Black History Month: Key Research Stats

Gun Violence Survivors

The trauma of gun violence does not end when the experience of gun violence stops. Experiencing gun violence has lasting impacts on survivors, their families, and their communities.

• 71 percent of Black adults or someone they know or care about has experienced gun violence in their lifetimes.¹SurveyUSA, “Results of SurveyUSA Market Research Study #26602,” October 24, 2022, https://bit.ly/3JJuwLY. See question 29. See also Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, “Gun Violence Survivors in America,” February 1, 2023, https://everytownresearch.org/report/gun-violence-survivors-america/.
• 31 percent of Black people know or care about someone who was shot and wounded.²SurveyUSA, “Results of SurveyUSA Market Research Study #26602,” October 24, 2022, https://bit.ly/3JJuwLY. See question 24. See also Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, “Gun Violence Survivors in America,” February 1, 2023, https://everytownresearch.org/report/gun-violence-survivors-america/.
• 1 in 3 Black people know or care about someone who was killed with a gun.³SurveyUSA, “Results of SurveyUSA Market Research Study #26602,” October 24, 2022, https://bit.ly/3JJuwLY. See question 25. See also Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, “Gun Violence Survivors in America,” February 1, 2023, https://everytownresearch.org/report/gun-violence-survivors-america/.
• 57 percent of Black survivors experienced trauma from the incident.⁴SurveyUSA, “Results of SurveyUSA Market Research Study #26602,” October 24, 2022, https://bit.ly/3JJuwLY. See question 36. See also Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, “Gun Violence Survivors in America,” February 1, 2023, https://everytownresearch.org/report/gun-violence-survivors-america/.
• Despite reporting high levels of trauma, Black communities reported less access to these services. In the first six months after the incident, 50 percent of Black survivors did not have access to these services, and access to services to cope with the long-term impact of trauma remained the same.⁵SurveyUSA, “Results of SurveyUSA Market Research Study #26602,” October 24, 2022, https://bit.ly/3JJuwLY. See question 38. See also Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, “Gun Violence Survivors in America,” February 1, 2023, https://everytownresearch.org/report/gun-violence-survivors-america/.

The Disproportionate Impact of Guns on the Black Community

The underinvestment in Black communities has created areas of concentrated disadvantages, housing instability, and poverty, where the public health crisis of gun violence continues to impact.

• Black communities are disproportionately impacted by gun violence. Each day on average, 34 Black people are killed with guns,⁶Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics. WONDER Online Database, Underlying Cause of Death. A yearly average was developed using four years of the most recent available data: 2018 to 2021. Black defined as non-Latinx origin. and more than 110 experience non-fatal injuries.⁷Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, WONDER Online Database, Underlying Cause of Death. A yearly average was developed using five years of the most recent available data: 2018 to 2021. Everytown For Gun Safety Support Fund, “A More Complete Picture: The Contours of Gun Injury in the United States,” December 2020
• Black Americans are 12 times more likely than white Americans to die by gun homicide.⁸Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, WONDER Online Database, Underlying Cause of Death. A yearly average was developed using five years of the most recent available data: 2018 to 2021. Analysis includes: all ages, non-Hispanic or Latinx only, and homicide including legal intervention.
• 58% of all people killed in firearm homicides are Black.⁹Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics. WONDER Online Database, Underlying Cause of Death. A yearly average was developed using four years of the most recent available data: 2018 to 2021. Homicide includes shootings by police.
• Every year, police in America shoot and kill more than 1,000 people,¹⁰Everytown analysis of 2018 to 2022 Mapping Police Violence data (accessed February 22, 2023) and Black Americans are the victims at a disproportionate rate.
• Black people are 2.77 times more likely to be shot and killed by police than white Americans.¹¹Everytown analysis of 2018 to 2022 Mapping Police Violence (accessed February 22, 2023) and population data from the US Census. National Violent Death Reporting System 2009-2012 (17 states participating) and also shows Black Americans killed by police at a rate 2.8 times higher than white Americans, see DeGue et al., 2016. CDC’s data on 2010-2014 deaths categorized as legal intervention shows a rate of police killing of Black males aged 10+ 2.8 times higher than white males 10+ years old, see Buehler, 2017. Curbing this gun violence requires interrogation of America’s history of racism, reimagining the role of police, and implementing policies that reduce police gun violence.¹²Everytown for Gun Safety, “Gun Violence by Police,” November 18, 2022, https://www.everytown.org/issues/gun-violence-by-police/.
• 68 percent of Black adults believe that police shootings are a major problem.¹³Samuel Bestvater et al. “#BlackLivesMatter Turns 10.” Pew Research Center, June 29, 2023. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2023/06/29/blacklivesmatter-turns-10/.

