SOCIAL EM & POPULATION HEALTH COMMITTEE
An Unlikely Pairing: Gun Violence and COVID-19 Brenda Arthur, MD* and Jada Watts, BS†
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n May of 2021, my eighteen-year-old, younger brother was fatally shot and killed. It happened two days before he was supposed to play in his basketball state championship. He was an all-star basketball player. He was involved in his community. He had a 4.0. My mom did everything right. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
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Gun violence takes the lives of numerous bright, young, talented people. It is closer to home than we realize. The coronavirus pandemic has also taken many lives, all while wreaking havoc on our hospital systems and bringing to light inequities and injustices present in American society. It has been three years since the World Health Organization announced the coronavirus pandemic. Firearm violence, the epidemic, has troubled this country long before COVID. It has risen in the shadows alongside the spread of COVID and its subsequent mandates and seems to be getting more lethal. Both homicides and unintentional shootings in the United States increased to record levels in 2020, the same year of the declaration of the COVID pandemic. 1 In this paper, we offer important, unseen connections between these parallel occurrences, using major cities in the United States as example cases. Containment Policies
Philadelphia’s first COVID containment policies were implemented on March 16, 2020.2 This meant that all non-essential businesses were closed. On March 23, 2020, Philadelphia County began its first stay-at-home orders.2 The city was essentially shut down. Weekly shootings in Philadelphia almost doubled in the weeks following these containment policies.3 Prior to March 16, the average number of individuals shot per week was 25. Afterward, that number almost doubled to 46.3 The rise in firearm violence coinciding with COVID containment policies is difficult to ignore. Across the country, the Gun Violence
Archive notes that almost 20,000 homicides and accidental, fatal shootings occurred in 2020. This is a 25% inc rease compared to 2019, only one year prior.4 While the sharp increase in deadly shootings was not maintained, there has been a total increase in nonfatal firearm injuries since 2020.5 This increasing rate of firearm violence began right around the time when a large portion of the country was shut down. Unemployment
The described COVID containment policies caused sudden changes in employment. Many businesses were forced to close, which resulted in 11.7% of Americans being laid off.6 The newly socially distanced country allowed for the success of industries contributing to virtual platforms while other industries dedicated to serving the public job market deteriorated. Different theories exist regarding the complex relationship between gun violence and change in employment rates. On one hand, changes in financial security relating to unemployment often leads to increased financial stress. Stress is difficult to measure or study, but we suspect that this increased stress and financial burden in families may have led to increases in things like robbery or other acts of violence to maintain basic needs. In the first year of the COVID pandemic, New York City had a 22.4% increase in robbery rates when compared to the previous year. Chicago had a 10% increase in comparison to 2019.7 In general, time spent outside of the workplace or recreational pastimes leaves more time in the day for other affairs. With increased financial stress, some of the other may include violent activity. 8 John Donohue, a Stanford University law professor who studies gun violence, notes that periods of stress are associated with more shootings.4 It is easy to see how unemployment during the COVID pandemic may be linked to increasing rates of violence.
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Firearm violence, the epidemic, has troubled this country long before COVID. It has risen in the shadows alongside the spread of COVID and its subsequent mandates and seems to be getting more lethal.” COMMON SENSE MAY/JUNE 2023
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