An alarming trend when it comes to gun violence in Minnesota. Guns resulted in 564 deaths in 2024, a number that is concerning to Maggiy Emery with the gun violence protection group Protect Minnesota.
"We are up 6% and we are only we are one of the only states in the entire nation where gun deaths increased instead of decreased last year," says Emery.
It's even more alarming when you look at the significant drops in gun violence across the nation, dropping a whopping 12% year-to-year. So, why is this happening in Minnesota?
"In 2020, there were 500,000 new guns sold in this state," says Emery. "So there's now half a million people in the State of Minnesota who are armed than there were before."
But here's the caveat. The majority of these deaths? They're not homicides.
"Of those 564 deaths last year, 406 - or 72% - of them were firearms suicides," she adds.
An alarming trend for sure. Emery said that 61% of those who committed suicide were over the age of 45, with 87% of those being male.
"These deaths are far more likely to occur in greater Minnesota," Emery adds. "We know that there's a loneliness epidemic, right? Our surgeon general has stated that plainly as fact. We know that you're twice as likely to live in poverty if you live in in a rural area versus an urban area."
The Minnesota Department of Health says Minnesota's suicide rate remained unchanged in 2024 compared to the year before, but preliminary data showed the state's suicide rate in entirely rural counties was twice that of the Twin Cities metro counties.
Rural counties make up about 1.6% of the Minnesota population and 2.8% of all suicide deaths.