Victims of “arms proliferation” in the United States of America are on the rise – data

Damascus - SANA

Today, the American police announced that 9 people were killed and several others were injured in a shooting that occurred in the city of “Monterey Park” east of Los Angeles, California, after a celebration of the Lunar New Year.

This bloody outcome brought to mind the series of repeated shooting deaths in the United States, where the US Constitution allows citizens the right to own a gun.

The beginning of this year witnessed more than 35 armed attacks, killing 56 people and wounding 132 others.

Last year, 1,109 people were killed in incidents related to US police shooting civilians.

A Washington Post analysis recently revealed that US police have shot 8,147 times since 2015, and that on average more than 1,000 people are killed by police every year.

American media reports that most of those killed by the American police are of “African descent,” who make up about 14 percent of the population of the United States.

A survey of American light weapons published in June 2018 showed that Americans own about 45 percent of the civilian firearms deployed in the world.

Some US states faced an exacerbation of violence through laws allowing the carrying of weapons without a license, which led to an increase in gun sales among various groups of the population.

Since 2009, sales have increased significantly, reaching more than ten million weapons per year, with huge demand for semi-automatic weapons recorded in 2013.

In 1994, the US Congress passed a law banning the manufacture and civilian use of semi-automatic firearms and assault weapons for a period of 10 years, and the ban ended in September 2004 when attempts to renew the ban failed.

In 2013, the Senate rejected a bill restricting the carrying of weapons.

Source: American media and data