In 2022, there were ****** fatalities caused by injuries related to firearms in the United States, a slight decrease from the previous year. In 2021, there were ****** firearm deaths, the highest number of gun deaths ever recorded in the country. However, this figure has remained relatively high over the past 25 years, with ****** firearm deaths in 1990, and a slight dip in fatalities between 1999 and 2002. Firearms in the United States The right to own firearms in the United States is enshrined in the 2nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, and while this right may be seen as quintessentially American, the relationship between Americans and their firearms has become fraught in the last few years. The proliferation of mass shootings in the U.S. has brought the topic of gun control into the national spotlight, with support for banning assault-style weapons a particularly divisive issue among Americans. Gun control With a little less than **** of all Americans owning at least one firearm and the highest rate of civilian gun ownership in the world, it is easy to see how the idea of gun control is a political minefield in the U.S. However, public opinion has begun to shift over the past ten years, and a majority of Americans report that laws governing the sale of firearms should be stricter than they are now.

The graph shows the number of gun deaths per year in the United States from 1999 to 2023. The x-axis represents the years, while the y-axis displays the annual count of gun-related fatalities. The data ranges from a low of 28,663 gun deaths in 2000 to a high of 48,830 in 2021. From 1999 to 2014, the numbers remained relatively stable with slight fluctuations. However, gun deaths began increasing significantly after 2015, peaking in 2021 before a slight decline in 2022 and 2023. The graph highlights long-term trends in gun-related fatalities, emphasizing a notable rise in recent years.

In recent years, gun violence in the United States has become an alarmingly common occurrence. From 2016, there has been over ****** homicides by firearm in the U.S. each year and firearms have been found to make up the majority of murder weapons in the country by far, demonstrating increasing rates of gun violence occurring throughout the nation. As of 2025, Mississippi was the state with the highest gun violence rate per 100,000 residents in the United States, at **** percent, followed by Louisiana, at **** percent. In comparison, Massachusetts had a gun violence rate of *** percent, the lowest out of all the states. The importance of gun laws Gun laws in the United States vary from state to state, which has been found to affect the differing rates of gun violence throughout the country. Fewer people die by gun violence in states where gun safety laws have been passed, while gun violence rates remain high in states where gun usage is easily permitted and even encouraged. In addition, some states suffer from high rates of gun violence despite having strong gun safety laws due to gun trafficking, as traffickers can distribute firearms illegally past state lines. The right to bear arms Despite evidence from other countries demonstrating that strict gun control measures reduce rates of gun violence, the United States has remained reluctant to enact gun control laws. This can largely be attributed to the Second Amendment of the Constitution, which states that citizens have the right to bear arms. Consequently, gun control has become a highly partisan issue in the U.S., with ** percent of Democrats believing that it was more important to limit gun ownership while ** percent of Republicans felt that it was more important to protect the right of Americans to own guns.

In 2023, 13,529 recorded murders in the United States were committed by firearm. This is a decrease from the previous year, when 12,244 homicides were committed with a firearm in the country. However, figures may not accurately reflect the total number of homicides, as not all law enforcement agencies in the U.S. submitted homicide data.

Number and percentage of homicide victims, by type of firearm used to commit the homicide (total firearms; handgun; rifle or shotgun; other firearm-like weapons; firearm, type of firearm is unknown), Canada, 1974 to 2023.

THIS DATASET WAS LAST UPDATED AT 2:11 AM EASTERN ON JULY 12

OVERVIEW

2019 had the most mass killings since at least the 1970s, according to the Associated Press/USA TODAY/Northeastern University Mass Killings Database.

In all, there were 45 mass killings, defined as when four or more people are killed excluding the perpetrator. Of those, 33 were mass shootings . This summer was especially violent, with three high-profile public mass shootings occurring in the span of just four weeks, leaving 38 killed and 66 injured.

A total of 229 people died in mass killings in 2019.

