Smith and Wesson handguns are displayed during the 2015 NRA Annual Meeting and Exhibits in Nashville, Tenn. A new report found Wisconsin gun deaths have increased since 2002. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Jenevia Blanks’ young cousin was killed by gun violence, Blanks wrote in personal testimony included in a report released Tuesday that analyzes gun deaths in Wisconsin.
The Wisconsin Examiner’s Criminal Justice Reporting Project shines a light on incarceration, law enforcement and criminal justice issues with support from the Public Welfare Foundation.
“I want to keep sending a message to legislators that this violence is an epidemic, and something has to be done,” said Blanks, who volunteers with the advocacy group Moms Demand Action. “It’s not acceptable that we keep having so many lives cut short by gun violence.”
Firearms claimed the lives of 762 Wisconsinites in 2023, according to a report from the Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort (WAVE) Educational Fund and the Violence Policy Center. This included suicides, homicides and other firearm deaths.
The total number marks a decline from the 830 deaths reported for 2022 and the 793 deaths reported for 2021. The report also says that rates of overall suicide and firearm suicide in Wisconsin are similar to national rates, while homicide and firearm homicide rates are lower in Wisconsin than in the nation.
However, overall rates of firearm suicides and firearm homicides have increased in Wisconsin since 2002. Since 2020, firearm deaths have reportedly outpaced motor vehicle deaths in Wisconsin.
“One death from gun violence is too many,” Nick Matuszewski, associate executive director of the WAVE Educational Fund, said in a statement. “But 762 deaths is a disgrace and an urgent call to take the kind of actions that have been proven to save lives.”
The 762 deaths include 502 firearm suicides and 236 firearm homicides. The report includes findings related to sex, age, race and ethnicity and rural and urban areas.
WAVE reports that in 2023, suicides took up a larger percentage of firearms deaths in rural Wisconsin (88.5%) than in urban Wisconsin (58.2%).
According to the report, guns were used in 54.6% of suicides and 83.1% of homicides in Wisconsin.
Black residents of Wisconsin were 40 times more likely to die by firearm homicide than white residents. The report states that an annual study by the Violence Policy Center found that Wisconsin had the fourth highest rate of Black homicide victimization in the nation in 2023.
In 2023, 8,441 firearms were recovered in Wisconsin and traced, according to WAVE, most of which were handguns. The report found that 84.9% of firearms recovered in Wisconsin originated in the state.
The study was released the day before the Emergency Gun Violence Summit, which will take place Wednesday in Milwaukee.
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