Time to Tackle Gun Violence

The spate of shooting attacks in communities such as Highland Park, IL, Uvalde, TX and Buffalo, NY, has riveted attention on America’s staggering number of public mass killings. But according to federal data, the rising number of gun deaths in the United States extends beyond such high-profile episodes, emerging nearly every day inside homes, outside bars and on the streets of many cities. So far, in 2022 alone, there have been over 300 mass shootings.

The surge in gun violence comes as firearm purchases rose to record levels in 2020 and 2021, with more than 43 million guns estimated to have been purchased during that period. At the same time, the rate of gun deaths hit the highest level since 1995, with more than 45,000 fatalities each year.

Over the long Fourth of July weekend, as seven people were killed and dozens wounded at a parade in Highland Park, numerous other fatal shootings played out across the country. In nearby Chicago, ten people were killed and more than 60 wounded in a string of shootings. One person was killed, and four were wounded in a shooting outside a Sacramento nightclub. Two people were killed at a home in Haltom City, TX, while injuring a neighbor and three police officers. And in Clinton, NC, a man was fatally shot and then hours later, six people, including two children, were injured in a separate shooting.

With an estimated 400 million guns in the country, a figure that eclipses the U.S. population, “there is a self-fulfilling prophecy of, ‘I need a gun because everyone else around me has a gun,’” said Sasha Cotton, director of the Minneapolis Office of Violence Prevention.

The agonizing frequency of nonfatal shootings and firearm deaths, experts said, has become a uniquely American phenomenon.

“Many other countries have disadvantaged folks who are angry and alienated,” said Richard Berk, a professor emeritus of criminology and statistics at the University of Pennsylvania. “But guns aren’t there.”