Gun fatalities began a steady annual increase starting in 2005, including a 20-percent jump between 2019 and 2021.
ATLANTA — Firearm-related violence and suicides have increased notably since the COVID-19 pandemic, but new research by a team at Emory University documents just how bad gun violence has become in America. This latest work is the first to display both the overwhelming scale of firearm fatalities in the United States over the past three decades, as well as the growing disparities according to race and ethnicity, age, and location.
Using multiple datasets provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, study authors calculated the national number of firearm deaths and firearm fatality rates per 100,000 people per year from 1990 all the way to 2021. A total of 1,110,421 firearm fatalities occurred in the United States during that time period. Notably, gun fatalities began a steady annual increase starting in 2005, but that upward trajectory accelerated mightily in recent years, including a 20-percent jump between 2019 and 2021.
Source: U.S. gun deaths and suicides reaching ‘unprecedented levels’ over last 20 years