How much has American violence cost in financial terms?


NPR: Ted Miller calculates how much violence costs.

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NPR: Ted Miller calculates how much violence costs.

For example, when Gabby Giffords was shot in a 2011 incident that left six people dead and 13 injured (including Giffords), her medical costs alone were well over $500,000, he says.

“I haven’t calculated [the incident’s cost] totally but we would figure that each death was worth about $7 million,” Miller tells NPR’s David Greene. “The way we look at that is we have interviews where people have been asked how much they would pay to reduce their chance of being killed or injured in a violent incident. People actually pay that. When you look at housing prices, we pay more for housing in safe neighborhoods.”

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