Gun homicides are up 50% in Sacramento County. Here’s who is dying

Sacramento County homicides involving firearms have jumped sharply in the pandemic, reflecting a trend seen across much of the state and nation.

Guns were used to kill 171 Sacramento County residents in 2020 and 2021, an increase of 51%, or 58 additional gun homicides, compared to 2018 and 2019, according to death certificate data from the California Department of Public Health and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The increase in gun crimes occurred during a massive increase in gun sales. At the same time, many guns used to kill were obtained illegally. Sacramento Police reported a sharp uptick in weapons-related offenses starting in 2020.

The April 3 downtown shooting downtown that killed six and wounded 12 was another example of gun homicide in Sacramento County. As of Tuesday evening, police had arrested three suspects in connection to the shooting, charging each of them with offenses related to illegal possession of firearms.

Death certificate data shows clear patterns in who is dying from gun violence in Sacramento. Young adults are dying at a higher rate than others, as are men, Black residents and residents without a college education.

Age of victims

The vast majority of Sacramento County homicide victims in 2020 and 2021 were between 15 and 44.

Teens and young adults between 15 and 24 are dying at the highest rates – three times higher than the gun homicide rate for all age groups.

The increase in deaths among teens and young adults is striking. In 2018 and 2019, 28 Sacramento residents in that age group were killed by guns. In 2020 and 2021, the death toll for that age group more than doubled to 61.

Race/ethnicity of victims

Sacramento County’s Black residents are dying from gun violence at a disproportionate rate.

Seventy four of the county’s Black residents were killed by guns in 2020 and 2021, equivalent to about 21 deaths per 100,000 Black residents.

That is about five times as high as the gun homicide rate among Hispanic residents and nine times the rate among white residents.

The number of gun homicides with Black victims rose by 33, or 80%, during the last two years, as compared to 2018 and 2019.

A University of Pennsylvania study last year found that poverty, public and private underinvestment in communities, housing segregation and institutional racism largely explain why homicide rates are higher in Black communities nationwide.

“Black families have systematically lower household wealth than white families, including lower home values,” said Dylan Small, chair of the statistics department at Penn’s Wharton School. “In addition, there tends to be less public and private investment in majority-Black neighborhoods. That can translate into fewer resources in the neighborhood, especially relative to need.”

Gender of victims

The large majority of gun violence homicide victims are men.

Guns were used to kill 149 Sacramento County men in 2020 and 2021, up by 51 from 2018 and 2019. The rate of gun homicides with male victims was about seven times higher than the rate involving female victims.

Even so, the number of Sacramento County women killed with guns is also on the rise. Guns were used to kill 22 women in 2020 and 2021, up by 7 from 2018 and 2019.

Education of victims

Gun violence is often more prevalent in poorer areas. There is a strong correlation between an area’s poverty rate and how many college graduates live in it.

Guns were used to kill 133 Sacramento County residents without a college education in 2020 and 2021, for an annual rate of 16 gun deaths per 100,000 residents. That is about 10 times the rate of gun homicide deaths among residents with at least a bachelor’s degree.

About the data

The data in this analysis is based on death certificates listing cause of death. It likely undercounts the number of gun homicides in 2021, as it can sometimes take several months for the coroner to fully investigate a death and declare it a homicide.

The death certificate data breaks down deaths by several demographic categories. However, it only shows the exact number of deaths for categories where at least 10 people died in a given year. That is why some demographic groups with a low number of homicides – for instance, Asian residents, the elderly, residents with a graduate degree – are not broken out in the above charts.

The death certificate data is based on the county of residence of the homicide victim. Some Sacramento County residents in the data may have been killed in another county.

This story was originally published April 6, 2022 at 10:17 AM with the headline "Gun homicides are up 50% in Sacramento County. Here’s who is dying."