Black Children and Teens and Gun Violence

• Black children and teens are 17 times more likely than white children and teens of the same age to die by gun homicide.¹⁴Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics. WONDER Online Database, Underlying Cause of Death. A yearly average was developed using four years of the most recent available data: 2018 to 2021. Ages 0 to 19. Black and white defined as non-Latinx origin. Homicide includes shootings by police.
• Every 6.5 hours, a black boy or teenager dies by gun homicide in the United States.¹⁵Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, WONDER Online Database, Underlying Cause of Death. A yearly average was developed using five years of the most recent available data: 2018 to 2021. Analysis includes children and teens aged 0 to 19, non-Hispanic/Latinx Black, and homicide includes legal intervention.
• Black children and teens are 13 times more likely than white children and teens of the same age to be hospitalized for a gun injury.¹⁶Everytown For Gun Safety Support Fund, “A More Complete Picture.” Analysis includes children and teens aged 0 to 19, Black and white defined as non-Hispanic only.

Black LGBTQ+ Community and Gun Violence

• In 2021 alone, there were 56 homicides of transgender or gender-expansive people. Black trans women face the bulk of this violence: in 2021, 61% of gun homicides were of Black trans women.¹⁷Everytown for Gun Safety, Transgender Homicide Tracker, five-year count: 2017–2021.
• There was a 93% increase in incidents of tracked transgender homicides from 2017 to 2021 (from 29 incidents in 2017 to 56 incidents in 2021). During this time period, 73% of people were killed with a gun.¹⁸Everytown for Gun Safety, Transgender Homicide Tracker, five-year count: 2017–2021. From 2017 to 2021, the majority of these gun homicides (73%) were of Black trans women.

