Getty ImagesGun violence is a fixture in American life – but the issue is a highly political one, pitting gun control advocates against people who are fiercely protective of their right to bear arms.
We’ve looked into some of the numbers behind firearms in the US.
Mass shootings on the rise
There have been more than 385 mass shootings across the US so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as an incident in which four or more people are injured or killed. Their figures include shootings that happen in homes and in public places.
For each of the last four years there have been more than 600 mass shootings – almost two a day on average.
The deadliest such attack, in Las Vegas in 2017, killed more than 50 people and left 500 wounded. The vast majority of mass shootings, however, leave fewer than 10 people dead.
How do US gun deaths break down?
48,830 people died from gun-related injuries in the US during 2021, according to the latest data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
That’s nearly an 8% increase from 2020, which was a record-breaking year for firearm deaths.
While mass shootings and gun murders (homicides) generally garner much media attention, more than half of the total in 2021 were suicides.
That year, more than 20,000 of the deaths were homicides, according to the CDC.
Data shows more than 50 people are killed each day by a…
