More Americans Have Died From Domestic Gunfire Than All Wars In U.S. History

Let’s start with the number: 1,384,171.

1,38,171 people have died in the most devastating war fought by Americans. Which war, you ask? World War I? World War II? The Civil War?

None of the above. This number is from the war being fought on the streets, in the neighborhoods, private homes, schools, and work places of the United States of America. Deaths by gunfire. Domestic gun deaths perpetrated by criminals, the mentally ill; enraged husbands, angry children, and some by unfortunate accident or suicide. And the number only reflects gun death statistics since 1968.

More from AddictingInfo.

Homicide is only part of the gun violence issue—the smaller part

From Slate:

Since the massacre at Newtown, Conn., Slate has scoured the Web for information on gun-related deaths and adding them to this interactive. As the months unfolded, it became clear that even though thousands of people were being added to our database, we were missing thousands more. Now that we’re hitting the one-year mark, the full extent of that deviation is clear: The CDC counts about 32,000 people killed with guns each year, while Slate’s database only has one-third of that. Why the huge discrepancy?

Earlier this month Slate launched an effort to categorize the gun deaths in our system. That effort verified the source of the discrepancy: suicides.

Firearms Reported Lost and Stolen

From the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives

The report gives an overview, for calendar year 2012, of the lost and stolen gun file entries in the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), and of the lost and stolen firearm reports submitted by Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs) to ATF. This report will be updated and published annually.
Lost and stolen firearms pose a substantial threat to public safety and to law enforcement. Those that steal firearms commit violent crimes with stolen guns, transfer stolen firearms to others who commit crimes, and create an unregulated secondary market for firearms, including a market for those who are prohibited by law from possessing a gun. Moreover, thieves and illicit traffickers often obliterate the serial numbers of stolen firearms so that if a stolen firearm is later recovered by law enforcement, it cannot identified as stolen or traced to the original purchaser. Lost firearms pose a similar threat. Like stolen firearms, they are most often bought and sold in an unregulated secondary market where law enforcement is unable to trace transactions. As a result, when a lost or stolen gun is later recovered from a crime scene, tracing (which only identifies the original manufacturer, the licensed dealer who sold the firearm, and the original purchaser) will not provide a direct link to the perpetrator of the crime

Background Checks for Firearm Transfers, 2010

From the Bureau of Justice Statistics:

Over 118 million applications for firearm transfers or permits were subject to background checks from the inception of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993 on March 1, 1994, through December 31, 2010. During this time period, about 2.1 million applications, or 1.8%, were denied. In 2010, 1.5% of the 10.4 million applications for firearm transfers or permits were denied by the FBI (approximately 73,000) or by state and local agencies (approximately
80,000). The denial rate for applications checked by the FBI (1.2%) was lower than the rate for checks by
state and local agencies.