This report tallied the human and economic toll of gun violence in all 50 states. The cost is staggering.
2017 marked the first time firearms killed more people than motor vehicle accidents, the report said.
Sept. 18, 2019, 3:46 PM EDT
By Dartunorro Clark
Gun violence hits America's youth and rural states the hardest and has reached the highest levels in decades, a report released Wednesday by Democrats on Congress' Joint Economic Committee has found.
U.S. teens and young adults, ages 15-24, are 50 times more likely to die by gun violence than they are in other economically advanced countries, according to the 50-state breakdown.
In 2017 — the year of a mass shooting in Las Vegas that killed 58 and injured hundreds — nearly 40,000 people died from gun-related injuries, including 2,500 school children, the report said, noting that six in 10 gun deaths in the U.S. are suicides.
Rural states, meanwhile, have the highest rates of gun deaths and bear the largest costs as a share of their economies. Nationally, the cost of gun violence in the U.S. runs $229 billion a year, or 1.4 percent of the gross domestic product, the report said.
“The human cost is beyond our ability to comprehend, it is tragic, it is sickening, and it is a crisis,” Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., the vice-chair of the committee, said in a news conference Wednesday. “The gun violence needs to stop and we need to make it happen.”
more:
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/report-tallied-human-economic-toll-gun-violence-all-50-states-n1055966?cid=eml_nbn_20190918
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