Las Vegas, October 1, 2017: A man opens fire from a hotel room to visitors to a music festival. 59 people die, hundreds are injured.

Sutherland Springs, Texas, November 5, 2017: A man shoots at church visitors. 26 people die, 20 are injured.

The two acts are among the heaviest of their kind in US history. And they took place in a year in which the rate of deaths from firearms was as high as it had been in the US for decades. This is the result of figures from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

39,773 people were fatally injured by firearms last year - an average of 109 people per day. Thus, in 2017 there were more deaths from firearms than from traffic accidents (37,133).

Twelve people were shot every day in the US in 2017, per 100,000 inhabitants - the highest rate since 1996, as the Guardian reports. By comparison, in Japan, the value is 0.2; it is also much lower in the United Kingdom (0.3), Germany (0.9) and Canada (2.1).

14,542 cases were counted as murders. The victims are distributed very unequally: Black men make up more than half of the murder victims - even though they make up only seven percent of the total population. This is what the Giffords Law Center has reported to Prevent Gun Violence.

The organization was founded by Gabrielle Giffords, a former congressman who himself had been the victim of a firearm attack during a civil-service meeting. "It's unacceptable that the number of people killed by firearms is rising as Washington continues to debate laws that could help save lives," Giffords said.

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486 cases were considered as accidental killings. For example, in November 2017, a three-year-old child shot and killed his one-year-old sister. The gun had been lying on a bed, freely accessible.

The largest share of firearms deaths - almost 60 percent - are suicides, however: the CDC counted 23,854 cases. There were particularly many suicides in areas with a particularly large number of weapons and particularly lax gun laws. According to CDC, suicide rates were highest in Montana, Wyoming and Alaska. There are weapons more widespread than in almost all other states.

"People think in firearms suicide that we can not do anything," says Dakota Jablon of Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence. "But if you look at the numbers, it's clear that many nearby weapons increase the risk." According to Jablon, the risk of suicide is three times higher if a firearm is present in the home.