The number of people shot in the U.S. each year has risen significantly from the beginning of the new century to 2008, reports the Violence Policy Center in Washington, D.C. Between 2000 and 2008, 272,590 people died of gunshot injuries, an average of 30,288 gun deaths per year, a number the violence center calls “shocking by comparison to any other developed country.” During the same period, an estimated 617,488 people suffered nonfatal gunshot injuries.
The total shot in 2008, the latest year for which data are available, was 110,215, the highest recorded during the nine-year period surveyed in the analysis. The violence center says that, “the common focus on gun deaths as a marker to illustrate America's 'gun problem' obscures an alarming trend. The number of persons who suffer nonfatal gunshot injuries–that is, who are shot but do not die–has risen. This means simply that more people are being shot by guns every year.”