‘Since Newtown, 18 killed in US per day’

Shooting attacks in the United States have killed an average of 18 people every day since the carnage of Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, on December 14, 2012, a study shows.

The study, which was conducted by Slate.com and the anonymous twitter user @gundeaths, indicates that there have been over 406 gun deaths since the Newtown school shooting.

Although @gundeaths has tried to report every instance of fatal shootings, the data is still incomplete, meaning the number of gun victims exceeds the 406 figure.

In a similar study, the Huffington Post recently chronicled the gun deaths since the Sandy Hook massacre, showing that over 100 such killings took place within a period of exactly one week after the Newtown incident.

Out of the 406 victims reported by Slate.com, six were children under the age of 13, and 21 were youths under the age of 17.

Pundits have repeatedly criticized Washington over lax legislation on gun ownership, as the United States is the leading country in the world in terms of having the largest number of guns per capita.

Similar experiences of mass shootings in other countries indicate that all those nations have enacted strict gun safety legislation following the tragedies and achieved a dramatic reduction in the number of gun-related deaths.

The United States has experienced several mass killings over the past six months, including the August 2012 killing spree at a Sikh temple, which left seven dead. In Newtown, twenty children and six adults were killed.

After the Sandy Hook massacre, a Gallup poll found that the majority of Americans would like stricter gun laws and a ban on high-capacity firearms.

More than 100,000 Americans have signed an online petition to the White House, dubbed “We the People,” asking the administration of President Barack Obama for a renewed national debate on gun control.

ASH/HSN