Washington, D.C. — Gun violence is a major problem in the United States and the primary driver of the rise in violent crime across the country. And as a new fact sheet released today by the Center for American Progress finds, communities of color disproportionately bear the brunt of gun violence due to the dangerous combination of systemic racism, weak gun laws, and disinvestment in public infrastructure and services.
“Building on the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act to further strengthen our gun laws and investing in the communities most affected by gun violence is crucial to reducing violent crime and saving lives,” said Marissa Edmund, senior policy analyst for Gun Violence Prevention at CAP and author of the fact sheet. “We at CAP are committed to working with state and local partners to properly implement and build on this law and prevent exacerbating racial disparities in both violence and criminalization.”
Among the fact sheet’s key findings:
- Young Black Americans (ages 15 to 34) experience the highest rates of gun homicides across all demographics.
- Black Americans make up 12.5 percent of the U.S. population but 61 percent of gun homicides.
- Black Americans are three times more likely than white Americans to be fatally shot by police.
- Black women are twice as likely as white women to be fatally shot by an intimate partner.
- American Indian and Alaska Native women are killed by intimate partners at a rate of 4.3 per 100,000, compared with 1.5 per 100,000 for white women.
- Nine in 10 survivors of gun violence report experiencing trauma from their incident
Click here to read: “Gun Violence Disproportionately and Overwhelmingly Hurts Communities of Color” by Marissa Edmund
For more information or to speak with an expert, please contact Tricia Woodcome at [email protected].