By: Ashmar Mandou

According to a new study by the Violence Policy Center (VPC), approximately 54,000 Hispanics were killed with guns in the United States from 1999 through 5015, with an average of more than 3,000 gun deaths per year. The study finds that the overall homicide victimization rate for Hispanics is nearly double the homicide victimization rate for whites. In 2015, 70 percent of Hispanic homicide victims died by gunfire. For Hispanics ages 15 to 24, homicide ranked as the second leading cause of death. Hispanics were also more likely to be killed by strangers. Hispanic Victims of Lethal Firearms Violence in the United States is the fourth edition of the VPC’s annual comprehensive study on lethal gun violence against Hispanics in America. It is based on data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as well as unpublished information from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Supplementary Homicide Report. The study found that of the 53,788 Hispanics killed with guns from 1999 through 2015, two thirds of the gun deaths were homicides (35,553, or 66 percent), while 15,593 were suicides (29 percent). An additional 981 gun deaths were unintentional (two percent) and 1,661 (three percent) died of undetermined intent or legal intervention. The study also recommends that government agencies improve the way they collect and report data on Hispanic victims of gun violence and other lethal violence.
Key findings include: