393 Americans Killed By Guns Since Sandy Hook
Shooting deaths are in the news every day it seems, but there is little data available that actually compiles total deaths from gunshot wounds on an annual basis. The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, for example, tallies the number of Americans shot each year, but itsestimate is based on Centers for Disease Control numbers last updated in 2009, the last year for which statistics are available. Since the shooting massacre at Newtown, Conn.’s Sandy Hook Elementary Dec. 14—which took the lives of 20 first-graders and six adults—a public rally to end gun violence has prompted increased interest in gun-homicide statistics.
An anonymous Twitter user, @GunDeaths took an interest even before the Sandy Hook tragedy. Last summer @GunDeaths’ Twitter feed has attempted to compile gun violence statistics, tweeting every reported gun death he could find. The Twitterer told Slate he was inspired by the Aurora, Colo. movie theater shooting and wanted to call attention to the danger guns pose on a daily basis.
Slate has now partnered with @GunDeaths on a Web page updating “Gun Deaths in America Since Newtown.” The total as of Jan. 2 is 393. Of those, just 46 were female, while 20 were teenagers and six included children 12 and younger. Slate acknowledges, however, that the data is in no way complete. The data only contains reports captured by @GunDeaths and his Twitter followers, and not every death goes reported. Suicides, for example, accounts for as many as 60 percent of gun deaths and are rarely reported by the media.
Still, Slate wants the data to be as thorough as possible, and invites anyone aware of a gun death not represented on its site to Tweet @GunDeaths and report the information.
