More than 3,000 Americans have lost their lives in gun-related violence since the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in mid-December 2012, a new report says.
According to an interactive data collection project between Slate.com and the Twitter feed, @GunDeaths, at least 3,053 people have been killed by firearms across the US over the past three months.
The data prove that gun-related fatalities could even exceed the new figure, because @GunDeaths cannot collect all the weapon-related deaths in America.
Meanwhile, suicides, which comprise roughly 60 percent of gun deaths, are not typically reported.
On December 14, 2012, a 20-year-old man, identified as Adam Lanza, killed twenty children and six adults before pointing the gun at himself at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
Nationwide polls revealed that the majority of Americans support a ban on assault weapons amid growing calls for stricter gun control measures.
The United States has experienced several mass killings over the past six months, with military-style assault weapons being the weapon of choice.
Every year, more than 30,000 people are shot and killed in the United States, and the year 2012 was a record-setting year for gun sales in the country. About 4.5 million firearms are sold annually in the US.