The Cost of Gun Violence in America

There have been numerous studies about the costs of gun violence in the USA. It’s pointless to go into the mind-numbing details here. The view from 30,000 feet, however, points to an extraordinary figure: $229 BILLION per year is the cost of our country’s love affair with guns, rifles, and things that go “bang.”

We have had an almost psychotic fixation on personal ownership of guns over the last 35–50 years. For most of our history, gun ownership was not generally a topic of much interest, except in very small groups of hunters and collectors.

However, starting in the late 1960s, increased incidents of gun violence, urban unrest, and civil disobedience were reported by the media as typifying a nationwide outbreak of dangerous social change. The “Silent Majority” of the Nixon era became increasingly fearful about personal safety: “white flight” to the suburbs; the degradation of city-centers; the sense of minorities “overtaking” the whites; the fear that this country was “losing its grip,” all led to the creation of a mentality that might (guns) makes right.

The Zeitgeist of the period from the 1970s to the present was that social change was a threat in many communities. Economic, social, political, and cultural realities were adjusting, often with increased conflict between interest groups. Some communities adopted the spirit of identity politics in order to structure socio-political movements that would foster equality and justice in the greater society: minorities; women; and LGBTQ, to name but a…