Gun Violence Facts

As of November 2022

 
 

gun violence facts and stats…

  1. About 45,000 Americans are killed with guns each year.

  2. In the most recent years, suicides accounted for 54% of those gun deaths, gun murders 43%.

  3. Philadelphia (population 1.5 million) suffers more gun murders each year than any major high-income country other than the United States, including Japan (125 million), Germany (83 million) and all others.

  4. Gun violence is a uniquely American disaster, and the annual US per capita death rate is about four times the next closes high income country (Switzerland).

  5. Pennsylvania, with relatively weak gun laws, has an annual per capita death rate (13.5 per 100,000) greater than twice the rate of neighboring New Jersey, which closely regulates gun purchases, ownership, and use.

  6. New Jersey has laws that limit handgun purchasers to a single handgun in any thirty-day period, One Handgun a Month, which severely and negatively impacts gun traffickers, while there is no limit on the number of guns purchasers in Pennsylvania can buy in a single transaction. The purchase of a handgun in New Jersey takes at least two weeks, due to a mandated waiting period, whereas a typical gun purchase in Pennsylvania takes less than thirty minutes.

  7. Approximately 20% of all guns recovered from crime in New Jersey were originally sold by New Jersey gun retailers, the rest come from other states with weaker gun laws, while over 80% of recovered crime guns in Pennsylvania were sold in Pennsylvania.

  8. African American males make up 52% of all gun homicide victims in the United States but make up less than 6% of the population.

  9. Gun violence is the leading cause of death for American children under 18.

  10. Handguns account for about 85% of all Philadelphia homicides and illegal handguns account for almost 100% of gun homicides.

  11. According to a recent research report, less than 2% of Pennsylvania federally licensed gun retailers sold 57% of all guns recovered from crime in the state.

  12. In Philadelphia, six federally licensed gun retailers sold a total of 11,000 guns recovered from crime in a recent four-year period.

  13. The previous two data points demonstrate:

    1. The vast majority of gun retailers do not sell to straw buyers and gun traffickers.

    2. Gun traffickers know which gun stores will sell to them or their stand-ins and frequent these stores.