Guns killed nearly 40,000 people in the United States in 2017, which is the highest number of gun deaths nationwide since records of gun violence began being kept in 1979.
Put in another way, this horrific statistic means nearly 109 people died every single day from gun violence in the United States, according to the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence (EFSGV), a national, non-profit gun control advocacy group based in Washington, D.C.
Gun violence is a public health epidemic that requires a public health solution, said Adelyn Allchin, EFSGV director of public health research. This is why citizens must immediately enact and implement evidence-based interventions like permit-to-purchase policies and extreme risk laws.
Morbidly, gun violence has been part of day-to-day American life for far too long, she said. "It is way past time that elected leaders at every level of government work together to make gun violence rare and abnormal."
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that 39,773 people died by guns in 2017, a massive jump of more than 10,000 deaths from the 28,874 in 1999. The age-adjusted rate of firearm deaths per 100,000 people rose to 12 per 100,000 in 2017 from 10.3 per 100,000 in 1999.
The data shows gun deaths have reached a record-high going back to at least 1979, which was the year firearm deaths started to be reported.
Suicides were the leading cause of gun deaths. A total of 23,854 people died from suicide by guns in 2017, the highest mortality figure in 18 years. This total is 7,000 more compared with 16,599 suicide deaths by guns in 1999.
Deaths from gun violence also spiked. It rose to 6.9 in 2017 from 6.0 in 1999.
White men accounted for 23,927 of the total 39,773 firearm deaths in 2017, including suicides. Adjusted by age, the rate of suicide deaths by firearm was highest among white men at 14 per 100,000.
In contrast, the rate was 9.3 among American Indian or Alaska Native men 6.1 among black men and 3.0 among Asian men. This compares to the 2.2 death rate among white women; 1.4 among American Indian or Alaska Native women; 0.7 among black women and 0.5 among Asian women.
In 2017, the age-adjusted rate of homicide deaths by firearm was highest among black men at 33 per 100,000. This stands in stark contrast to the 4.8 deaths among American Indian or Alaska Native men; 3.5 among white men and 1.4 among Asian men.
There were 3.5 homicide deaths by guns among black women; 1.2 among American Indian or Alaska Native women; 1.1 among white women and 0.5 among Asian women.
Gun deaths attributed to "legal interventions" by the police and other law enforcement agencies was highest among American Indian or Alaska Native men at 1.1 per 100,000.
This compares to the 0.5 legal intervention gun deaths among black men and 0.3 among white men.
