The U.S. Gun Violence Crisis: Human Rights Perspectives and Remedies

By Leila Nadya Sadat and Madaline M. George

Our research revealed a startling and incontrovertible fact: gun violence in the United States has reached crisis proportions. In 2017, the most recent year for which hard data is available, 173,500 people were shot, over 39,700 of which died: 60.0% from suicide, 36.6% from homicide, 1.4% from legal intervention, and 1.2% from unintentional (accidental) deaths.2 On average in 2017, nearly 109 people died from guns and another 366 suffered nonfatal firearm injuries every day. … The proliferation of firearms is also of concern. While the percentage of the population owning guns has decreased, the number of civilian firearms in circulation in the United States has grown. Indeed, by some estimates, 2009 marked the first year that the number of civilian guns in the United States surpassed the total U.S. population. …Studies clearly demonstrate the serious psychological impact and negative developmental effects of school shootings on students and others across the country, far beyond the school and district immediately affected...

St. Louis, MO: Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute, Washington University in St. Louis, School of Law, 2019. 121p.