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    Gun Violence in America

    5.19.2020

    Last Updated: 5.7.2024

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      Every day, more than 120 Americans are killed with guns and more than 200 are shot and wounded.1Everytown Research analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, WONDER Online Database, Underlying Cause of Death. A yearly average was developed using five years of the most recent available data: 2018 to 2022. Everytown For Gun Safety Support Fund, “EveryStat: United States,” https://everystat.org/. Based on analysis of 2020 HCUP nonfatal injury data. The effects of gun violence in America extend far beyond these casualties—gun violence shapes the lives of millions of Americans who witness it, know someone who was shot, or live in fear of the next shooting.

      In order to illustrate the magnitude of everyday gun violence Everytown has gathered the most comprehensive, publicly available data. Still, significant data gaps remain—a result of underfunded, incomplete data collection at the state and federal levels. Filling these gaps is necessary to truly understand the full impact of gun violence in America.

      Gun Deaths by Intent

      Average Deaths per Year2Everytown Research analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, WONDER Online Database, Underlying Cause of Death. A yearly average was developed using five years of the most recent available data: 2018 to 2022. While it is broadly considered to be the most comprehensive firearm fatal injury source, two of the intent categories—legal intervention (e.g., shootings by police) and unintentional deaths—are estimated to be greatly underreported. This underreporting is largely due to missing information on death certificates, which may result in misclassification of intent. Multiple media sources and nonprofit groups have tracked shootings by police, but no reliable public database captures unintentional shootings. Intent category averages may not total to yearly average due to rounding.
      Total 44,341

      Gun Deaths by Intent

      Source: CDC, WONDER, Underlying Cause of Death. Five-year average: 2018–2022.

      Last updated: 5.7.2024

      Note: Research indicates that shootings by police are undercounted in CDC datasets, as incidents are often misclassified as homicides.3Colin Loftin et al., “Underreporting of Justifiable Homicides Committed by Police Officers in the United States, 1976–1998,” American Journal of Public Health 93, no. 7 (July 1, 2003): 1117–21, https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.93.7.1117; Catherine Barber et al., “Homicides by Police: Comparing Counts From the National Violent Death Reporting System, Vital Statistics, and Supplementary Homicide Reports,” American Journal of Public Health 106, no. 5 (May 2016): 922–27, https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2016.303074. Mapping Police Violence’s database is widely cited and estimates that nearly 1,100 people are fatally shot by police in an average year—roughly twice as many as recorded by the CDC.4Everytown Research analysis of 2019 to 2023 Mapping Police Violence data (accessed February 21, 2024).

      Suicide

      • When it comes to gun violence in America, nearly 6 out of every 10 gun deaths are suicides.5Everytown Research analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, WONDER Online Database, Underlying Cause of Death. A yearly average rate was developed using five years of the most recent available data: 2018 to 2022.
      • The US gun suicide rate is nearly 12 times that of other high-income countries.6Everytown Research analysis of the most recent year of gun suicides by country (2015 to 2019), GunPolicy.org (accessed January 7, 2022).
      • Access to a gun triples the risk of death by suicide.7Andrew Anglemyer, Tara Horvath, and George Rutherford, “The Accessibility of Firearms and Risk for Suicide and Homicide Victimization Among Household Members,” Annals of Internal Medicine 160, no. 2 (January 21, 2014): 101–10, https://doi.org/10.7326/M13-1301. Gun suicides are concentrated in states with high rates of gun ownership.8April Opoliner et al., “Explaining Geographic Patterns of Suicide in the US: The Role of Firearms and Antidepressants,” Injury Epidemiology 1, no. 6 (2014), https://doi.org/10.1186/2197-1714-1-6.
      • White men represent 71 percent of firearm suicide victims in America.9Everytown Research analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, WONDER Online Database, Underlying Cause of Death. A yearly average rate was developed using five years of the most recent available data: 2018 to 2022. White men defined as non-Latinx origin.

      3x

      Access to a gun triples the risk of death by suicide.

      Anglemyer, Horvath, and Rutherford, “The Accessibility of Firearms and Risk for Suicide and Homicide Victimization Among Household Members: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis,” Ann. Intern. Med. (2014).

