The first year of the pandemic ushered in the highest firearm homicide rates since 1994, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “This was the largest increase—it was a 35 percent increase from 2019 to 2020—and this was the highest number of firearm homicides in 20 years,” said Dr. Deb Houry, head of the CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. The federal data reflected stark racial disparities, with the most substantial surges in gun-related deaths among Black males aged 10-44 years old and Native American or Alaska Native men aged 25-44. The report also noted class lines demarcating the violence, with highest-poverty counties experiencing firearm homicide rates more than four times higher than lowest-poverty counties. The pandemic exacerbated “longstanding systemic inequities,” inflaming the violence, according to the agency’s findings. A report released by Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions late last month characterized the surge in firearm homicides between 2019 and 2020 as “the largest one-year increase in modern history.”