At a moment when the United States needs to marshal all its resources to invest in education, worker skills, and building healthier, safer, more sustainable communities, our federal, state, and local governments are spending a combined average of nearly $35 million each day to deal with the aftermath of gun violence across the country.

Put simply, America cannot afford gun violence.

Executive Summary

In an average year, gun violence in America kills 40,000 people, wounds twice as many, and has an economic consequence to our nation of $557 billion.

Without a doubt, the human cost of gun violence—the people who are taken from us and the survivors whose lives are forever altered—is the most devastating. In addition to this human impact, examining the serious economic consequences of gun violence offers a wider lens for understanding just how extensive and expensive this crisis is. 

This staggering $557 billion figure is five times the nation’s budget for the Department of Education, which funds preschool through college for millions of Americans.1 If shooting tragedies were prevented from […]