      Homicide

      • More than four out of every 10 gun deaths are homicides.10Everytown Research analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, WONDER Online Database, Underlying Cause of Death. A yearly average rate was developed using five years of the most recent available data: 2018 to 2022. Homicide includes shootings by police.
      • The rate of gun violence in America is staggering: The US gun homicide rate is 26 times that of other high-income countries.11Everytown Research analysis of the most recent year of gun suicides by country (2015 to 2019), GunPolicy.org (accessed January 7, 2022).
      • Access to a gun doubles the risk of death by homicide.12Andrew Anglemyer, Tara Horvath, and George Rutherford, “The Accessibility of Firearms and Risk for Suicide and Homicide Victimization Among Household Members,” Annals of Internal Medicine 160, no. 2 (January 21, 2014): 101–10, https://doi.org/10.7326/M13-1301.
      • Gun homicides are concentrated in cities.  An Everytown Research analysis of FBI crime data from over 500 cities13Sample limited to cities with populations of 65,000+ that reported data to the FBI from 2018 to 2022. Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, “City Dashboard: Gun Homicide,” December 18, 2023, https://everytownresearch.org/report/city-data/. found that in 2022, half of the gun homicides reported to the FBI occurred in just 20 cities, including Chicago, Philadelphia, Houston, Los Angeles, Detroit, and others.14Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, “City Dashboard: Gun Homicide,” December 18, 2023, https://everytownresearch.org/report/city-data/. The complete list of 20 cities that comprise 50% of gun homicides in this sample is: Chicago, IL; Philadelphia, PA; Houston, TX; Los Angeles, CA; Detroit, MI; New York, NY; Memphis, TN; Baltimore, MD; Phoenix, AZ; Milwaukee, WI; St Louis, MO; Indianapolis, ID; Dallas, TX; Washington, DC; Atlanta, GA; San Antonio, TX; Kansas City, MO; Louisville, KY; Birmingham, AL; Cleveland, OH. Collectively these cities had a total population of 30,115,064. Research shows that within these cities, a small percentage of the total population are people within the social networks most likely to be involved in gun violence. The majority of these people live in neighborhoods that are characterized by high rates of poverty, racial segregation and discrimination, and many other deep-rooted systemic and structural inequities.15David Weisburd, “The Law of Crime Concentration and the Criminology of Place,” Criminology 53, no. 2 (2015): 133–57, https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9125.12070; Daniel C. Semenza et al., “Firearm Availability, Homicide, and the Context of Structural Disadvantage,” Homicide Studies (September 2021): 1–21, https://doi.org/10.1177/10887679211043806; Ben Green et al., “Modeling Contagion through Social Networks to Explain and Predict Gunshot Violence in Chicago, 2006 to 2014,” JAMA Internal Medicine 177, no. 3 (2017): 326–33, http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jamainternmed.2016.8245; Chaeyoung Cheon et al., “Neighborhood Racial Composition and Gun Homicides,” JAMA Network Open 3, no. 11 (November 30, 2020): e2027591, https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.27591; Aliza Aufrichtig et al., “Want to Fix Gun Violence in America? Go Local,” The Guardian, January 9, 2017, https://bit.ly/2i6kaKw.
      • Black Americans represent the majority of gun homicide victims. In fact, Black Americans are 12 times more likely than white Americans to die by gun homicide.16Everytown Research analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, WONDER Online Database, Underlying Cause of Death. A yearly average rate was developed using five years of the most recent available data: 2018 to 2022. Black and white defined as non-Latinx origin. Homicide includes shootings by police.

      The US gun homicide rate is 26 times that of other high-income countries.

      Everytown analysis of the most recent year of gun homicides by country (2013 to 2019), GunPolicy.org (accessed January 7, 2022).

