The gun culture is considered an indispensable part of American society and tradition. The strong relationship which exists between the United States arms industry and the executive and legislature powers is extremely important, and the insidious arms lobby has always had a lot of influence in both Congress and the White House.
Although the United States accounts for only 4 per cent of the world’s population, it accounts for 35 per cent of all gun deaths and 9 per cent of global firearm-related suicides.
Out of the 36,382 cases of gun deaths, 22,227 (61%) were deliberate homicides; 12830 cases (35%) committed suicide; 496 cases (1.4%) were killed by the military personnel and the remaining 287 cases (1.78%) were killed in inadvertent shootings.
By 2020, 8.4 million in the United States have acquired new weapons, an all-time record.
The last highest record was registered in 2016 when 3.4 million firearm licenses were issued by the federal authorities. Women and ethnic minorities constitute the largest arms buyers.
“Forty per cent of 2020 arms buyers were women, while the highest-ever spike was seen among the African-American community, buying 58 per cent more weapons than in 2019,” The head of the National Rifle Association of America (NRA) was recently quoted as saying.
Furthermore, Statistics show that 36,000 people die each year in the United States as a result of the shootings.
According to official figures from the (Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence) more than 1.2 million Americans have been shot in the past decade, and an average of 100 people was shot dead every day. Moreover, about 1,000 American civilians were killed by the US police force each year. Another report states that 1,500 American children are being killed each year as a result of armed attacks on schools. Social researchers estimate that gun violence costs the US economy at least $ 229 billion a year, including medical, law enforcement and criminal justice expenditures.
It is noteworthy that most of those killed in the shooting come from the African-American community. According to the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 37 per cent of those killed in shootings in the United States are black people between the ages of 15 and 35, twice as much as white males.
The Corona epidemic has fueled this surge in violence in several ways; The spread of the Coronavirus has hampered anti-crime efforts across the United States, as well as exacerbated the ongoing unemployment and generated more stressful atmospheres amid the closure of educational and social centres.
There was also a clear drop in public confidence in law enforcement following the callous murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
The issue of injustice and racism in the United States is one of the biggest social and economic crises in this country, which led to a sharp increase in violent acts. Racial segregation, separate schools for indigenous and other ethnic and religious minorities, and horrible camps for Latino immigrants are clear symbols of the rooted socio-economic predicaments which the US society is grappling with.
The year 2021, like previous years, has been a tumultuous one for the United States in terms of gun violence. In the first few months of 2021, the New York Police Department received 33 reports of anti-Asian hate crimes, up from 28 reported in 2020.
From the beginning of the massive protests in the United States following the murder of George Floyd, many social experts considered the issue of injustice and racial discrimination during Trump’s tenure as the main cause of the continuing violent situation. Biden revealed that on the one hand, unjust laws have caused chaos, insecurity and violence in the United States, on the other hand, the huge influence of US arms industries within the US government has increased armed violence in the streets.