A study conducted by the Journal of the American Medical Association has found that there are a quarter of a million gun deaths worldwide yearly , almost two-thirds of which were homicides. It says gun deaths are "a major public health problem for humanity."
The study tallied gun deaths in 195 different countries and territories from 1990 to 2016. Researchers counted about 209,000 gun deaths in 1990 compared with 251,000 in 2016, of which 64 percent were homicides, 27 percent were suicides and 9 percent were accidental.
Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, Venezuela and United States contributed to half of the deaths, according to the study.
El Salvador had the highest firearm death rate at nearly 40 per 100,000 people and Singapore had the lowest with 0.1 per 100,000.
Mass shootings in the US have made headlines in recent years but the study says "suicides involving firearms greatly outnumber firearm homicides in many countries."
The United States has the second-highest gun suicide rate at 6 deaths per 100,000.
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