Gun homicides are up 50% in Sacramento County. Here’s who is dying, by Phillip Reese, SacBee.com, April 6, 2022
Sacramento County homicides involving firearms have jumped sharply in the pandemic, reflecting a trend seen across much of the state and nation. Guns were used to kill 171 Sacramento County residents in 2020 and 2021, an increase of 51%, or 58 additional gun homicides, compared to 2018 and 2019, according to death certificate data from the California Department of Public Health and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The increase in gun crimes occurred during a massive increase in gun sales. At the same time, many guns used to kill were obtained illegally. Sacramento Police reported a sharp uptick in weapons-related offenses starting in 2020.
The April 3 downtown shooting downtown that killed six and wounded 12 was another example of gun homicide in Sacramento County. As of Tuesday evening, police had arrested three suspects in connection to the shooting, charging each of them with offenses related to illegal possession of firearms.
Death certificate data shows clear patterns in who is dying from gun violence in Sacramento. Young adults are dying at a higher rate than others, as are men, Black residents and residents without a college education.
AGE OF VICTIMS
The vast majority of Sacramento County homicide victims in 2020 and 2021 were between 15 and 44. Teens and young adults between 15 and 24 are dying at the highest rates — three times higher than the gun homicide rate for all age groups. The increase in deaths among teens and young adults is striking. In 2018 and 2019, 28 Sacramento residents in that age group were killed by guns. In 2020 and 2021, the death toll for that age group more than doubled to 61.
RACE/ETHNICITY OF VICTIMS
Sacramento County’s Black residents are dying from gun violence at a disproportionate rate. Seventy four of the county’s Black residents were killed by guns in 2020 and 2021, equivalent to about 21 deaths per 100,000 Black residents. That is about five times as high as the gun homicide rate among Hispanic residents and nine times the rate among white residents.
The number of gun homicides with Black victims rose by 33, or 80%, during the last two years, as compared to 2018 and 2019. A University of Pennsylvania study last year found that poverty, public and private underinvestment in communities, housing segregation and institutional racism largely explain why homicide rates are higher in Black communities nationwide. “Black families have systematically lower household wealth than white families, including lower home values,” said Dylan Small, chair of the statistics department at Penn’s Wharton School. “In addition, there tends to be less public and private investment in majority-Black neighborhoods. That can translate into fewer resources in the neighborhood, especially relative to need.”