Gun Violence Isn’t Just About Guns.

Last year saw an alarming spike in gun violence, with many cities registering year-to-year increases of more than 30%. We were told these numbers reflected the stressors from the Covid-19 Pandemic, which was particularly brutal in underserved, inner-city neighborhoods which is where most gun assault also occur.

So, this year the Covid virus seems to be getting under control, yet the increase in gun assaults has not only slowed, but in many locations seems to be getting worse. The number of gun homicides may exceed 20,000 by year’s end, which is almost double the average number of annual gun homicides for any year since 1981.

The numbers on gun violence would be much worse if we also had data covering non-fatal gun assaults. But the CDC has stopped publishing those numbers since they admitted that the possibility for the annual estimates might be off by as much as 30%. The bottom line is that non-fata assaults appear to be roughly three to four times higher, on average, than the fatal assaults. Which means that the total gun assaults for 2021 might probably end up above 90,000 or even more.

Why is this happening? How do we explain that gun injuries committed by one individual against another have reached numbers that are almost twice as high as they were twenty years ago, when the CDC says there were 17,000 fatal shootings and…