In a nation awash in firearms, gun violence has become a public health crisis that falls hardest on Black communities, even as the industry increasingly markets weapons as tools of personal safety to those same neighborhoods. Black people were nearly 14 times as likely to die by gun homicide as white people in 2021, and Black men and boys make up just 6% of the population but more than half of homicide victims, starkly illustrating the burden of gun-related death on communities of color.
Reporters describe how, during the covid pandemic, firearm deaths hit record highs while politicians treated gun stores as “essential businesses” and federal relief programs sent more than $150 million to firearm companies, even as millions of new guns flowed into American homes. Gunmakers, recognizing that their traditional buyer was “pale, male and stale,” began aggressively targeting Black people and other communities of color who are disproportionately victimized by shootings.
Congressional investigators found the industry marketed guns simultaneously to white supremacist groups and to Black consumers, exploiting racial tensions and fear while profiting “from both white supremacists and their targets.” Public health data cited in the article undercuts the core safety promise, indicating that owning a gun doubles the risk of homicide and triples the risk of suicide in a home.
For survivors and grieving parents in segregated, high-poverty neighborhoods like those in Philadelphia and Jacksonville, the result is enduring trauma layered atop long-standing racial inequities, a crisis one activist calls “the disease of American amnesia” as the country moves on while young people of color remain at disproportionate risk.
See: “Guns Marketed for Personal Safety Fuel Public Health Crisis in Black Communities” (December 19, 2025)
