The US recorded the highest number of firearm deaths in 2021: 48,830.
A total of 48,830 people were killed in 2021 in the U.S. by gunfire, the highest number of gun deaths on record in the country, the Rockefeller Institute, which uses official statistics, released today.
The states of Mississippi, Louisiana and New Mexico recorded the highest number of deaths per 100,000 population in 2021, while Texas, California and Florida were the regions with the highest number of fatalities, with 4,613, 3,576 and 3,142 respectively.
Mississippi, with 32.61 deaths per 100,000 population, repeats as the state with the most fatalities. The report also highlights that the District of Columbiawhere the capital city is located, is the third territory with the highest rate of violence in the country ahead of New Mexico.
On the other side of the coin, the states with the lowest number of fatalities per 100,000 population are: Massachusetts, at 3.5; Hawaii, at 4.9; New Jersey, at 5.1; and New York, with 5.4 gun deaths per 100,000 population.
From data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (CDC), the Rockefeller Institute claims that the number of deaths in 2021 was 8.1% higher than in 2020, following the trend set a year earlier.
Increase in homicides and suicides.
The difference between these two consecutive years of increases lies in the fact that, although it was due, above all, to an increase in homicides between 2019 and 2020.the higher number of deaths between 2020 and 2021 responded to an increase in both homicides and suicides.
“The continued annual increase in firearms-related deaths following the onset of the covid-19 pandemic follows a four-year period of relative stability in these statistics,” notes the New York-based Rockefeller Center.
Between 2019 and 2020, the number of homicides increased by 34.5 %. and suicides by 1.5%. However, between 2020 and 2021, homicides grew by 8.1% and suicides by 8.4%.
The Rockefeller Institute, which offers an interactive map ( warns that. for every fatality, between three and ten people suffer from the consequences of these losses.
“The effects of violence with firearms spreads and reaches many others, as well as to the communities in which these deaths occur.” concludes the note written by the executive director of the Rockefeller Institute’s Regional Gun Violence Research Consortium, Jaclyn Schildkraut.
The recent murder of three children and three adults at a Nashville (Tennessee) school has once again triggered the recurring debate about the need to impose a greater control of firearms in a society divided between those who advocate their prohibition or at least greater restrictions and those who defend the right to carry them without limitations.
