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The data below is the result of a joint investigation by Mother Jones and Ted Miller, an economist at the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation. Based on Miller’s work identifying and quantifying the societal impacts of gun violence, the annual price tag comes to at least $229 billion a year (based on 2012 data). That includes $8.6 billion in direct spending—from emergency care and other medical expenses to court and prison costs—as well as $221 billion in less tangible “indirect” costs, which include impacts on productivity and quality of life for victims and their communities. (See the rest of our special investigation here.)

gun violence costs charts
gun violence costs charts
gun violence costs charts
gun violence costs charts
gun violence costs charts
gun violence costs charts
gun violence costs charts
gun violence costs charts
gun violence costs charts
gun violence costs charts
gun violence costs charts
See more of our special investigation:

Sources

Guns kill 33,000…: Centers for Disease Control

Total cost of gun violence: Ted Miller

Gun casualties: Centers for Disease Control

Gun violence costs more than $700 per American…: Ted Miller (per capita and total cost); ForeignAssistance.gov (foreign aid); Forbes (Apple); Office of Management and Budget (Medicaid); Surgeon General (smoking)

How it all adds up: Ted Miller (indirect and direct costs, price of one murder), Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Transportation

Direct costs: Ted Miller

Cost of gun violence per state: Ted Miller

Black/white gun victims: Centers for Disease Control

Guns used in 70% of homicides…: Centers for Disease Control, Harvard School of Public Health (suicide attempts), Ted Miller (total costs)

84% of gun homicide victims…: Centers for Disease Control

Gun deaths and car accidents: Centers for Disease Control

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

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And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

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