      Last updated: 11.1.2022

      Children and Teens

      • Firearms are the leading cause of death for American children and teens.17Everytown Research analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, WONDER Online Database, Underlying Cause of Death. Data from 2022. Children and teenagers aged 1 to 19, number of deaths by known intent (homicide, suicide, unintentional deaths). Age 0 to 1 excluded because leading causes of death for newborns and infants are specific to the age group.
      • Nearly 2,600 children and teens die by gun homicide every year.18Everytown Research analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, WONDER Online Database, Underlying Cause of Death. A yearly average rate was developed using five years of the most recent available data: 2018 to 2022. Analysis includes: ages 0 to 19, and homicide includes shootings by police. For children under the age of 13, these gun homicides most frequently occur in the home and are often connected to domestic or family violence.19Katherine A. Fowler et al., “Childhood Firearm Injuries in the United States,” Pediatrics 140, no. 1 (2017), https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2016-3486.
      • Black children and teens are 17 times more likely than white children and teens of the same age to die by gun homicide.20Everytown Research analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, WONDER Online Database, Underlying Cause of Death. A yearly average rate was developed using five years of the most recent available data: 2018 to 2022. Analysis includes: ages 0 to 19. Black and white defined as non-Latinx origin. Homicide includes shootings by police.

      Firearms are the leading cause of death for American children and teens.

      Source: CDC, WONDER, Underlying Cause of Death, Injury Mechanism & All Other Leading Causes, 2022. Ages 1–19.

      Last updated: 5.7.2024

      Domestic Violence

      • Women in the US are 28 times more likely to be killed with a gun than women in other high-income countries.21Everytown Research analysis of the most recent year of gun deaths by country (2015 to 2019), GunPolicy.org (accessed January 7, 2022).
      • Every month, an average of 70 women in the US are shot and killed by an intimate partner,22Everytown Research analysis of CDC, National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS), 2019. and many more are shot and wounded.
      • Nearly one million women alive today have been shot or shot at by an intimate partner.23Everytown Research analysis of the National Violence Against Women Survey (Patricia Tjaden and Nancy Thoennes, “Full Report of the Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women: Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey,” November 2000, https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/183781.pdf) and US Census 2020. Over 4.5 million American women in the United States today report having been threatened with a gun by an intimate partner.24Everytown Research analysis of the National Violence Against Women Survey (Patricia Tjaden and Nancy Thoennes, “Full Report of the Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women: Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey,” November 2000, https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/183781.pdf) and US Census 2020.
      • Access to a gun in a domestic violence situation makes it five times more likely that a woman will be killed.25Jacquelyn C. Campbell et al., “Risk Factors for Femicide in Abusive Relationships: Results From a Multisite Case Control Study,” American Journal of Public Health 93, no. 7 (July 2003): 1089–97, https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.93.7.1089.

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      Nearly 1 million women alive today have been shot or shot at by an intimate partner.

      Everytown analysis of the National Violence Against Women Survey (Patricia Tjaden and Nancy Thoennes, “Full Report of the Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women: Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey,” November 2000, https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/183781.pdf) and US Census 2020.

      Impact on Americans

      • 59 percent of adults or someone they know or care about have experienced gun violence in their lifetime.26Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, “Gun Violence Survivors in America,” February 1, 2023, https://everytownresearch.org/report/gun-violence-survivors-america/.
      • Approximately three million American children witness gun violence every year.27David Finkelhor et al., “Prevalence of Childhood Exposure to Violence, Crime, and Abuse: Results From the National Survey of Children’s Exposure to Violence,” JAMA Pediatrics 169, no. 8 (August 1, 2015): 746–54, https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2015.0676. Everytown analysis derives the 3 million number by multiplying the share of children (ages 0-17) who are exposed to shootings per year (4.2%) by the total child population of the U.S. in 2016 (~73.5M).

      MORE RESEARCH

      Share these statistics

      Every day, more than 120 people in the US are killed with guns.
      Black Americans are 12 times more likely than white Americans to die by gun homicide.
      Firearms are the leading cause of death for American children and teens.
      Access to a gun makes it five time more likely than an abusive partner will kill his female victim
      Bar graph representing the rate of gun homicides per 100,000 residents. The US has the highest rate with 4.38.

      Everytown Research & Policy is a program of Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, an independent, non-partisan organization dedicated to understanding and reducing gun violence. Everytown Research & Policy works to do so by conducting methodologically rigorous research, supporting evidence-based policies, and communicating this knowledge to the American public.

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      Did you know?

      Every day, more than 120 people in the United States are killed with guns, twice as many are shot and wounded and countless others are impacted by acts of gun violence.

      Everytown Research analysis of CDC, WONDER, Underlying Cause of Death, 2018–2022; Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) nonfatal firearm injury data, 2020; and SurveyUSA Market Research Study #26602, 2022.

      Last updated: 5.7.2024