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Gun violence in the United States continues to trend upward amid the effects of theCOVID-19pandemic.
The findings come after the CDC previously reported that the firearm homicide rate increased nearly 35% percent from 2019 to 2020.
“We had hoped after a 35% increase in one year, that it would either level off or go down,” the study’s lead author Thomas Simon, associate director of science in the CDC’s division of violence prevention, toldToday. “But instead, it continued to climb in 2021. And now the suicide rate also climbed.”
While the rates increased among both males and females, disparities grew between racial groups, with the homicide rate for young Black men having “increased in 2021, while the rate among non-Hispanic white people in this age group actually went down slightly,” according to Simon.
Uvalde families grieve for loved ones.Brandon Bell/Getty Images
“The firearm homicide rate for Black people in this age group, 10 to 24, in 2020 was about 20 times as high as the rate among white people,” Simon added. “But in 2021, it was almost 25 times as high.”
“When you think about what we all went through as a country, there were substantial changes and disruptions to a range of services, to our educational system, lots of opportunities for increases in mental stress, increases in social isolation, not to mention the economic stressors and job losses and housing instability that we’ve been experiencing as a country,” Simon said. “And all of these factors could have potentially contributed.”
RELATED VIDEO: Matthew McConaughey Delivers Impassioned Speech About Gun Safety at White House Press Briefing
President Joe Biden previouslysigned a bipartisan gun safety bill into lawin June, enacting commonsense gun laws and providing funding for mental health support and anti-violence programs.
source: people.com
