The Chicago murder rate dropped to the lowest it has been since 1965, but city officials aren't fully satisfied. Shootings were also down by about 24 percent, and reports of overall crime have dropped by about 16 percent. However, Chicago’s 2013 death toll remains higher than those in New York and Los Angeles.
California continues to rank best in the nation for strong gun reform measures, according to a new state analysis by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
It costs more than $2 billion every year in hospital charges to treat victims of firearms-related injuries, according to a study released at the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association (APHA).
Forty-eight percent of Americans blame the mental health system “a great deal” for mass shootings in the U.S., unchanged from January 2011, according to a new Gallup poll.
An emergency summit has also been called for late July in Chicago to address urban violence -- nine people were killed in the Midwestern city over Independence Day weekend, and more than 40 were injured, including two boys in city parks.
Alaska, Louisiana and Montana had the most gun deaths of any U.S. states in 2010, and they fall among the states with the weakest gun laws, according to the Center for American Progress.