Firearm Suicide

• Research has shown an alarming increase in suicide deaths and attempts among young Black people in recent years. Among youth aged 10-24, firearm suicide rates increased 53 percent from 2011 to 2020.¹⁹Everytown analysis of CDC, WONDER, Underlying Cause of Death. Rate percentage change: 2011 vs. 2020. Ages 10–24. Black youth saw a 115 percent increase in firearm suicide over the same period.²⁰Everytown analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, WONDER, Underlying Cause of Death. Based on percentage change in crude rates: 2011 vs. 2020. Ages 10–24. AIAN, API, Black is  defined as non-Latinx origin.
• More recently, Black youth saw the largest increase of any racial or ethnic group (66%) in firearm suicide rate from 2019-2022. During the same time, the white youth suicide rate increased by one percent.²¹Everytown Research analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, National Vital Statistics System, Provisional Mortality 2019–2022 on CDC WONDER Online Database, accessed on September 15, 2023. The percentage change in crude rates: 2019 to 2022. Ages 10–24. Black and white is defined as non-Latinx origin.
• Black women and girls have experienced a 128 percent increase in firearm suicide from 2019-2022.²²Everytown Research analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, National Vital Statistics System, Provisional Mortality 2019–2022 on CDC WONDER Online Database, accessed on September 15, 2023. The percentage change in crude rates: 2019 to 2022. Ages 10–24. Black and white is defined as non-Latinx origin.
• In 2022, a larger proportion of suicides among Black youth involved a firearm than any other racial or ethnic group, and for the first time since data became available in 1979, the firearm suicide rate among Black young people surpassed that of white youth.²³Everytown Research analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, National Vital Statistics System, Provisional Mortality 2019–2022 on CDC WONDER Online Database, accessed on September 15, 2023. The percentage change in crude rates: 2019 to 2022. Ages 10–24. Black and white is defined as non-Latinx origin.
• 63 percent of Black youth suicides in 2022 involved a gun, as compared to 55 percent among white youth.²⁴Everytown Research analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, National Vital Statistics System, Provisional Mortality 2019–2022 on CDC WONDER Online Database, accessed on September 15, 2023. The percentage change in crude rates: 2019 to 2022. Ages 10–24. Black and white is defined as non-Latinx origin.
• The rate of Black youth firearm suicide in 2022 was 6.8, 12 percent higher than the white youth firearm suicide rate of 6.1 deaths per 100,000 people.²⁵Everytown Research analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, National Vital Statistics System, Provisional Mortality 2019–2022 on CDC WONDER Online Database, accessed on September 15, 2023. The percentage change in crude rates: 2019 to 2022. Ages 10–24. Black and white is defined as non-Latinx origin.
• Studies on Black teens have shown that depression; traumatic experiences such as exposure to racism, discrimination, and neighborhood violence; and poor familial support are risk factors for suicide among this group.²⁶Congressional Black Caucus, Emergency Taskforce on Black Youth Suicide and Mental Health, Ring the Alarm: The Crisis of Black Youth Suicide in America, (December 17, 2019), https://bit.ly/2COX5Yy.
• Young Black people are less likely than their white peers to receive care for mental health-related traumas,²⁷US Department of Health and Human Services, African American Youth Suicide: Report to Congress, October 2020, https://bit.ly/3KogeNv. as they face a variety of barriers to accessing services.²⁸Michael A. Lindsey and Amaris Watson, “Barriers to Mental Health and Treatment among Urban Adolescents and Emerging Adult Males of Color,” in Strategies for Deconstructing Racism in the Health and Human Services, ed. Alma J. Carten, Alan B. Siskind, and Mary Pender Greene (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 191–208; Robert Motley and Andrae Banks, “Black Males, Trauma, and Mental Health Service Use: A Systematic Review,” Perspectives on Social Work: The Journal of the Doctoral Students of the University of Houston Graduate School of Social Work 14, no. 1 (2018): 4–19. 
• With schools serving as a primary provider of mental health services in many communities,²⁹Rachel N. Lipari et al., “Adolescent Mental Health Service Use and Reasons for Using Services in Specialty, Educational, and General Medical Settings,” in The CBHSQ Report (Rockville, MD: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 2013), http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK362074/. policies that have created the school-to-prison pipeline³⁰Libby Nelson and Dara Lind, “The School-To-Prison Pipeline, Explained,” Vox, October 27, 2015, https://www.vox.com/2015/2/24/8101289/school-discipline-race. prevent many Black youths from accessing the services they need. Young Black students who show symptoms of mental illness are disciplined and arrested more often than students of other racial/ethnic groups, rather than being given access to help.³¹“Data Highlights on School Climate and Safety in Our Nation’s Public Schools,” 2015–2016 Civil Rights Data Collection: School Climate and Safety, US Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, 2018, https://bit.ly/3aVDJgx; Amir Whitaker et al., “Cops and No Counselors: How the Lack of School Mental Health Staff is Harming Students,” (American Civil Liberties Union, March 2019), https://bit.ly/3xzz0fF.

Intimate Partner Violence and Gun Violence

• Black women are three times as likely as white women to be fatally shot by an intimate partner.³²Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS), 2019. Analysis includes homicides involving an intimate partner and a firearm, and compares the crude death rates for non-Latinx Black women (1.57 per 100,000) versus non-Latinx white women (0.53 per 100,000) (18 years and older).
• Black women and girls and young women (10-24 year-olds) are disproportionately impacted by pregnancy-associated homicides.³³Wallace, Maeve E. “Trends in pregnancy-associated homicide, United States, 2020.” American journal of public health 112, no. 9 (2022): 1333-1336.Wallace, Maeve, Veronica Gillispie-Bell, Kiara Cruz, Kelly Davis, and Dovile Vilda. “Homicide During Pregnancy and the Postpartum Period in the United States, 2018–2019.” Obstetrics and gynecology 138, no. 5 (2021): 762.
• Black women are three times as likely as white women to be fatally shot by an intimate partner.³⁴enters for Disease Control and Prevention, National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS), 2019. Analysis includes homicides involving an intimate partner and a firearm, and compares the crude death rates for non-Latinx Black women (1.57 per 100,000) versus non-Latinx white women (0.53 per 100,000) (18 years and older).