Commonwealth Policy Center

The conversation over gun violence continues. According to the Centers for Disease Control there were 39,773 gun related deaths in the U.S. in 2017. Of that, 6 of 10 or 23,854 were suicides. Of all the murders in 2017, and there were 19,510— 75% or 14,542 involved a firearm. Lots of numbers, I know. But this is to bring some context to the gun control debate. As tragic as gun violence is, most guns are not used in mass shootings. According to the FBI’s “active shooter incidents,” which it defines as “as one or more individuals actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area,” 85 people were killed in mass shootings last year. And this is a small fraction of all gun deaths that occur nationwide.