Asklemmy

When looking at firearm homicides specifically, in terms of raw numbers (not rate), the low point was 2014, during Obama's second term. It started to move upwards in '15 and '16, prior to Trump taking office, and continued increasing at the same pace through '17. We see the first real sharp jump in '18, but then an equally sharp decline in '19, back to levels on par with Obama's last year in office, followed the next year by another sharp increase. Interestingly, Biden's 2nd year as president (2022) had the most number of firearm homicides in, I dunno, 30-odd years?

We'd been on a long, downward trend in homicides since '92. It's not clear to me what caused the rate to begin to head back up. I don't think that Obama, Trump, or Biden can realistically be directly blamed for the bulk of it, although a small number of homicides at the margins might be more directly related to them (e.g., Trump encourages racial violence, and so a small number of homicide might be due to his tacit support). I don't think that it's directly related to economics either, because the economy that Obama inherited when he took office in 2009 had been wrecked by the housing bubble crash; it it was directly related to economics, then I would have thought that gun violence would be peaking around '09 or '10. I guess it could be a lagging indicator though? (...But there is a sharp increase in '20, when the pandemic gets really bad and unemployment hits record highs.)

Again, keep in mind that these are homicides, and not suicides. firearm suicides still make up the majority of deaths caused by firearms in the US.

OTOH, I understand what you mean about feeling less safe under Trump, even if there wasn't an immediate spike in gun homicides. I know a lot of people--esp. LGBTQ+ people--are feeling very unsafe with Trump in the White House right now, and I believe that they're right to feel unsafe and at-risk.