Looking At Violence In America With A Financial Lens

"Pain, grief and emotional loss follow mass shootings in America, and there are also other costs that add up to violence's financial toll. It's Ted Miller's job to crunch numbers on social ills like mass shootings. He's a health economist with the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation."

"For example, when then-U.S. Rep. 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.'"