The gun murder rate among black males aged 20-29 is near the highest in the world, just a hair shy of the No. 1 homicide capital, Honduras, according to a new report.
In an analysis of 2011-2013 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Brookings Institution found that the gun murder rate was 89 for every 100,000 black men aged 20-29.
“To put that fact in some international perspective, in Honduras—the country with the highest recorded homicide rate—there were 90.4 intentional murders per 100,000 people in 2012. That includes all means, not just firearm homicides,” said Brookings.
Compared to white men, blacks are being murdered by gun at a four-to-one rate. Whites suffer a much higher suicide by gun rate.
The report highlights the racial and age differences in gun rates that can be obscured by the overall death by gun rates. For that, black men are still are on top, at 34 per 100,000. For white males, it is about 17 per 100,000.
But the report notes that the black rate is based mostly on homicides.
“The vast majority (77 percent) of white gun deaths are suicides; less than one in five (19 percent) is a homicide. These figures are nearly opposite in the black population, where only 14 percent of gun deaths are suicides but 82 percent are homicides,” said Brookings.
Read the full Brookings report here.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
