Is there a link between the sheer number of guns available and gun violence. [View all]

[AndyS]

This is a chart of gun deaths from 1968 to 2017:


Note the sharp spike in murders that begins in 2014. That trend continues today with the CDC reporting a murder rate of 5.8/100k in 2019 and increases over that in 2020* and 2021* (numbers not finalized as of this post).

What happened in 2014? No pandemic, no major influx of drugs or gangs, economy booming and inflation down while employment up. What changed?

Below is a graph of guns manufactured from 1986 through 2018:


Here is a chart of imports of guns from 1986 to 2018:


Notice the spike in manufacturing and imports that began after 2010 and spiked in 2014? The supply of guns is directly correlated to the increase in gun violence. There is no way to ignore this.