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‘Shootings killed more Americans than all US wars combined’

Thursday, 28 January 2016 4:16 PM [ Last Update: Thursday, 28 January 2016 4:16 PM ]

An American gun control advocacy group says guns have killed more Americans than all US wars since 1963.

US shootings since 1963 have killed more Americans than all wars ever, according to a gun control advocacy group.

According to the Virginia Center for Public Safety, since former President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, more Americans have been killed as a result of gun violence than all US wars, the Huffington Post reported Wednesday.

The horrifying figure which was first released in fliers handed out at a January 18 rally in Richmond was confirmed after it was fact-checked by PolitiFact.

From the Revolutionary War through December 2014, 1.2 million Americans have died in military conflicts, PolitiFact said citing the Congressional Research Service.

In 2012, a Binghamton University historian hinted at a 20 percent higher death toll from the Civil War, which would increase total deaths in military conflicts to 1.4 million.

This is while the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has put the total number of domestic gun death to 1.5 million between 1968 and 2014.

Of those deaths, some 63 percent have been suicides and 33 percent have been caused by homicides.

Interestingly, PolitiFact could not find data for gun deaths before 1968 which means if the missing years are also accounted for, the total number of firearm fatalities since JFK's death would surely surpass 1.5 million.

According to CDC, firearms kill more than 33,000 people in the US every year, a number that includes accidental discharge, murder and suicides.

On January 5, President Barack Obama made a passionate plea about the urgency to fight gun violence in the country, blasting Congress for inaction in the face of too many tragic deaths by firearms.

Obama said that Congress, which blocked a tougher gun bill in 2013, still needs to act to reform the US gun laws, but he is announcing executive actions because America cannot wait.

Today, it is estimated that there are between 270 million and 300 million guns in the US, about one per person, according to the New York Daily News.

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