Who pays when a gun hurts someone?
Today, the bill lands on families, hospitals, and taxpayers. These are the numbers, with a source under every one.
The cost to families
What Oregon pays toward a funeral today
The state crime victims program pays up to $5,000 for a funeral, plus up to another $5,000 at its discretion. Families must use their own insurance first.
Sources: Oregon Administrative Rule 137-076-0020; Oregon DOJ, Crime Victims Compensation FAQs. $250,000 is the per-victim minimum in the Responsible Owners Act concept.
What a gunshot injury costs
Average initial emergency room visit for a firearm injury
Average initial hospital stay. Up to 16% of patients are readmitted within a year.
Added health care spending in the first year for a child who survives a shooting
Sources: Healthcare Finance News, reporting federal estimates; Mass General Hospital, on Song et al., Health Affairs, Nov. 2023.
The harm doesn't stop with the victim. When a child dies from a gunshot, parents and siblings show 2.3 to 5.3 times more psychiatric disorders, and parents make at least 15 times more mental health visits.
Source: Health Affairs, November 2023.
The cost to taxpayers
$89.1M
Paid by Oregon taxpayers each year for gun violence, out of an estimated $8.1 billion total cost to the state.
Advocacy estimateSource: Everytown for Gun Safety, based on 2019 data.
Who pays the first hospital bill
Firearm injuries cost U.S. hospitals just over $1 billion a year in initial care alone.
GovernmentSource: U.S. Government Accountability Office, GAO-21-515, 2021, using 2016–2017 hospital data. Physician costs could add about 20% more.
Where the $12.6 billion national taxpayer cost goes
Federal, state, and local governments spend an estimated $12.6 billion a year on gun violence.
Advocacy estimateSource: Everytown Research, The Economic Cost of Gun Violence, 2019 data in 2019 dollars. $1.59B is $12.6B minus $11.01B.
About the very large numbers. The CDC puts the total U.S. cost of firearm injuries and deaths at $493.2 billion for 2020. Most of that is the estimated value of lives lost and reduced quality of life, not money anyone pays out. Critics say those valuations inflate the total, so this page leads with dollars people actually pay.
GovernmentSource: Miller et al., CDC, American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 2024.
What Colorado's gun tax has done so far
Colorado voters approved a 6.5% excise tax on gun and ammunition sales in 2024. It took effect in April 2025, and nearly all of it goes to services for crime victims.
It works, but it raised about half of what was promised
GovernmentSources: Colorado 2024 Blue Book; HB 24-1349 fiscal note; Legislative Council Staff, September 2026 forecast. FY 2025-26 figure is preliminary.
Why Colorado needed it
Federal money for victim services collapsed. The gun tax now covers part of the gap with a source that doesn't depend on Washington.
Source: The Colorado Sun, July 7, 2026; LCS September 2026 forecast.
California saw the same gap
California's 11% gun and ammunition tax also came in well under its first estimate.
GovernmentSource: California Legislative Analyst's Office, Nov. 2025.
What isn't known yet. No data has been published on how many Colorado victims the tax has helped, or how it has affected gun sales. A lawsuit challenging the tax is still in court. In California, a study found prices rose about 10% after its tax, with no evidence that buyers shifted across state lines.
What Oregon can learn. The Responsible Owners Act concept should use conservative revenue estimates from the start, and keep the victim pool first in line for every dollar.
Sources: Drango, Moshary & Shapiro, NBER Working Paper 34527 (not peer-reviewed); Langston v. Humphreys case page.
Ask your legislators to sponsor it
Bend's three legislators can bring the Responsible Owners Act to the 2027 session.
Contact your legislators