Before you start to worry, we are talking about the USA here, where a study published in The American Journal of Medicine suggests that the national incidence of gun-related hospital admissions in the US mirrors the performance of the national stock market.

About 88 people die every day in the US from firearm-related incidents, making guns the second leading cause of injury-related death in the nation after road accidents, so the figures are not insignificant.

Comparing hospital in-patient data with the Dow Jones Industrial Average – an overall indicator of the nation’s economic health – the study’s authors suggest that ‘economic perturbations’ may be a ‘root cause’ or at least an important predictor of firearm injuries.

It is, fortunately, a set of statistics the Department of Health is unlikely to use in planning for the next A&E crisis in the UK.