Last year, Rochelle Walensky became the first CDC director in decades to describe gun violence as “a serious public health threat.” Lawmakers restarted that funding with the 2020 budget. Congress ended funding for CDC’s gun violence research in 1997 as it became an increasingly political issue. For God’s sake, you have to have the courage to stand up to the industry.” “The gun manufacturers have spent two decades aggressively marketing assault weapons, which make them the most and largest profit. “We have to act, and don’t tell me we can't have an impact on this carnage,” he said. He pivoted to rallying for better gun laws. President Joe Biden addressed the nation late Tuesday, starting with emotional remarks that a parent’s sorrow in losing a child is “like having a piece of your soul ripped away.” Two days later, a shooter opened fire in a Laguna Wood, Calif., church, killing one. Just last week, a shooter killed 10 Black people in a Buffalo, N.Y., supermarket. The most recent figures show young people, boys and men, Black people and those living in high-poverty areas were most impacted by the latest surge, widening an already deep disparity. While the pandemic is recent, gun violence in America is not. Gun homicides jumped 35 percent between 20 and were involved in 80 percent of the nation’s homicides, the highest rate since 1994. Gun violence surged to a decadeslong high during the pandemic. UVALDE AND THE NATION’S GUN VIOLENCE CRISIS - In the wake of the devastating news that at least 20 people, most of them young children, died Tuesday in a mass shooting at a Uvalde, Texas, elementary school, we’re revisiting sobering CDC figures released just two weeks ago. Learn how we’re preparing for what’s next at Driving the Day
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