Gun deaths in the United States have reached an all-time high for a second year in a row. 48,830 Americans died from a firearm injury in 2021, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These firearm deaths include 26,328 suicides, 20,958 homicides, 549 unintentional gun deaths, 537 legal intervention deaths, and 458 firearm deaths with an undetermined intent. That’s one death every eleven minutes from gun violence in the U.S.
Gun violence in the U.S. is an ongoing public health crisis. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, there was an unprecedented spike in gun deaths that was largely driven by an increase in homicides. Though most Americans returned to their daily routines, gun deaths continued to increase in 2021.
Gun violence disproportionately impacts men. 85.7% of firearm deaths in 2021 involved a male victim. However, there were significant differences in homicide and suicide rates across various racial and age groups.
In 2021, the U.S. experienced the highest gun homicide rate since 1994. The gun homicide rate in 2021 was up 7.6% from 2020, but there has been a 45% increase between 2019 and 2021. Between 2019 and 2021, gun homicide rates increased 49% for Blacks and 55% among Native Americans. Young Black males were disproportionately the victims of homicides involving a firearm. Black teens and young men accounted for 2% of the total population, but accounted for 36% of all gun homicide fatalities in 2021.
Homicides get a lot of media attention, but suicides make up the bulk of gun deaths in the U.S. Suicides involving a firearm were up 8.3% from 2020. That’s the largest one-year increase in four decades. This was also the highest number of gun suicide deaths ever recorded since the C.D.C. started tracking such data in 1968. White men were overrepresented among gun suicide deaths in 2021. Despite making up only 30% of the U.S. population, white men accounted for 70% of gun suicide deaths. White men over age 65 had a gun suicide rate that was four times the national average.
Gun violence is the leading cause of death for children and teens in the U.S. Since 2020, injuries from firearms have topped accidents and cancer as the leading cause of death for our youth. About two-thirds of gun deaths for children and teens are homicides.
How are things going in Georgia compared to other states? Georgia had an above-average gun homicide rate, the 11th highest in the nation in 2021. Conversely, Georgia has the 25th highest gun suicide rate in the nation, just above the national average in 2021.
Gun sales have doubled in the U.S. over the past decade, surging in 2020. Firearms are often marketed as a way to protect oneself from threats. Conversely, gun ownership greatly increases one’s risk of dying by suicide or homicide, according to a meta-analysis of existing peer-reviewed research on the topic that was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. The availability of firearms in our nation is a central reason why the U.S. has a higher rate of gun deaths than other developed nations.
The Johns Hopkins University Center for Gun Violence Solutions proposes a range of evidence-based, equitable policy recommendations to reduce gun deaths, including: legislation that enacts permit-to-purchase laws; red flag laws permitting removal of firearms from high-risk individuals; child access prevention laws to reduce gun accidents involving children; laws that restrict open carry in public places; laws placing restrictions on concealed carry for those with criminal records; laws banning concealed carry of firearms at specified, sensitive places; repealing stand your ground laws; and investing in community violence intervention programs.
Increasing rates of firearm ownership, high levels of gun sales, and a political climate that is unreceptive to restrictions on firearms all but ensure that deaths from firearms will remain a significant public health crisis for years to come.
Roscoe Scarborough, Ph.D. is interim chair of the Department of Social Sciences and associate professor of sociology at College of Coastal Georgia. He is an associate scholar at the Reg Murphy Center for Economic and Policy Studies. He can be reached by email at rscarborough@ccga.edu.
Reg Murphy Center