At the outset of 2020, the rate of gun-related mortality in Alabama hovered at around 22 deaths per 100,000 residents. After dipping somewhat at the onset of the pandemic, the number of gun deaths in Alabama has only increased, much as it has everywhere else in the U.S. There are few firm definitions of what constitutes a mass shooting, though they’re often defined as one shooting incident in which four or more people are killed (via The Marshall Project). What makes Alabama’s numbers more confounding, then, is that there are relatively few mass shootings in the Cotton State, according to AL.com. The rates of mass shootings in the U.S., however, rank among the worst per million residents compared to other developed nations, as World Population Review also notes.
Nowhere in the U.S. is completely immune to the post-pandemic gun violence issue, but according to CNBC, Black Americans are more affected by gun violence with a 40% increase in gun-related homicide during the pandemic, or roughly 12 times higher than that of white Americans. As CNBC goes on to note, poverty also plays a part and the most impoverished counties in the U.S. typically show rates of firearm murder and suicide up to 4.5% higher than average. Accordingly, the state of Alabama is the fifth poorest state in the U.S., with some 17% of state residents living in poverty (via Alabama Possible).
