Some 113 people were shot around the U.S. a year ago Saturday. The Washington Post recounts that day, which was chosen as a random Thursday. At least 36 of the victims died, in domestic attacks, shootings involving police, robberies, accidents, fights that escalated, and suicides. Some unlucky people happened to be in the line of fire, or on the other side of a wall. Law enforcement officers fired weapons at people in at least eight incidents that day. Three died. That is the average number of people fatally shot every day by police since 2015. An average of 63 people in the U.S. kill themselves with guns daily, accounting for two-thirds of gun deaths.
The Post found seven suicides on Sept. 5, 2019, far short of the number that likely occurred. Two of the dead were discovered after reports of gunshots. Three men killed themselves during police standoffs, and two died in murder-suicides. The Officer Down Memorial Page says 48 U.S. law enforcement officers were killed by gunfire while on duty in 2019. As of the end of August, 31 have been fatally shot this year. On average, three people are shot fatally every day by an intimate partner. Many more are shot and survive. Female victims far outnumber males. On Sept. 5, 2019, gunfire was involved in at least 18 domestic assaults. Two were murder-suicides, with men killing women, then themselves. In two other shootings, men killed their sisters. Every year, almost 8,000 children and teens are shot; more than 1,500 die. On Sept. 5, at least 34 children and teens were involved in 18 shootings —sometimes as the shooter, sometimes as the victim, other times simply present when violence broke out. To illustrate the randomness of shootings, the Post tells the story of MiAsia Perry, then 7, who was shot mistakenly as she was learning to ride her new hoverboard in the family’s living room in North Carolina.