Data Lab | Alarming stats, in charts: US has more gun dealers than McDonald's, Starbucks outlets put together
US gun violence
Gun violence took centrestage as the prevailing theme of the year in the United States from the very beginning of 2023. Six months in, and the country has reached a sombre milestone that nobody ever aspired for—the deadliest six months of mass killings recorded since at least 2006.
From January 1 to June 30, the US went through a tough stretch. There were 28 mass killings during this time, and almost all of them involved guns, according to an analysis undertaken by the Associated Press.It seemed like every week the death toll went up, and it was a cycle of violence and sorrow.
The milestone of 2023 has gone above and beyond, surpassing the previous record of 27 mass killings set in the second half of 2022.
WION Data Lab brings you some staggering statisticson America's unique struggle with gun violence.
American gun ownership rates are the highest in the world
A 2018 report by the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey discovered that US gun owners had 393.3 million firearms, which is more than the nation's current population of approximately 340million.
In a study by theAnnals of Internal Medicine, it was discovered that between January 2019 and April 2021, 7.5 million Americansor slightly under three per cent of the population, became first-time gun owners.
Disturbing Surge: Gun Deaths Among US Kids Soar by 50% Between 2019 and 2021
Note: This is an interactive data chart. Hover/click on the squares to get the figures.
Between 2019 and 2021, there was a distressing 50 per centsurge in the number of children and teens fatally impacted by gunfire in the United States. This data comes from a comprehensive analysis by the Pew Research Center, which examined the latest annual mortality statistics reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
In 2019, a time before the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, the number of gun-related deaths among children and teenagers below the age of 18 in the United States stood at 1,732. However, by 2021, that figure had surged to an alarming2,590.
Gun deaths outpace car accidents as a greater threat to children's lives
Note: This is an interactive data chart. Hover/click on the points to get the figures.
In 2021, firearms were responsible for approximately 19 per cent of all childhood deaths (ages 1-18), as revealed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Wonder database. Shockingly, nearly 3,600 children lost their lives in gun-related incidents that year. To put it into perspective, that's roughly five children lost for every 100,000 children in the United States.
Firearm frenzy: Outnumbering giants such as McDonald's, Starbucks in the US
The chart above demonstrates the remarkable accessibility of lethal weapons in the United States. Comparing the gun trade with the number of McDonald's, Starbucks, and Subway outlets, it becomes evident that the trading of firearms surpasses even the ubiquity of selling burgers or coffee. To put it into perspective, there were a staggering 52,799 federal firearm dealers scattered across the US in 2020.
WATCH WION LIVE HERE: