article: An investigation spanning almost three years into the yearly cost of gun violence covered by U.S. taxpayers has determined the figure to be over $229 billion. The new study, by independent political magazine Mother Jones, was spawned by the mass shooting in Aurora, Colorado, in July 2012 during a midnight screening of The Dark Knight rises, in which 12 people were killed and 70 injured. The magazine says it set out to determine the amount of money the survivors and victims' families from that one incident would need, based on medical expenses, lost wages, court costs, therapy and impact on quality of life. The legal proceedings alone cost $5.5 million before the trial of the shooter, James Eagan Holmes, had even started. Shocking: A new report into the annual economic toll of gun violence in the US determined that taxpayers fork out $229 billion annually because of shootings, which is more than $700 per person. That figure is more than Apple's annual revenue of $174 billion and the cost of the obesity epidemic, which is $224 billion . The investigation subsequently expanded to account for all the victims of gun-related violence in the U.S. based on yearly figures from 2012. At least 750,000 Americans have been injured by guns over the last 10 years. While gun-related deaths seem to be decreasing, with 33,000 each year, gun-related violence is increasing, with 80,000 injured in 2012. Mother Jones reported the rise of gun-related violence to be up 11 percent since 2011. Despite this increase, no studies have been undertaken to document the cost to society that such shootings demand. Last month, a team doctors noted in the Annals of Internal Medicine that the issue is 'a public health crisis'. The medical journal also noted that such studies have been avoided because of the influence that the National Rifle Association and other pro-gun groups have on political leaders. The Annals of Internal Medicine called this 'suppression of science'. Gun violence: Although homicides are on the decline across the US, Mother Jones found 80,000 people were injured by guns in 2012. The yearly cost to send someone to prison for gun-related homicide is $414,000 . Mother Jones added: 'Political forces had effectively banned the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other scientific agencies from funding research on gun-related injury and death. The ban worked: A recent systematic review of studies evaluating access to guns and its association with suicide and homicide identified no relevant studies published since 2005.' To set about its own study, Mother Jones enlisted Ted Miller at the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation. Miller had undertaken similar investigations since the 1980s. They identified two major costs stemming from gun-related violence: direct and indirect. Direct costs referred to the expenses of someone actually being shot, from emergency service, to police investigations and medical bills, as well as court and prison costs for the assailant. Taxpayers account for about 87 percent of the direct costs involved in gun-related violence, Mother Jones reported. Based on Miller's findings and the 2012 data, it was determined the yearly total of direct costs is about $8.6 billion. About $5.2 billion of this relates to prison costs. 'The average cost to taxpayers for a single gun homicide in America is nearly $400,000,' the study determined. 'And we pay for 32 of them every single day.' For each homicide caused by a gun, the largest direct cost is prison, which costs about $414,000 for each person who committed the crime, according to Mother Jones. There are 32 of these paid out every day . The second, and vastly more expensive category, is indirect costs, such as loss of income, impact on quality of life and payouts to survivors, victims and their families. Indirect costs amount to at least $221 billion each year, it was determined. Lost wages alone counts for $49 billion of that figure. However the $229 billion total could be well be higher, because there are factors related to gun violence that could not be counted. This includes the massive increase in security at schools across the country since the Columbine High School massacre in 1999. The federal government has spent over $811 million equipping schools with security guards and providing other surveillance-based equipment. Adding up: The Mother Jones study used 2012 data of  homicides, suicides, police shootings, and massacres to quantify the effects of gun violence . Mother Jones included a case study in the investigation, showing the life-long costs of and effects that a random shooting had on Arizona woman Jennifer Longdon. Longdon and her husband, both martial artists, were at a drive-thru in Phoenix on November 15, 2004, when another vehicle side-swiped their car. The driver of the other vehicle got out and fired five shots into the truck that Longdon and her husband David were in. David was shot in the head, causing him severe neurological damage and sending him blind. He required around-the-clock care. Jennifer was shot in the spine and permanently paralyzed from the chest down. The shooter or shooters were never caught. Activist: Jennifer Longdon was paralyzed following a random shooting in Phoenix in 2044. She estimates the total financial toll the shooting has had on her since the incident to be around $5 million. Adding to that cost, the shooter was never caught and her husband suffered severe brain damage . After five months in hospital, Jennifer's hospital bills totaled almost $1 million. She was dumped by her health insurance provider following the shooting, based on a pre-existing condition, and had to file for bankruptcy. She has been hospitalized over 20 times since the shooting and estimates her total bills since 2004, including wheelchair modifications to her home, a van that she was able to drive with just her hands and physical therapy, to about $5 million. She is now a high-profile gun control activist. 'It's an ongoing battle every day—choosing to stay alive, and to continue to fight,' she told Mother Jones.
highlights: Investigation by Mother Jones said gun violence costs $700 per American each year, with a total of $229 billion .
  The cost of the obesity epidemic is $224 billion .
  $8.6 billion is direct costs, such as prison for those who commit homicide .
  Indirect costs account for $169 billion for 'impact on victims' quality of life'
  Over 750,000 Americans have been injured by guns in the last 10 years .
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