changed over time?

The total gun deaths at 45,222 in 2020 are the most on record, representing a 14 percent increase from the year before, a 25 percent increase from five years before and a 43 percent increase from a decade before.

Gun murders have climbed sharply in recent years. The 19,384 that took place in 2020 were the most since at least 1968, exceeding the previous peak of 18,253 recorded by the CDC in 1993. The 2020 total represented a 34 percent increase from the year before, a 49 percent increase over five years and a 75 percent increase over 10 years.

The number of gun suicides has also risen in recent years, rising 10 percent over five years and 25 percent over 10 years, and is near its highest point on record. The 24,292-gun suicides that took place in 2020 were the most in any year except 2018, when there were 24,432.

What is rarely mentioned in stories about gun violence in the US is the cost of firearm injuries, more than $1 billion each year in initial direct medical costs alone, the federal Government Accountability Office reported in July.

It found that each year firearm-related injuries cause 30,000 initial inpatient hospital stays that cost an average of $31,000 each, and 50,000 initial emergency room visits that cost an average of $1,500 each. That does not include physicians' costs, which could increase total costs by about 20 percent, the GAO found.

For victims of fatal firearm injuries, medical expenses totaled $290 million in 2020 and cost an average of $9,000 for each patient. Much of these costs are paid for by public health insurance providers.

Mental and emotional impacts of exposure to gun violence can cause significant health effects, adding to healthcare costs. For survivors of gun violence injuries, psychiatric disorders increase by 200 percent in the month after injury, the GAO says. For children exposed to a fatal school shooting in their local area, the use of antidepressants rises 21 percent in the two years after the shooting.

Gun violence also affects victims' families. A study by the Annals of Internal Medicine found that family members of survivors sustaining a nonfatal gun-related injury result in a 12 percent greater incidence of psychiatric disorders compared with families who experienced no such injuries.

Gun safety advocates fear that a Supreme Court ruling on June 23 will exacerbate gun violence.

The court ruled that the Second Amendment to the US Constitution protects the right to publicly carry a firearm. It struck down a New York state law that had been on the books for more than a century and required people to show a specific need to carry a concealed firearm in public. The court also found it was applied unevenly. The ruling meant similar laws in California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts and New Jersey were invalid.