Firearm deaths and disparities both grew in pandemic’s first year

Firearm deaths and disparities both grew during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, a new CDC analysis says.

Guns were the weapons wielded in more than three-quarters of homicides in the U.S. during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, jumping 35% from 2019 to 2020 and marking the highest level since 1994, a new CDC analysis says. The suicide rate involving guns was stable at just over half of suicides, but there were increases in some groups of people.

The most striking disparity came among young people. Guns killed Black children and young adults from 10 to 24 years old at a rate 21 times as high as among their white peers. “We’re losing too many of our nation’s children and young people, specifically Black boys and young Black men,” Debra Houry, acting principal deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in an interview with STAT. “The difference between Blacks and whites in that age group for firearm homicide is just devastating.”

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