One of our readers, CU Boulder science teacher Douglas Duncan, wrote to us about our coverage of gun control at the Statehouse. “I teach statistics. I’m not persuaded by opinions, but by real numbers. When you cover an issue like this, it is GREAT if you dig up real numbers, not just opinions… thanks… Some commonly expressed opinions are simply wrong.”

Good news for Duncan. Our colleagues at Mother Jones collaborated with the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation. They have released a new investigative report: “What Does Gun Violence Really Cost?” It looks at the issue from both a statistical and a human perspective.

Here is the video summing up the project.

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Check out some of the shocking figures the Mother Jones investigation revealed.

1) Taxpayers spend $229 billion a year on gun violence. (To put things in perspective, that’s over four-times Apple’s worldwide revenue in 2012.)

2) Every year guns kill 33,000 Americans; 80,000 are injured.

3) Any given gun death costs $6 million in expenses.

4) Every day, the public pays for 32 gun homicides.

5) Guns are the weapon used in more than 50 percent of suicides and 70 percent of homicides.

6) 80 percent of suicide attempts with guns are successful.

Photo Credit: 316th ESC, Creative Commons, Flickr.