Which one is the ultimate winner in the U.S.: The coronavirus or armed violence?

Tehran Times – With only 4 percent of the world’s population, the U.S. has recorded 35% of deaths due to firearms. According to official statistics by Giffords Law Center, 36,000 Americans are killed by guns each year—an average of 100 per day. Gun violence in the U.S. can occur in the form of gun suicide, gun homicide, law enforcement shooting and unintentional shooting.

Of the 36,383 Americans killed with guns each year, 22,274 are gun suicides (61%), 12,830 are gun homicides (35%), 496 are law enforcement shootings (1.4%), and 487 are unintentional shootings (1.3%). These shootings take place in schools, universities, cinemas, shopping centers, and even churches, affecting different segments of society of all ethnicities, genders, and age groups.

U.S. President Donald Trump is a key supporter of American gunmen and is resisting any move to amend the right to bear arms in the United States. Trump announced to gunmen that they now have a real supporter in the White House when he took office. 

But high U.S. casualties are not limited to gun violence. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, at least 29 million people have been infected with the flu in the U.S. over the past year, of which 280,000 have been hospitalized and 16,000 have died.

Also by Friday last week, a total of 105 people had died of the flu virus infection in the U.S., which was 13 deaths more than the earlier week. The death toll from influenza in the U.S. is high enough to surprise Donald Trump and make him react to the issue.

But with the spread of the coronavirus around the world and the infection of various countries, American public opinion has been concerned about its widespread outbreak. U.S. media outlets, including the Washington Post, have predicted that the virus will spread in the U.S. very rapidly. The U.S. president’s stance on the matter, however, led to a backlash inside the country as he downplayed the danger of the coronavirus outbreak in the United States.

There is also a lot of controversies these days between Trump and the Democrats over the impact of the coronavirus in the budget, and it looks like the U.S. president is going to get around the issue of the coronavirus by ignoring it. Some experts believe that by looking at the death toll of the flu in the U.S., evaluating the country’s healthcare system and considering the U.S. government’s indifference to the coronavirus outbreak, it will be concluded that victims of the virus will be soon more than the death toll from gun violence. 

by Mohammad Ghaderi