Photo: Scott Olson / AFP / Getty Images
For: Real America News Updated 10 May 2022, 16: 53 pm EDT
Homicides with weapons increased by 35% throughout the country during the first year of the pandemic (2020) to the highest level in 25 years, according to data recently published by the Centers for Disease Control and Disease Prevention (CDC).
Although the CDC report does not include data from 2021, Organizations such as The Gun Violence Archive speak of a figure higher than that of 2020, nail 20,600 deaths by firearm last year.
JUST IN: Gun homicides increased 35% across the country during the first year of the pandemic — to the highest level in years , according to newly released CDC data. https://t.co/0E7zHwcogq
—ABC News (@ABC) May 10, 2022
According to Debra Houry, Acting Principal Deputy Director of the CDC and Director of the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, this is not an unexpected statistic, “Unfortunately, I’m not surprised…it’s heartbreaking. ”, he mentioned to ABC News.
The figures are even higher in the case of suicides: According to the CDC 05 a thousand people killed themselves with a firearm in 2020 . A figure that The Gun Violence Archive raises to 05 thousand 80 in the case of the year 2021.
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Gunshot wounds are considered, “tragically, a serious public health problem in the United States” according to Houry.
It is estimated that the 79 percent of homicides and the 53 percent of suicides in 2020 were produced with firearms.
The study suggests that the increase in violence could be attributed to the social and economic pressures derived from the pandemic that reinforced “old” inequalities between communities.
“These statistics have devastating effects on families. as, schools and entire communities, and have lasting consequences for us as individuals and as a society,” said Thomas Simon, associate director for science in the CDC’s Division of Violence Prevention.
“Our reports contain statistics and numbers, but it is also important to reflect on the individual lives lost,” he added, “and even one homicide or suicide is too many,” he concluded.
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