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Gun Violence in America PROBLEM: There are too many victims of gun violence because we make it too easy for dangerous people to get dangerous weapons in America. DID YOU KNOW? In one year on average, more than 100,000 people in America are shot or killed with a gun. Over a million people have been killed with guns in the United States since 1968, when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated (Childrens’ Defense Fund, p. 20). U.S. homicide rates are 6.9 times higher than rates in 22 other populous high-income countries combined, despite similar non-lethal crime and violence rates. The firearm homicide rate in the U.S. is 19.5 times higher (Richardson, p.1). Among 23 populous, high-income countries, 80% of all firearm deaths occurred in the United States (Richardson, p. 1). Gun violence impacts society in countless ways: medical costs, costs of the criminal justice system, security precautions such as metal detectors, and reductions in quality of life because of fear of gun violence. These impacts are estimated to cost U.S. citizens $100 billion annually (Cook, 2000). DID YOU KNOW? Where there are more guns, there are more gun deaths. An estimated 41% of gun-related homicides and 94% of gun-related suicides would not occur under the same circumstances had no guns been present (Wiebe, p. 780). Higher household gun ownership correlates with higher rates of homicides, suicides, andunintentional shootings (Harvard Injury Control Center). Keeping a firearm in the home increases the risk of suicide by a factor of 3 to 5 and increases the risk of suicide with a firearm by a factor of 17 (Kellermann, 1992, p. 467; Wiebe, p. 771). Keeping a firearm in the home increases the risk of homicide by a factor of 3 (Kellermann, 1993, p. 1084). DID YOU KNOW? On the whole, guns are more likely to raise the risk of injury than to confer protection. A gun in the home is 22 times more likely to be used in a completed or attempted suicide (11x),criminal assault or homicide (7x), or unintentional shooting death or injury (4x) than to be used in a self-defense shooting. (Kellermann, 1998, p. 263). Guns are used to intimidate and threaten 4 to 6 times more often than they are used to thwart crime (Hemenway, p. 269). Every year there are only about 200 legally justified self-defense homicides by private citizens (FBI,