POTUS Joe Biden's first year in office saw 32% more gun violence than Trump's: Report

A US gun violence monitor recently revealed that President Joe Biden-led administration's first year in office witnessed nearly 5,000 more fatal shootings in comparison to his predecessor Donald Trump's first year in office. March For Our Lives (M4OL) - a student-led gun control group - has urged President Biden to take strict measures to curb the violence in the country. According to the Gun Violence Archive (GVA), there were 20,783 murders in 2021, justifiable self-defence homicides, and accidental deaths involving weapons. It stated that the number was 15,727 during Trump's first year in office - a difference of 32%, Sputnik reported. 

As per the data, the number of mass shootings rose from 348 in 2017 to 693 in 2021, with a total of 1,060 children killed or injured. In 2021, there were 24,090 suicides in the United States involving a firearm. Prior to 2019, there are no national suicide statistics available, but the GVA has used an estimate of 22,000 for previous years. There had been 2,627 shootings in the United States as of January 21, with 1,518 of them being suicides and 1,109 deliberate homicides, including 26 mass shootings and one mass murder.

'US might end 2022 with over 19,000 killings'

Going by current trends, the US could end the year with more than 19,000 murders and 450 mass shootings, the report stated. President Biden has only "tinkered" with gun control measures in his first year in the office, according to the M4OL group. The group was founded by survivors of the 2018 mass shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, as per Sputnik. On Valentine's Day rampage at the Parkland school in 2018, former student Nikolas Cruz killed at least 17 people and injured more than a dozen with an AR-15-style semi-automatic military assault rifle.

The growing violence raised an alarm: M4OL

The group claimed that the surging violence under the current administration has raised an alarm across the country. Taking to Twitter, the group said, "While @POTUS  has taken welcome and overdue steps to address this epidemic, he has not met the bare minimum of what’s necessary to reverse this trend."  It is significant to mention here that gun violence has turned out to be a chronic social problem with no apparent solution. "On the president's anniversary, we must ask the President bluntly: Have you done enough?" the group asked. 

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