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For our May/June 2015 cover story, we sought to answer a simple question: Why doesn't anyone know what gun violence costs? Led by national affairs editor Mark Follman, MoJo reporters worked with an economist to crunch complicated datasets to find the answer: $229 billion—about the same as the obesity epidemic. They laid out the data in compelling charts and videos, reported on the forces that suppress research, and profiled survivors bankrupted and forced to navigate their lives in wheelchairs. The package was the first to exhaustively outline the economic, social, and human costs of gun violence and it made waves on Capitol Hill. Sen. Chris Murphy said “This new report from Mother Jones will make silence just a little harder from now on.” Just weeks later President Obama addressed the issue for the first time in a speech to the nation's mayors, saying gun violence “costs you money…It costs this country dearly.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcxeVBPH-1w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvW5gD8YYUA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nook1b8EyTs