24.2
24.3
24.1
23.8
23.3
19.7
14.4
10.3
7.3
5.0
3.3
2.1
1.3
0.8
0.5
0.3
0.2
0.1
0.0
172.6
174.5
174.1
173.6
171.9
143.2
95.5
58.3
34.3
20.1
11.9
6.9
3.9
2.2
1.2
0.7
0.3
0.1
0.0
24.9
25.2
25.2
25.3
25.1
22.8
17.7
13.2
10.0
7.5
5.7
4.4
3.3
2.5
1.8
1.3
0.8
0.4
0.1
58.9
59.3
59.3
59.4
58.8
54.5
47.6
41.3
35.7
30.2
24.8
19.6
14.7
10.6
7.5
5.1
3.1
1.5
0.3
<1 year
1–4 years
5–9 years
10–14 years
15–19 years
20–24 years
25–29 years
30–34 years
35–39 years
40–44 years
45–49 years
50–54 years
55–59 years
60–64 years
65–69 years
70–74 years
75–79 years
80–84 years
85+ years
<1 year
1–4 years
5–9 years
10–14 years
15–19 years
20–24 years
25–29 years
30–34 years
35–39 years
40–44 years
45–49 years
50–54 years
55–59 years
60–64 years
65–69 years
70–74 years
75–79 years
80–84 years
85+ years
Homicide
by Firearms
200 180 160 140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
Age
Life expectancy loss in days Life expectancy loss in days
WHITE BLACK
Suicide
by Firearms
200 180 160 140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
Age
Life expectancy loss in days Life expectancy loss in days
WHITE BLACK
45,000
40,000
35,000
30,000
25,000
20,000
15,000
10,000
5,000
0
Annual U.S. Firearm Deaths by Intent, 1990–2015
1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015
Ye a r
A
n
n
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n
u
m
b
e
r
o
f
f
i
r
e
a
r
m
d
e
a
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h
s
Homicide
Suicide
Unintentional
Undetermined
N
u
m
b
e
r
o
f
d
e
a
t
h
s
0
5,000
10,000
15,000
20,000
25,000
30,000
35,000
40,000
Other high-income
countries
United States
35,759
6,965
34
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far the most likely type of firearm to cause a fatality.
In 2017, handguns were used in 7,032 of the 7,886
firearm-related homicide deaths where the type of
weapon was known; the type of gun was not recorded
in data on roughly 3,100 additional homicides.
Perhaps most striking about the gaps in current
gun violence data is how little we know about the
shootings that don’t result in death. “If what you care
about is state- or national-level gun deaths, homi-
cides and suicides, we have good data,” says Morral.
“We don’t have good data on firearm injuries, which
represents the vast majority of firearm casualties.”
In fact, the CDC cautions that its own numbers on
non-fatal firearm injury are “unstable and potentially
unreliable” due to issues such as insufficient data.
Even those imperfect numbers suggest an average of
around 130,000 gun injuries per year.
And the number of non-fatal gun injuries is merely
one unknown in a complex web of gun violence fall-
out. Individuals and their families may experience
physical, psychological and financial repercussions,
demographic group taking the brunt of firearm-
related loss of life expectancy: black men under age
20, who were dying from homicide. Because black
male firearm homicides were much younger, on
average, than white male suicides, the group’s life
expectancy saw the bigger reduction, by more than
four years.
Women, meanwhile, make up around 10 percent
of all U.S. gun deaths and, according to a study of
220 case histories published in the American Journal
of Public Health, they are far more likely than men
to be killed by an intimate partner. A 2014 review
published in the Annals of Internal Medicine found
some evidence that women with access to firearms are
more likely to be victims of homicides than women
without, possibly due to intimate partner violence.
Overall, the rate of gun homicide is 25 times higher
in the U.S. than in other high-income countries —
for comparison, the rate of U.S. homicides due to
causes other than firearms is only 2.7 times higher.
And data from the FBI shows that handguns are by
White vs. Black Life Expectancy Loss From Firearms, 2000–2016
A 2018 study
revealed black males
in the U.S. lose more
than four years of life
expectancy, accrued
over time, due to risk
of death by firearm,
overwhelmingly by
homicide.
Source: “Cross-sectional study of loss of life expectancy at different ages related to firearm deaths among black and white Americans,”
BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine, 2018
Firearm Deaths in the U.S. vs. Other High-Income
Countries per 100,000 People, 2015
The same study
showed that, for
white males, the risk
of suicide by firearm
has a greater
negative effect on
life expectancy.
Source: “Violent death rates in the US compared to those of the other high-income
countries, 2015,” Preventive Medicine, 2019
Source: “Geospatial, racial, and educational variation in firearm mortality in the
USA, Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia, 1990–2015,” The Lancet Public Health, 2019