Firearm Deaths and injuries in 2020 were 33% higher than in the past
Gun deaths in America are a Plague on young Black men, and on men in general.
This article is based on data in a Washington Post article, and on the websites gunviolencearchive.org and efsgv.org.
Gun Deaths and Injuries in 2020
In 2020 there were almost 20,000 homicide firearm deaths, up 33% from the previous four years of about 15,000 per year. Firearm deaths in 2020 are more than in two decades.
Gun injuries in 2020 were about 40,000, which is 33% larger than the 30,000 per year in the last three years.
Suicides by firearms in 2020 were about 24,000 Americans. So the total firearm deaths in 2020 were about 44,000, and suicides were about 55% of these.
Other data are from efsgv.org/2019CDCdata, The Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence, are from 2019.
Young Black males ages 15-34 are 37% of gun homicide victims, while only being 2% of the US population. Their rate of gun deaths is 20 times the rate of young white males in the same age group.
53% of homicide victims were black males. Blacks males were 63% of male victims. Black men were 8 times more likely to be homicide victims than the general population. They were 14 times more likely to die by firearms than white men.
Black females were 4 times more likely to die by firearm homicides than white females.
5,100 kids and teens 17 and younger were killed or injured.
Defensive Use
A lot of guns are bought for defensive use. Deaths from defensive use of firearms were 1,463. Compare that to unintentional shootings of 2,289, which is 56% more. So total deaths by guns of 44,000 is 30 times those for defense.
Suicides
Guns are used in less than 10% of suicide attempts, but they are then 90% lethal. By comparison, poisoning attempts at suicide succeed only 3% of the time.
Guns produce suicides for 68 out of 100,000 people. Suffocation is next with 42 suicides per 100,000, and poisoning with 18 suicides per 100,000.
In suicides by firearms, males commit 87% or 7/8 of them. That is, males are 7 times more likely to suicide by firearms than females.
White males are at highest risk of suicide, which peaks at age 75+. White males are 73% of male suicides. People other than whites have suicides peaking young at 15-34 years.
White female suicides peak in the age group 45-54. White females are 86% of female suicides.
Cures
I don’t know a single cure for all of the gun deaths, including mass shootings, but there are many proven ideas, and we have to elect representatives and appoint judges who desire to make progress, and are not beholden to the gun lobby and gun producers. The public, gun owners, and even NRA members are highly in favor of complete background checks, for instance.
