Trump vs Biden: Gun violence in Joe Biden's US sees a sharp escalation

The Gun Violence Archive (GVA), a US gun violence monitoring group, reported that there were over 5,000 more fatal shootings during Joe Biden's first year in office compared to Donald Trump's first year as president.

According to the Gun Violence Archive, the United States saw 44,868 gun deaths in Biden's first year as president.

The total number of murders, justifiable self-defence homicides, and accidental homicides involving firearms were 20,783 in 2021, compared to 15,727 in 2017 when Trump took office. 

This means that in the past few years alone, gun violence has increased by 32 per cent.

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It is alarming to note, that there were 693 mass shootings in 2021, up from 348 in 2017. In addition, there were 1,060 deaths or injuries among children, compared to 724 in 2017.

In 2021, there were 24,090 suicides committed using a firearm in the United States. Prior to 2019, no national suicide statistics are available, but the site uses an estimate of 22,000 for previous years.

As of January 21, there had been 2,627 shootings in the United States, of which 1,518 were suicides and 1,109 intentional homicides, including 26 mass shootings and one mass murder. 

Based on the current trend, the United States may end the year with over 19000 killings and 450 mass shootings.

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In response to the sharp increase, a school gun control group March For Our Lives (M4OL) has called on Biden to put an end to the bloodshed.

The M4OL group, founded by the survivors of the 2018 mass shooting at the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, stated that Biden has only "tinkered" with gun control measures in his first year in the White House.

Activists from a student-led group said that they were horrified by the escalating epidemic of violence that have continued under his administration.

"As a candidate, the president pledged to end the epidemic of gun violence, but as our leader in the White House, he has simply tinkered at the edges, rather than coordinating a whole-of-government response that treats this crisis like the emergency that it is."

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."

In its statement, the group noted that 2021 is one of the deadliest years in American history for gun violence, and asked bluntly: "Mr. President, have you done enough?"

Gun violence has become a persistent social issue in the United States without any apparent solution.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation estimated that 17 million guns were sold between January 2021 and November 2021. In the first four days of 2022, around 400 Americans were killed in gun violence, according to the GVA. 

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In 2018, Nikolas Cruz killed 17 people and injured the same number during a rampage on Valentine's Day, at the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. He used a semi-automatic military assault rifle to commit the crime.

In light of the event, more people have called for restrictions on gun ownership and purchasing, with Trump calling on state legislatures to act - where the federal Congress has failed to act for decades.