The city of Chicago passed a tragic milestone recently, as the 800th person this year was killed.

According to WBEZ, “Chicago already has more than 800 homicide deaths in 2021, the most violent year in a quarter century, according to autopsy records from the Cook County medical examiner’s office. … The homicides, most carried out with guns, began to surge in the spring of 2020 after the pandemic’s arrival. The violence intensified after George Floyd’s killing by Minneapolis police. And it has not let up.”

The vast majority of the homicides in Chicago result from episodes of gun violence. Chicago’s trends in gun violence are not unique. Other cities in the United States have experienced a similar pattern of rising gun violence and homicide rates over the past two years.

The level of gun violence in the United States corresponds to levels of violence in many civil conflicts. Some scholars working on civil warfare have begun to assess violence within the United States through the lens of civil civil conflict. More on that in another post….

WBEZ reports on the current violence in Chicago.