Q&A on Biden’s Gun Proposals
In a prime-time speech to the nation, President Joe Biden spoke about gun violence and his proposals to reduce it. Here, we answer common questions about some of the statistics the president cited and actions he proposed.
His remarks on June 2 were made after a spate of mass shootings within the prior three weeks in which 35 people were killed by gunman in Buffalo, New York; Uvalde, Texas; and Tulsa, Oklahoma.
How many firearm deaths are there in the U.S. per year?
In 2020, there were 45,222 firearm deaths in the United States, according to the latest figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most of those — 24,292 — were suicides, while 19,384 deaths were homicides.
The death rates per 100,000 population were 13.7 for all firearm deaths, 7.4 for suicides and 5.9 for homicides. The chart below shows the firearm death rates by type of injury from 1981 to 2020.
Over that time period, the rates were highest at 15.2 firearm deaths per 100,000 population in 1993, 7.6 for suicides in 1990 and 7 for homicides in 1991.
In his remarks, Biden noted that CDC data showed “guns are the number one killer of children in the United States of America.” An analysis of the CDC data, published in the New England Journal of Medicine on May 19, determined firearm injuries were the leading cause of death for those ages 1 through 19 in 2020. Dating back to 1999, the data had previously found guns were the second-leading cause of death, behind automobile crashes.
How many mass shootings have occurred in the U.S. over time, and this year alone?
It depends on how one defines “mass shooting.” According to a database compiled by the magazine Mother Jones, there have been at least 129 public mass shootings since 1982, with more than half of those occurring since 2013. This year alone, there have been four: in Sacramento, Buffalo, Uvalde and Tulsa. However, by different criteria, there have been 18 mass shootings this year.
Mother Jones’ database includesattacks in public places, typically by a sole perpetrator, in which three or more victims were killed, and prior to 2013, it included such attacks in which four or more victims were killed — metrics that federal law enforcement have used for mass killings during those time periods. The database focuses on indiscriminate shootings in public places, and it doesn’t include killings mostly linked to gang activity or robberies, or those in private homes.
