Gun violence in the US reached its highest level in 25 years in 2020, the first year of the pandemicwith the highest number of deaths by firearm in that period and an increase in homicides of 35% compared to the previous year.
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This is what a report from the United States Centers for Disease Control (CDC) points out, which considers firearm injuries to be a “serious public health problem” in the country and that is why they have prepared this study that includes recommendations and strategies to prevent injuries and deaths from this cause.
In 2020 there were 19,350 firearm homicides compared to 14,392 in 2019, according to CDC data.
The report does not include figures for 2021, although organizations such as The Gun Violence Archive have already made their estimates, collecting police data, which exceed those of 2020: 20,600 gun deaths last year.
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The figures are even higher in the case of suicides.
According to the CDC, 24,000 people killed themselves with a firearm in 2020. A figure that The Gun Violence Archive raises to 24,100 in the case of the year 2021.
Gunshot wounds are considered, “tragically, a serious public health problem in the United States,” said Debra Houry, deputy director of the CDC, during a telephone press conference to present the report.
As Houry explained, 79% of homicides and 53% of suicides in 2020 occurred with firearms.
By racial group, the largest increase in homicide deaths, 39%, occurred among black men. Suicides barely increased and remained very high, although they did increase most notably in two groups, American Indians and Alaska Natives.
The homicide rate in the country went from 4.6 to 6.1 people per 100,000
The homicide rate in the country went from 4.6 to 6.1 people per 100,000 and the largest increases, the report emphasizes, occurred among the black population group between the ages of 10 and 44 and Native Americans between the ages of 25 and 44.
In any case, Dr. Tom Simon, associate director of the CDC and head of the Violence Prevention Division, warned that poverty trumps race as an influential factor in firearm deaths in the United States, since either homicides or suicides.
In this way, the report notes that the largest increase in homicides occurred in the highest levels of poverty.
This expert recalled, however, that it is the racial minorities that live in the poorest areas of the country.
Simon explained that the study does not delve into the reasons for homicides and suicides by firearm in 2020, although he admitted that among the “multiple explanations” may be the stress and alterations that the pandemic brought, such as social isolation, problems financial or household instability.
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The pandemic, he said, could increase the effects of other factors such as economic precariousness, especially among the poorest communities with racial minorities.
Being treated as a public health problem, the CDC includes in its report preventive measures and policies to try to reduce it, such as promoting programs in which social workers committed to communities and in direct contact with them help to “short-circuit” this violence .
They also cited violence prevention programs in hospitals aimed primarily at young people and victims of firearms who are admitted to these centers.
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And they spoke of other actions aimed at strengthening the economy and social stability in the most vulnerable communities to remove the risk of weapons from them.
The data from the CDC report are already far from the figures that are becoming known this year and that are not encouraging either.
Thus, according to the data compiled by The Gun Violence Archive until May 2, 6,296 homicides had already been registered by firearm with 173 mass shootings -with four or more affected- and 8,052 suicides.
EFE
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