900 US gun deaths since Sandy Hook

As the world looked on in horror at the savage shootings in the hilly Newtown community of Sandy Hook on December 14, Robyn Griggs-Johnson was in the living room of her family home in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

It was late in the day, hours after Adam Lanza opened fire on defenceless children and their teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Griggs-Johnson heard a knock at the door. When she opened the window to see who it was, she was shot, says the local Michigan Live news website. The case remains unresolved.

A day later, as details emerged from Newtown, a boy, 3, in Guthrie, Oklahoma, was visiting his aunt and uncle. He found a loaded handgun in their bedroom, picked it up and accidentally shot himself in the head.

The deaths are among the hundreds of gun-related fatalities cited by President Barack Obama this week as he unveiled the most far-reaching measures to stem gun violence in decades.

"In the month since 20 precious children and six brave adults were violently taken from us at Sandy Hook Elementary, more than 900 of our fellow Americans have reportedly died at the end of a gun - 900 in the past month. And every day we wait, the number will keep growing," he said.

Updated figures on gun deaths are notoriously hard to obtain. Estimates abound but an anonymous Twitter account called @GunDeaths has been harnessing the reach of social media to produce a real-time tally.

The @GunDeaths account was updated at least twice while this story was being written. A man who had apparently shot himself dead in California. Another man died after being shot in a long-running family feud in Arkansas.

- The Independent