War Deaths of Civilians in Ukraine v. Gun Deaths of Civilians in USA
09.07.2023
The war that Russia has unleashed on Ukraine has led to many civilian deaths. According to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the UN, since the war broke out on 24 February 2022 until 18 June 2023, that is to over those 16 months, there were a total of 9,083 civilians deaths. It goes without saying that every unnecessary death from wanton violence is a tragedy.
In the USA, there is an ongoing war of another kind causing civilian deaths: gun shootings by Americans on Americans.
The number of gun deaths since January to June this year alone, i.e. in just six months, in the USA is 9,730. This does not include suicides. Of these 9,730 deaths, 30 were police officers killed, thus not civilians. That makes our figure 9,700 gun deaths of civilians this year. These figures are according to the Gun Violence Archive up to 4 July, 2023, i.e. this year.
In the whole of 2022, there were 20,265 deaths from guns (not including suicides) from which we can subtract exactly 64 officers were killed in 2022 according to National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. That means 20,201 civilians were killed by guns. We need to subtract one-sixth from the total, representing the first two months of 2022 i.e. before the war in Ukraine broke out, so as to cover the same time period, to give us a good estimate of 17,000 killed in the time period. The total of gun deaths over the same period is thus 17,000 + 9,700 = 26,700 over the same period as the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
This means that in the USA, over the 16 months since the Ukraine war broke out, there were three times as many civilian deaths from gun violence than Ukrainian civilian deaths from war.
The USA, as a State, is unable to organize society so as to curb this internal gun violence. The USA is also, as a State, clearly responsible for having provoked the war in Ukraine, which is why all its spokespeople and media loudspeakers refer constantly to “Russia’s unprovoked war” in Ukraine. The USA utilized NATO military bases so as to encircle Russia. This does not mean that Russia is not responsible for its invasion. It is. Russia cannot allow itself to be provoked.
The aim of this article, however, is merely to show some proportion.
There have so far been three times more gun violence deaths of civilians in the USA than Russian-caused civilian deaths in Ukraine. All the deaths are tragedies. And, in order to remain sane, we need always to bear in mind relevant comparisons.
We have not, in this article, for example, compared the deaths of civilians in the USA’s war on Iraq, with deaths caused by Russia in Ukraine. Perhaps readers could look up the British Medical Journal estimates of civilian deaths from the sanctions on Iraq and the US war on Iraq? Perhaps readers could recall the “shock and awe” bombing of the city of Baghdad?
It is always worthwhile to keep proportions in mind when watching TV, reading on the internet, or on paper, or listening to a broadcast or podcast. This, not so as to excuse any killings, but in order to remain enlightened human beings. And, in order, to work towards seeing all unnecessary human deaths as equally tragic.
LC
