Daniel Trotta

(Reuters.) – One American was fatally shot every 17 hours on America’s roads in 2021 according to a report about road rage violence.

According to a report by Everytown for Gun Safety, there were 131 deaths and 391 injuries from gunfire, making it a total 522 road rage fatalities in 2021.

This is a substantial increase from the 73 deaths and 166 injuries recorded in 2016. The report’s authors believe that this spike was due to stress caused by the coronavirus epidemic.

One person is shot every 17 hours during road rage confrontations in 2021. That’s more than double 2016’s rate.

Everytown is largely funded by Michael Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor. Everytown cited its 7,500-source database, most of them law enforcement agencies.

According to the gun control group, more research is needed in order to understand the causes of the shooting increase. However, the increased road rage fatalities was correlated with other trends observed during the pandemic like rising gun sales or shootings.

Gun Owners of America (GOA), an advocacy group for gun rights, accuses Everytown of raising awareness about criminals who infringe the gun owner’s rights.

It is illegal to use force or threaten another person to resolve a road-rage issue. Gun grabbers can use this story as a distraction to claim, once more, that criminals won’t break the law if guns are taken from good people.” Erich Pratt (senior vice president, GOA), stated in a statement.

Others, such as the Automobile Association of America have also documented an increase in road rage. According to American Psychological Association (APA), young males tend to show aggressive behavior towards other drivers.

From 2016 to 2019, approximately one-third (or less) of all road rage incidents that involved a firearm resulted either in death or injury. Everytown stated that by 2021 nearly two thirds of road rage incidents involving guns would have resulted in injury or death.