Memorial Day Weekend 2021 saw a higher rate of gun violence than last year’s holiday weekend, as the year overall is on pace to surpass 2020’s total number of gun-related incidents, according to ABC News.
As of Sunday, approximately 8,100 people in the United States have died from gun violence, which allegedly puts the nation on track to surpass 2020’s total of 19,000 people killed, which itself was greater than 2019’s final total of 15,000.
Most of the violence has been occurring in America’s largest cities, such as New York City and Chicago, but violence has erupted elsewhere. In Miami-Dade County, Florida, a mass shooting at a banquet hall in the city of Hialeah led to 23 people being shot, with two fatalities. Authorities believe that the shooting was the result of a dispute between rival gangs. In Philadelphia, 16 people were shot over the course of the weekend; of those 16, four died of their injuries.
On Monday night, as the weekend was coming to a close, a total of nine shootings were reported across all five boroughs of New York City. There were 15 victims, with one being a 15-year-old who died of their injuries. New York has seen the greatest increase in gun violence of any city in the country, with an increase of 77 percent from the rate of shootings at this same time in 2020. The city has already seen 573 shootings and 652 victims; at this same point in 2020, there had only been 323 shootings and 366 victims.
The spike in violence nationwide has been attributed to the race riots that took place last year, perpetrated by far-left domestic terrorist groups like Black Lives Matter and Antifa. Despite President Donald Trump’s efforts to control the rioting, many Democratic governors and mayors refused to cooperate with the National Guard and allowed the riots to take place, due to their agreement with these groups’ politics. Since Joe Biden took over having expressed support for these groups and a refusal to interfere with their actions, such violence has continued unhindered in 2021, both by these groups and by other criminals who are sharing in the decline in enforcement of law and order.