Does a Fatal Shooting Really Cost More than $5 Million?

[Coyotl]

Does a Fatal Shooting Really Cost More than $5 Million?
http://www.slate.com/blogs/crime/2013/10/15/gun_violence_ted_r_miller_does_a_fatal_shooting_really_cost_more_than_5.html

When we talk about the cost of gun violence, generally we’re referring to a bullet’s physical toll, and the effect that gun-related injuries and deaths can have on families and communities. But the financial cost of a gunshot wound can also be devastating, for both victims and the state. From medical bills to incarceration costs to lost income, gun violence can keep exacting financial pain long after the victims have been buried or the bullet wounds have healed. That’s the main takeaway of “The cost of a bullet,” an impressive and important new series from the Providence Journal. In it, reporters W. Zachary Malinowski and Amanda Milkovits attempt to quantify just how much a typical gun incident costs Rhode Island. Here’s Milkovits:

Costs of the criminal justice system: the police investigation, prosecution and defense, court proceedings and incarceration. Medical costs for the shooting survivors. Quality-of-life losses, pain and suffering of Aynis’ family, friends and survivors. The estimated “lost productivity” from the violent death of a child. The costs to a neighborhood plagued by gun violence.

The bullet is just the beginning. The price keeps climbing, like a stopwatch without a pause button.

Using numbers compiled in 2010 by Washington, D.C. think tanks, Malinowski and Milkovits report that each fatal shooting ends up costing $5,094,980, with much of that sum consisting of quality of life costs and lost income. (A non-fatal shooting costs around $425,000.)

...........

[Hoyt]

1. Sadly, your typical gun cultist only cares about the next $800 so he can buy an AR15 or some such

Heck, he might have a couple already.

[Coyotl]

2. Even so, if so, people need to be aware of the cost of gun violence to society.

That makes it a common concern and the violence interferes with rights not normally considered in the context.

[Hoyt]

3. Agree with that completely. But the cultists bribe Congress and states to protect their gunz.

The costs ought to make folks take notice, even though Sandy Hook only spurred yahoos to buy more of the dang things, while cultists cheered.