Gun-Related Deaths Reached Record Levels in US in 2021: Report

Handguns and firearms are displayed during a statewide gun buyback event held by the office of the New York State Attorney General in the Brooklyn borough of New York on April 29, 2023. (Yuki Iwamura/AFP via Getty Images)

The United States saw gun deaths reach record levels in 2021, according to a new report from the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions.

Firearm-related deaths soared during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic and spiked again in the second year.

Both gun-related homicides and suicides resulted in 48,830 total firearm fatalities in 2021. It is the highest number on record to date and an increase of over 3,600 deaths from 2020, the previous record.

An average of 134 people died from gun violence daily—one death every 11 minutes—according to the report (pdf).

The report also found that more than half of all firearm deaths (26,328) were due to suicide. The firearm suicide rate increased by 8.3 percent in 2021, marking the highest one-year increase in four decades.

The Johns Hopkins report indicated that black people were 14 times more likely to be fatally shot than their white counterparts. Firearm fatalities accounted for 51 percent of all deaths involving black teens ages 15-19. Additionally, 36 percent of all gun homicides in 2021 were among black males ages 15 to 34.

The researchers analyzed 2021 firearm fatality data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research (WONDER) database. The data, based on death certificates, reflect the primary cause of death.

Lethal Injuries

New research suggests that shootings are becoming more lethal, as most victims of fatal firearm injuries die at the scene of the shooting.

About 57 percent of firearm fatalities in 2021 occurred at the scene of the shooting, up 9 percent since 1999, according to a research letter published on April 5 in the JAMA Surgery journal.

A shift in the type of firearms that are being bought and used is a key factor making shootings more lethal, experts say.

“It’s leaning more and more towards military-grade, higher velocity, higher lethality type of weapons,” said Dr. Eric Fleegler, an emergency physician at Boston Children’s Hospital.

“That includes larger magazine capacity so they can shoot more bullets, the ability to fire them at faster rates, and quite frankly, just bigger, faster bullets which cause more damage to a human body.”

Gun Sales Spike

Mass shootings have escalated to a record pace in the United States, with at least 162 already reported in 2023.

The continued rise in gun violence starting in 2020 coincides with an ongoing sharp increase in firearm sales. According to federal data, over 39 million gun background checks were performed in 2020.

Experts say the jump in gun sales in 2020 stemmed partly from people who fear rising crime and the push to cut funding to police departments in major cities nationwide. Gun sales remained strong in 2021, with 38 million background checks being performed.

According to an analysis by The Trace—a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that tracks gun violence—an estimated 21.8 million guns were sold in 2020. Firearm sales eased to 18.9 million in 2021 and 16.6 million in 2022. All three figures are larger than the gun-sale total for any other year in the new millennium.

The continued robust demand for firearms comes at a time when the Biden administration has moved to tighten restrictions on gun ownership.

U.S. civilians have owned about 423 million firearms between 1986 and 2018, according to NSFF estimates, which translates to around five guns for every three American adults.

Tom Ozimek and CNN Wire contributed to this report.