gun violence in the united states gun violence in the united states gun violence results in tens of thousands of deaths and injuries annually in the united states. gun violence became the leading cause of death for children 19 and younger for the first time in 2020 and by 2022, it was responsible for about 100 daily fatalities and hundreds of daily injuries. in 2018, the most recent year for which data are available as of 2021, the centers for disease control and prevention's (cdc) national center for health statistics reports 38,390 deaths by firearm, of which 24,432 were by suicide. the rate of firearm deaths per 100,000 people rose from 10.3 per 100,000 in 1999 to 12 per 100,000 in 2017, with 109 people dying per day or about 14,542 homicides in total, being 11.9 per 100,000 in 2018. in 2010, there were 19,392 firearm-related suicides, and 11,078 firearm-related homicides in the u.s. in 2010, 358 murders were reported involving a rifle while 6,009 were reported involving a handgun; another 1,939 were reported with an unspecified type of firearm. in 2011, a total of 478,400 fatal and nonfatal violent crimes were committed with a firearm. gun crimes are covered by 18 usc 922 and 18 usc 924, which are the principal federal firearm statutes. gun-related suicides and homicides in the united states gun deaths in u.s. in proportional relationship to total population (2012 analysis, based on 2008 data) gun-related homicide and suicide rates in high-income oecd countries, 2010, countries in graph ordered by total death rates (homicide plus suicide plus other gun-related deaths) handguns are involved in most u.s. gun homicides. according to pew research center report, gun deaths among america’s children rose 50% from 2019 to 2021. about 1.4 million people died from firearms in the u.s. between 1968 and 2011. this number includes all deaths resulting from a firearm, including suicides, homicides, and accidents. compared to 22 other high-income nations, the u.s. gun-related homicide rate is 25 times higher. although it has half the population of the other 22 nations combined, among those 22 nations studied, the u.s. had 82 percent of gun deaths, 90 percent of all women killed with guns, 91 percent of children under 14 and 92 percent of young people between ages 15 and 24 killed with guns, with guns being the leading cause of death for children. the ownership and regulation of guns are among the most widely debated issues in the country. african american populations in the united states disproportionately represent the majority of firearms injury and homicide compared to other racial groupings. although mass shootings are covered extensively in the media, mass shootings in the united states account for only a small fraction of gun-related deaths. regardless, mass shootings occur on a larger scale and much more frequently than in other developed countries. school shootings are described as a "uniquely american crisis", according to the washington post in 2018. children at u.s. schools have active shooter drills. according to usa today in 2019, "about 95% of public schools now have students and teachers practice huddling in silence, hiding from an imaginary gunman." legislation at the federal, state, and local levels has attempted to address gun violence through methods including restricting firearms purchases by youths and other "at-risk" populations, setting waiting periods for firearm purchases, establishing gun buyback programs, law enforcement and policing strategies, stiff sentencing of gun law violators, education programs for parents and children, and community outreach programs. gun ownership estimated u.s. gun sales have risen steadily in the 21st century, peaking in 2020 during the covid-19 pandemic. "nics" is the fbi's national instant background check system. estimated household firearm ownership rate by u.s. state in 2016 the congressional research service in 2009 estimated that among a us population of 306 million people, there were 310 million firearms in the u.s., not including military armaments, and of these, 114 million were handguns, 110 million were rifles, and 86 million were shotguns. accurate figures for civilian gun ownership are difficult to determine. the percentage of americans and american households who claim to own guns has been in long-term decline, according to the general social survey poll. it found that gun ownership by households may have declined from about half, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, down to 32% in 2015. the percentage of individual owners may have declined from 31% in 1985 to 22% in 2014. gun ownership figures are generally estimated via polling, by such organizations as the general social survey (gss), harris interactive, and gallup. there are significant disparities in the results across polls by different organizations, calling into question their reliability. in gallup's 1972 survey, 43% reported having a gun in their home, while gss's 1973 survey resulted in 49% reporting a gun in the home; in 1993, gallup's poll results were 51%, while gss's 1994 poll showed 43%. in 2012, gallup's survey showed 47% of americans reporting having a gun in their home, while the gss in 2012 reports 34%. in 1997, estimates were about 44 million gun owners in the united states. these owners possessed around 192 million firearms, of which an estimated 65 million were handguns. a national survey on private ownership and use of firearms (nspof), conducted in 1994, estimated that americans