Killings were up a record 29.4% in 2020; first-time gun ownership rose from 32% to 39%, biggest rise in decades

Gun deaths by county type, 2015-21 (Washington Post chart; click image to enlarge)

"Killings in the United States jumped nearly 30 percent last year, according to Federal Bureau of Investigation data released Monday that indicate a growing number of gun-related slayings amid the pandemic," Devlin Barrett and David Nakamura report for The Washington Post. "While different places saw different rates of increase in killings, the rise was nearly universal across the country, occurring in small towns, big cities, and many places in between."

The 29.4 percent increase in murder and manslaughter is "the largest one-year increase since such the federal government began compiling national figures in the 1960s," Barrett and Nakamura report. "That historic increase has been known for some time, and has sparked concern from police officials and prosecutors. But the FBI release of data compiled from thousands of law enforcement agencies formally confirms the trend. Overall, violent crime rose 5.6 percent in 2020, while property crimes fell 7.8 percent, the FBI said. Assaults increased 12 percent, according to the bureau."

First-time gun ownership jumped from 32% of Americans to 39% last year, the largest such increase in decades. It's unclear how much that trend contributed to the increase in gun violence and deaths, but an analysis "found the higher the jump in gun sales between 2019 and 2020, the higher the jump in gun violence that resulted in at least one death," the Post reports.