From the New York Times news section, a report on how objects with agency, guns, are becoming a greater menace to human beings who are above criticism but beneath agency, black men:

Gun-Related Suicides and Killings Continued to Rise in 2021, C.D.C. Reports

The increases in homicides were particularly stark among Black and Hispanic men, while suicides involving firearms rose among all adults.

By Roni Caryn Rabin
Oct. 6, 2022

Homicides and suicides involving guns, which soared in 2020, the first year of the pandemic, continued rising in 2021, reaching the highest rates in three decades, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Thursday.

Firearms caused 47,286 homicide and suicide deaths in 2021, up from 43,675 in 2020, according to the agency’s research, which is based on provisional data. Rates of gun-related homicide and suicide each rose by 8.3 percent last year. …

“Everyone is talking about the rise in homicides, but it is largely driven by guns,” said Ari Davis, a policy adviser at the center.

Triggers pull themselves.

Yet gun suicides also drove an overall rise in suicides. “An 8 percent increase in gun suicides over one year is a really large increase,” Mr. Davis said. “It’s very worrisome.”

From 2019 to 2021, homicides involving guns increased by 45 percent, while murders that did not involve firearms increased by only 6 percent, according to a preliminary analysis by the Johns Hopkins center.

Seriously, there are a couple of things going on. One is a long term trend toward a greater percentage of homicides being by shooting. Americans are less into killing each other with their hands than they used to be. American Indians used to be the only group that committed a majority of its murders without guns, but now even Natives use guns the majority of the time.

The other factor is that the two groups that use guns the highest percentage of the time in their homicides—blacks and Hispanics—had the biggest increases in homicides since George Floyd’s death.

While gun-related suicides increased by 10 percent over the two-year period, suicides by other means decreased by about 8 percent, according to the analysis.

… Although the C.D.C. research does not address the underlying causes, the increase in firearm deaths parallels a spike in gun purchases during the pandemic, including an increase in first-time owners.

Americans went on a gun-buying spree in 2020 that continued into 2021, when in a single week the Federal Bureau of Investigation reported a record 1.2 million background checks.

Purchasers often turn to handguns for self-protection, but research has shown that having a firearm in the home dramatically raises the risk of gun death, including both homicides and suicides.

Other disruptive aspects of the pandemic may also have contributed to increased violence, said Thomas Simon, the lead author of the C.D.C. research.

“There have been changes and disruptions in services, in education, increased mental stress and isolation, and economic stressors, all related to Covid,” Dr. Simon said.

He added: “We also had concerns in a lot of communities about law enforcement’s use of lethal force, and tension and distrust of law enforcement. So there may have been an impact on the community’s willingness to engage with law enforcement.”

This is an oblique reference to the George Floyd Mania that led The Establishment to denounce the police and endorse the Mostly Peaceful Protests.

Domestic violence may also have increased during the pandemic, Dr. Simon said.

Did it? It was widely predicted to—people would be stuck at home with their loved ones and tragedies would ensue, which sounded plausible. But I haven’t seen much evidence that it did. Instead, what we saw during the Pandemic/ Racial Reckoning was a huge increase in mass shootings at black social events: the ne plus ultra of Deaths of Exuberance.

… And while there were increases in gun homicides among all racial and ethnic groups last year, the rise was primarily concentrated in Black and Hispanic communities.

Passive voice construction.

Black people continued to experience the highest gun homicide rates in every age group.

The racial disparity is particularly acute among youngsters and young adults ages 10 to 24.

The firearm homicide rate among Black youngsters and young adults in 2020 was already 20 times higher than among white young people. In 2021, the gap widened as gun homicides among white youngsters decreased slightly, and the rate of firearm homicides among Black young people is now almost 25 times as high.

Maybe… just spitballing here, let me just run this pitch up the flagpole and see if anybody salutes, but maybe blacks should try to do something about this problem young blacks have with getting themselves shot two-dozen times more than young whites, and, hear me out, the rest of society should encourage them to fix it?

OK, OK, forget I ever said it. I will delete my account.

“This is an example of an unacceptable disparity that has continued to go in the wrong direction,” Dr. Simon said. “It’s possible the stressors associated with the pandemic, which we know hit racial and ethnic communities harder in many areas, could be contributing to these inequities.”

But wasn’t there something else going on in America in 2020/2021? I used to read this phrase in the media occasionally… What was it?

Oh, yeah, Black Lives Matter.

Over all, Black and Hispanic Americans were 13.7 and 2.4 times, respectively, as likely to die in a gun homicide as white people in 2021 — the largest such difference in over a decade, according to the Johns Hopkins analysis.

Suicides involving firearms increased by only 1 percent during the first year of the pandemic but soared in 2021, increasing from 24,292 in 2020 to 26,320 in 2021, the highest one-year increase reported by the C.D.C. and a record high, according to Mr. Davis.

The increase occurred among both men and women, and in most age, racial and ethnic groups. …

“The pandemic continues to cause huge dislocations in everyone’s lives — economic uncertainty, social upheaval, anxiety about our health, loss of routines affecting everyone — and it’s had a particular toll on young people,” Ms. Sharps said.

She added, “And there have been years of policy decisions where gun laws are being loosened in some states, and continued underinvestment in Black and Latinx communities.”