owned 192 million guns: 36% rifles, 34% handguns, 26% shotguns, and 4% other types of long guns. most firearm owners owned multiple firearms, with the nspof survey indicating 25% of adults owned firearms. in the u.s., 11% of households reported actively being involved in hunting, with the remaining firearm owners having guns for self-protection and other purposes. throughout the 1970s and much of the 1980s, the estimated rate of gun ownership in the home ranged from 45 to 50%. after highly publicized mass murders, it is consistently observed that there are rapid increases in gun purchases and large crowds at gun vendors and gun shows, due to fears of increased gun control . gun ownership rates also vary across geographic regions, ranging from estimates of 25% in the northeastern united states to 60% in the east south central states. a gallup poll (2004) estimated that 49% of men reported gun ownership, compared to 33% of women, while 44% of whites owned a gun, compared to only 24% of nonwhites. an estimated 56% of those living in rural areas owned a gun, compared to 40% of suburbanites and 29% of those in urban areas. approximately 53% of republicans owned guns, compared to 36% of political independents and 31% of democrats. one criticism of the gss survey and other proxy measures of gun ownership, is that they do not provide adequate macro-level detail to allow conclusions on the relationship between overall firearm ownership and gun violence. gary kleck compared various survey and proxy measures and found no correlation between overall firearm ownership and gun violence. studies by david hemenway and his colleagues, which used gss data and the fraction of suicides committed with a gun as a proxy for gun ownership rates, found a strong positive correlation between gun ownership and homicide in the united states. a 2006 study by philip j. cook and jens ludwig, also using the percentage of suicides committed with a gun as a proxy, found that gun prevalence correlated with increased homicide rates. self-protection the effectiveness and safety of guns used for personal defense is debated. studies place the instances of guns used in personal defense as low as 65,000 times per year, and as high as 2.5 million times per year. under president bill clinton, the department of justice conducted a survey in 1994 that placed the usage rate of guns used in personal defense at 1.5 million times per year, but noted this was likely to be an overestimate. a may 2014 harvard injury control research center survey of 150 firearms researchers found that only 8% of them agreed that 'in the united states, guns are used in self-defense far more often than they are used in crime'. between 1987 and 1990, david mcdowall et al. found that guns were used in defense during a crime incident 64,615 times annually (258,460 times total over the whole period). this equated to two times out of 1,000 criminal incidents (0.2%) that occurred in this period, including criminal incidents where no guns were involved at all. for violent crimes, assault, robbery, and rape, guns were used 0.8% of the time in self-defense. of the times that guns were used in self-defense, 71% of the crimes were committed by strangers, with the rest of the incidents evenly divided between offenders that were acquaintances or persons well known to the victim. in 28% of incidents where a gun was used for self-defense, victims fired the gun at the offender. in 20% of the self-defense incidents, the guns were used by police officers. during this same period, 1987 to 1990, there were 11,580 gun homicides per year (46,319 total), and the national crime victimization survey estimated that 2,628,532 nonfatal crimes involving guns occurred. mcdowall's study for the american journal of public health contrasted with a 1995 study by gary kleck and marc gertz, which found that 2.45 million crimes were thwarted each year in the u.s. using guns, and in most cases, the potential victim never fired a shot. the results of the kleck studies have been cited many times in scholarly and popular media. the methodology of the kleck and gertz study has been criticized by some researchers but also defended by gun-control advocate marvin wolfgang. using cross-sectional time-series data for u.s. counties from 1977 to 1992, lott and mustard of the law school at the university of chicago found that allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons deters violent crimes and appears to produce no increase in accidental deaths. they claimed that if those states which did not have right-to-carry concealed gun provisions had adopted them in 1992, approximately 1,570 murders; 4,177 rapes; and over 60,000 aggravate assaults would have been avoided yearly. on the other hand, regarding the efficacy of laws allowing use of firearms for self-defense like stand your ground laws, a 2018 rand corporation review of existing research concluded that "there is moderate evidence that stand-your-ground laws may increase homicide rates and limited evidence that the laws increase firearm homicides in particular." in 2019, rand authors published an update, writing "since publication of rand's report, at least four additional studies meeting rand's standards of rigor have reinforced the finding that "stand your ground" laws increase homicides. none of them found that "stand your ground" laws deter violent crime. no rigorous study has yet determined whether "stand your ground" laws promote legitimate acts of self-defense. suicides