What is causing the current rise in gun violence? Virtually the same number of firearms existed six months ago. What is different? ?

The Deep State and a very mental society. Another thing is the media does not always cover shootings. 

despair...

if you know anyone in law enforcement, talk to them and ask when they first began to fear civil unrest last year.... my guess is that the answer will be weeks if not months before anyone knew who George Floyd was...

the simple fact is that humans do not respond well to lockdowns of their individual freedoms and constant restrictions on their emotional and spiritual health.... for months they were told that things would get better come summer and many places were, indeed, preparing to reopen in May...

when the initial riots resulted in further lockdowns you saw an additional several weeks of violence.....but for many the "social justice" angle was just an excuse to vent months of pent-up anger and frustration...

similarly, many people were convinced that things would get magically better after January.  When that didn't happen a number of people snapped emotionally in a similar fashion...

sad to say but the worst may be yet to come....on one hand we have the looming specter of another round of lockdowns in response to a new surge.... on the other, we have reopening met with a large number of people now free to go out and about, but finding out that everything is now 30%-50% more expensive....a lot of favorite places are now closed...and a lot of jobs simply aren't coming back...

Biden was elected.  Now Dems want to kill Asians and whites.