Here’s a look at some stats on guns — the deaths and school shootings, America’s public opinion and the failed Congressional attempt to take action — in the wake of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, that killed 27 people, including 20 children and the shooter.
Slate editors note in the introduction to their crowdsourced map that attempts to visualize gun deaths in the US (pictured below), determining the actual number of gun deaths each year is “surprisingly hard.” That’s because as many as 60 percent of gun deaths are suicides that usually go unreported by the press.
Number of people killed by guns, including homicide, suicide and accidental death, between Newtown and December 2013 (that have been reported by the media): 12,042
Estimated real number of people killed by guns, including homicide, suicide and accidental death since Newtown (using most recent CDC estimates for yearly data): 51,158
Total gun deaths in 2010 (the latest year for which the CDC posts data): 31,672
number of those who were children or teens: 2,700Number of school shootings since Newtown: 79*
Read the rest of this article at billmoyers.com