The Economic Cost Of Gun Violence In America Might Surprise You

Not a day goes by in the United States where a gun isn't used to kill people. But while the lasting emotional impacts of gun violence certainly shouldn't be brushed aside, there is a steep economic cost that isn't discussed often enough. The cost of crime for those living in certain cities is well-publicized, but it's tough to get a clear financial picture of gun violence nationwide. This is largely thanks to the Dickey Amendment of 1996, which restricts the use of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) funding for research that could be used for gun control purposes. Estimates therefore vary, with America's financial burden from gun violence pinpointed as low as $20 billion to upwards of $557 billion annually. Figures from older reports should also be presumed to be even higher today thanks to inflation.

Likewise, it's worth considering just how prevalent U.S. gun violence is. An analysis by the Commonwealth Fund published in 2024 shows that American firearm-related deaths align more closely with those in nations with the world's highest mortality rates and those that are under active conflict. FBI data, meanwhile, shows that, although active shooter incidents have decreased slightly in 2022 and 2023 compared with 2021, annual rates have increased significantly since the early 2000s. The same data for 2024 and 2025 has not been made public as of December 2025. A 2023 study likewise found that 54% of U.S. adults had either experienced gun violence first-hand or known a family member who had. Simply put, American gun violence is costing society in more ways than it may seem.

With Americans already forking over trillions each year to the healthcare system, medical costs may be the most glaring gun-related financial impact. A study led by the University of Michigan and Northwestern University found that, of the estimated 484,567 firearms-related hospital visits in the U.S. between 2016 and 2021, the average emergency visit cost $1,743 while the average inpatient admission cost $38,879. The total spent on gun-related medical care in that time period was about $7.7 billion, breaking down to between $1.2 and $1.6 billion annually, according to the study.

Additionally, more than half of all the hospital costs in the study were billed to Medicaid. While this can seem like the bills were taken care of, the fact is that Medicaid already operates on thin margins, and hospitals typically eat a portion of treatment costs for Medicaid patients due to lack of adequate funding. And this is just looking at hospital visits. A 2022 Everytown Research and Policy report calculated additional factors such as long-term medical care, mental health treatment, and patient transport costs to the initial immediate treatment costs and determined that medical costs for gun violence actually cost Americans an estimated $2.8 billion a year. Now with the Trump administration's One Big Beautiful Bill Act including additional cuts to Medicaid starting in 2026, hospitals are poised to be spread even thinner. Basically, gun violence not only racks up medical costs, but it also takes money away from other priorities, contributing to poorer outcomes for staff and patients alike.

Another factor that should be considered in the nation's gun violence costs is loss of income. In addition to including the permanent income losses for families when a provider dies due to a firearm, this also includes anyone who survives and is temporarily out of work due to recovery as well as other survivors who are permanently impaired by their injuries to the point they cannot work anymore. There are also those who wind up incarcerated or otherwise out of work due to legal ramifications for their participation in gun violence.

Again, research in this area is limited. That said, a 2018 analysis of non-fatal injuries in 2013 published in Injury Epidemiology found that individual survivors of gunshot wounds lost an average of $37,224 in would-be wages. The researchers also found that the circumstances in which the gunshot wound occurred also dictated how much income was lost (which could, of course, be explained by severity risks associated with each situation). For example, surviving victims of gunshot wounds due to assault lost an average of $50,786 in income. Meanwhile, survivors of wounds obtained during legal intervention (though the data did not state which side of the law the survivor was on) lost an average of $41,372. Gunshot wounds that occurred under unintentional (accident) circumstances resulted in $19,618 in lost income, while those from underdetermined intent lost $32,348. The highest average of income lost — $125,266 — came from self-inflicted gun wounds.

It's not just employees who are affected when gun violence results in missed work. From a purely business standpoint, employers lose out big as well. Private employers lose out on $535 million each year in missed revenue and productivity due to firearm-related incidents, according to a 2022 research article published in JAMA via Harvard Medical School. From a health insurance perspective, firearm injuries also put employers in a tough spot. American employers pay a sizeable amount of their employee's health insurance, and increased treatment costs (among other factors) lead to rising insurance premiums. The JAMA article also reported that individual survivor injuries result in about $30,000 in direct healthcare spending during the first year alone, with significantly increased risks for ongoing pain disorders, substance abuse, and psychiatric disorders that could also affect future work.

Cases where gun violence happens within the workplace or otherwise on business property can cost employers even more. Not only is productivity obviously affected, but employees seeking compensation for injuries or trauma are often not covered under traditional workplace injury policies, leading to costly lawsuits. For example, the families of three Virginia Walmart employees who were fatally shot by a fellow employee in 2022 reached a settlement of over $6 million from the company in April 2025. according to WKTR News 3. Likewise, more companies are now adding "active shooter insurance" to their coverage to try to protect themselves from liability.

Gun violence costs local and federal law enforcement agencies in a variety of ways, from training overhead to response and investigation costs, not to mention legal proceedings and incarceration. But then there are the legal ramifications of unlawful deadly force. By December 2025, the National Police Funding Database identified 403 publicly reported lawsuit settlements over police misconduct, many of which involved shootings. Awarded compensation amounts vary significantly though, likely based on circumstances and the jurisdiction. For example, the city of Spokane, Washington, agreed in June 2024 to pay $250,000 to the family of a man fatally shot by its police force in 2022, while in March 2024 the city of Chicago agreed to pay a $2.25 million settlement to the family of another man shot and killed by police in 2014.

Seeing as law enforcement institutions are publicly funded, however, the burden ultimately falls on taxpayers. According to the 2022 Everytown report, $30.16 million in American taxpayer money is spent every day for police and criminal justice costs related to gun violence. In another sobering report published in 2025 in Public Health, researchers examining police funding and community gun violence data in 61 large U.S. cities from 2015 to 2022 found that the money may not even be paying off. Despite law enforcement funding increasing by an average of $286,781 per 100,000 population each year, shootings increased by an average of 2.9 shootings per 100,000 people each year. 

In 2024, surgeons at Duke University estimated that between 70% and 80% of people with gunshot wounds survive. However, that doesn't necessarily mean they go on to have the same quality of life as pre-injury. According to research from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, gunshot wounds account for 14% of spinal cord injuries in the U.S. and are the third-leading cause of them. Spinal surgeries cost between $20,000 and $100,000, but lasting injuries can come with their own additional costs that may not be covered by insurance. Wheelchairs alone cost from hundreds to thousands of dollars depending on the model. Likewise, Angie's List pinpoints the average cost of making a home wheelchair accessible as $4,348, depending on the amount and types of modifications needed. Even a single mental therapy session to help get over the trauma of being shot can cost $100 to $200 or more.

Loss of quality of life isn't even just about the gun violence victims themselves. A KFF analysis of CDC data done in 2022 and updated in 2023 showed that firearms have become the leading cause of death for children in the United States, surpassing motor vehicle accidents between 2019 and 2020. Star Legacy Foundation research published in 2017 found that parents who've lost a child for any reason are 9% more likely to be out of work in the years following the death and may earn 30% less year after year. This is of course in addition to ongoing therapy costs that may be necessary.