Gun deaths in the United States reached a record high of nearly 40,000 in 2017, according to a CNN analysis of federal government data.
There were 39,773 gun deaths that year, compared with 28,874 in 1999. The age-adjusted rate of gun deaths rose from 10.3 per 100,000 in 1999 to 12 per 100,000 in 2017.
The numbers, which were confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, show that 2017 had the highest number of gun deaths going back to at least 1979, when gun deaths started to be included in death data, CNN reported.
The new analysis revealed that 23,854 people died from suicide by gun in 2017, the highest number since 1999, when there were 16,599 suicide deaths by gun. The age-adjusted rate of suicide by gun rose from 6.0 in 1999 to 6.9 in 2017.
In 2017, white men accounted for 23,927 of the 39,773 suicides by gun, and white men had the highest age-adjusted rate of suicide by gun at 14 per 100,000, followed by rates of: 9.3 among American Indian or Alaska Native men, 6.1 among black men, 3.0 among Asian men, 2.2 among white women, 1.4 among American Indian or Alaska Native women, 0.7 among black women, and 0.5 among Asian women, CNN reported.
In 2017, the age-adjusted rate of homicide deaths by gun was highest among black men at 33 per 100,000, followed by rates of: 4.8 among American Indian or Alaska Native men, 3.5 among white men and black women, 1.4 among Asian men, 1.1 among white women, and 0.5 among Asian women.
“In 2017, nearly 109 people died every single day from gun violence. Gun violence is a public health epidemic that requires a public health solution, which is why we must immediately enact and implement evidence-based interventions — like permit-to-purchase policies and extreme risk laws,” Adelyn Allchin, director of public health research, Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence, said in a written statement released last week, CNN reported.
An earlier analysis similar to CNN’s was conducted by the non-profit gun policy advocacy group.
“Gun violence has been part of our day-to-day lives for far too long. It is way past time that elected leaders at every level of government work together to make gun violence rare and abnormal,” Allchin said.
On Wednesday, the National Rifle Association tweeted that “gun control laws are not the answer,” CNN reported.