Fact Sheet

• Each year, about 30,000 people die of gun injuries in the United States. This is the equivalent to filling up the entire Staples Center arena in Los Angeles, with a line of 10,000 more people waiting at the door. (CDC WISQARS database, taken from NCHS Vital Statistics System, 2003.)

• In 2004, 2,852 youth ages 19 and under in the US were killed as the result of a firearm. That's almost 8 youth a day  –the equivalent of an entire classroom full of high school students  every four days. (WISQARS database, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, CDC. 2004.)
  
  

• In 2005, 1,079,301 high school students across America took a weapon to school at least once every 30 days. (CDC, Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System. 2005.)

• According to the CDC, in 2006, more than 720,000 young people ages 10-24 were treated in emergency departments for injuries sustained due to violence. (Centers for Disease Control Youth Violence Facts at a Glance, Summer 2008)

• The average hospital bill for each person wounded by a gun in the US is over $250,000; a bullet costs 33 cents. (Economic Costs of Gun Violence Fact Sheet, Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence)

• More than half of the middle school students in Oakland and Los Angeles schools state that they can get a gun in a couple of hours if they wanted to (Teens on Target workshops)  

• Gang members are 60 times more likely to be killed than non-gang members. (Hutson, H Range, et al. Adolescents and children injured or killed in drive-by shootings in Los Angeles.  The New England Journal of Medicine Vol 330, no. 5

• In 2007, in CA, 1,000 guns were sold per day except for the day after Thanksgiving, when 2,500 guns were sold (CA Office of the Attorney General)

• States with the highest rates of gun ownership also have the highest overall murder rates (Miller et al, Rates of Firearm Ownership and Homicide American Journal of Public Health Dec 2002)
  
  
• People in possession of a firearm are almost 4.5 times more likely to be shot in an assault than people who are not in possession of a firearm. (Charles C. Branas et al; American Journal of Public Health, November 2009)