The rate of firearms deaths in some U.S. states is similar to places around the world that are battling civil unrest or bloody gang wars, says a report by the Commonwealth Fund, a research group. The study found that the overall rate of firearms deaths in Mississippi was nearly twice that of Haiti, an impoverished Caribbean nation where violent gangs control large swaths of the country and whose president was assassinated by gunmen in 2021. Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama had higher firearms death rates than Mexico, where rival drug cartels are engaged in bloody conflict. Montana’s death rate from guns was higher than in Colombia, where drug trafficking is rife, reports the Washington Post. Wyoming, Arizona and Oklahoma ranked above Brazil. Suburban New Jersey had a higher gun death rate than Nicaragua, Mali and Djibouti.
In June, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy declared gun violence a public health crisis, putting it on a par with a 1960s warning on the lethal consequences of cigarette smoking. The report illustrates “just how bad gun violence has gotten in the U.S. and how it’s something we should be talking about far more than we do,” said report co-author Evan Gumas. “The fact that the U.S. ranks among countries that are involved in some form of conflict (whether that be civil war, general unrest, drug/arms trafficking etc.) is really startling, and even more so when we look at where U.S. states compare on the global scale.” The report was based on data from the 2021 Global Burden of Disease study, which provides an in-depth look at mortality and disability across coun
This year, there have been 24 mass killings with guns in the U.S.
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