In the wake of mass shootings, proponents of tougher gun control laws like to tout the statistic that there have been more American civilian deaths since 1968 due to privately-owned firearms than from all American military conflicts combined. However, when looking at the statistics as a whole, fewer than 5% of gun-related deaths are linked to mass shootings.
Get smart: The most generous estimates put the number of deaths from the battlefield since the Revolutionary War at about 1.3 million, not including those who died from disease. Meanwhile, The number of deaths related to gun use since 1968 is roughly 1,516,863, according to a report and data collected by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Nearly two-thirds of those are suicides, FiveThirtyEight notes. Almost half of all suicides in the U.S. are performed with guns.