What is behind the rise in gun related violence in the U.S.

Read the Full Transcript

• Geoff Bennett:

  Gun violence is surging across the U.S. So far this year, there have already been 154 mass shootings, and new data shows the leading cause of death among children and 2020 was gun related injuries.

  For more on what's behind these numbers. I spoke with Jennifer Mascia. She's a reporter for The Trace. That's a nonpartisan nonprofit newsroom focused on America's Gun Violence Crisis.

  Jennifer Mascia, thanks so much for being with us. And three mass shootings last weekend alone underscored what has been a month long spate of gun violence across this country. Based on your research, your data analysis, what accounts for it?

• Jennifer Mascia, Reporter, The Trace:

  Well, we have seen a surge in gun sales that accelerated greatly during the pandemic. A lot of Americans, their ideas of security and safety are wrapped up in firearm ownership. We actually had 12 mass shootings last weekend. The three that made the news. And there were nine others where four or more people were shot in a single incident.

  This is happening earlier than we usually see it. Two years ago, right at the onset of the pandemic, there were 88 mass shootings at this time. So January through April. 2021 last year, there were 155. That's a big leap. This year so far, we've had 147. So it seems that 2020 was something of a turning point and the violence is happening earlier in earlier in the year now.

• Geoff Bennett:

  So gun violence is going up, but the crime rate is going down. That to me seems counterintuitive. How do you account for those two trends?

• Jennifer Mascia:

  Yes, all types of crime actually are going down. But gun violence is going up probably because there are 400 million guns in civilian hands in this country. It's just simple math. The more guns that are around, the more people are going to use them.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Last week, as you know, Georgia became the 25th state to eliminate the need for a concealed carry permit. So that means in half of the country, now you can carry a concealed gun with no permit and no training. How does that compound the issue?

• Jennifer Mascia:

  Well, if there are no permits, they can't really check to see if that person is legally carrying. So, you have people going out with guns in public who are not trained and don't have that extra layer of vetting. And we've seen law enforcement across the country come out against these bills. And it just doesn't seem to matter to the lawmakers and they're the ones who have to deal with it on the ground.

• Geoff Bennett:

  I want to ask you about this new study by the University of Michigan researchers there who found that the leading cause of death among kids in 2020 was gun related injuries. Kids obviously can't buy firearms, but they're still getting access to them.

• Jennifer Mascia:

  They're getting access because in most of the country, there are no laws that criminalize leaving guns accessible to children. So you have a situation where there are millions of guns in households. And there's no safety training that goes with that. There's no mandatory class about how to keep a gun secure and safe, and there's no laws, really then 2020 gun related injuries became the leading cause of death among kids.

  That's actually in line with the huge jump we saw in gun deaths between 2019 and 2020. It put us about 45,000 gun deaths in a single year. Now we have never even breached 40,000 before that. It was a huge jump, and it was driven largely by homicides.

• Geoff Bennett:

  So gun control is not moving really anywhere. It's entirely stalled. The Biden administration has talked about providing more funding for community intervention of the President signed a bill regulating so called ghost guns, what needs to happen to sort of move the needle here?

• Jennifer Mascia:

  The most successful gun violence prevention strategy would be controlling access to firearms. Unfortunately, federal background checks only covers 78 percent of gun sales. And that's written into our federal law. So you have almost a quarter of gun sales happening legally with no background check.

  Dates are taking it upon themselves to craft laws. But the problem is if the state next door has weak gun laws, you can just go get a gun there.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Jennifer, thanks for your time and for your insights.