The AP's analysis found that more than 50% of the incidents were family annihilations, which is similar to prior years. Although they are far less common, the 9 public mass shootings during the year were the most deadly type of mass murder, resulting in 73 people's deaths, not including the assailants.

One-third of the offenders died at the scene of the killing or soon after, half from suicides.

About this Dataset

The Associated Press/USA TODAY/Northeastern University Mass Killings database tracks all U.S. homicides since 2006 involving four or more people killed (not including the offender) over a short period of time (24 hours) regardless of weapon, location, victim-offender relationship or motive. The database includes information on these and other characteristics concerning the incidents, offenders, and victims.

The AP/USA TODAY/Northeastern database represents the most complete tracking of mass murders by the above definition currently available. Other efforts, such as the Gun Violence Archive or Everytown for Gun Safety may include events that do not meet our criteria, but a review of these sites and others indicates that this database contains every event that matches the definition, including some not tracked by other organizations.

This data will be updated periodically and can be used as an ongoing resource to help cover these events.

Using this Dataset

To get basic counts of incidents of mass killings and mass shootings by year nationwide, use these queries:

Mass killings by year

Mass shootings by year

To get these counts just for your state:

Filter killings by state

Definition of "mass murder"

Mass murder is defined as the intentional killing of four or more victims by any means within a 24-hour period, excluding the deaths of unborn children and the offender(s). The standard of four or more dead was initially set by the FBI.

This definition does not exclude cases based on method (e.g., shootings only), type or motivation (e.g., public only), victim-offender relationship (e.g., strangers only), or number of locations (e.g., one). The time frame of 24 hours was chosen to eliminate conflation with spree killers, who kill multiple victims in quick succession in different locations or incidents, and to satisfy the traditional requirement of occurring in a “single incident.”

Offenders who commit mass murder during a spree (before or after committing additional homicides) are included in the database, and all victims within seven days of the mass murder are included in the victim count. Negligent homicides related to driving under the influence or accidental fires are excluded due to the lack of offender intent. Only incidents occurring within the 50 states and Washington D.C. are considered.

Methodology

Project researchers first identified potential incidents using the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Supplementary Homicide Reports (SHR). Homicide incidents in the SHR were flagged as potential mass murder cases if four or more victims were reported on the same record, and the type of death was murder or non-negligent manslaughter.

Cases were subsequently verified utilizing media accounts, court documents, academic journal articles, books, and local law enforcement records obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Each data point was corroborated by multiple sources, which were compiled into a single document to assess the quality of information.

In case(s) of contradiction among sources, official law enforcement or court records were used, when available, followed by the most recent media or academic source.

Case information was subsequently compared with every other known mass murder database to ensure reliability and validity. Incidents listed in the SHR that could not be independently verified were excluded from the database.

Project researchers also conducted extensive searches for incidents not reported in the SHR during the time period, utilizing internet search engines, Lexis-Nexis, and Newspapers.com. Search terms include: [number] dead, [number] killed, [number] slain, [number] murdered, [number] homicide, mass murder, mass shooting, massacre, rampage, family killing, familicide, and arson murder. Offender, victim, and location names were also directly searched when available.

This project started at USA TODAY in 2012.

Contacts

Contact AP Data Editor Justin Myers with questions, suggestions or comments about this dataset at jmyers@ap.org. The Northeastern University researcher working with AP and USA TODAY is Professor James Alan Fox, who can be reached at j.fox@northeastern.edu or 617-416-4400.

As of September 4, eight people were killed in mass shootings in the United States in 2024. A total 1,159 victims were fatally injured during mass shootings in the United States between 1982 and September 4, 2024.

In recent years there has been an increase in the rate of firearm-related deaths in the United States. In 2021, there were 14.7 such deaths per 100,000 population. This is the highest rate seen since the early 1990s. Firearm deaths Firearm-related deaths are much more common among males than females, with almost 81,000 firearm deaths among males in the United States in 2021, compared to just 13,200 among females. Those aged 25 to 34 years are the age group with the highest number of deaths from firearms, followed by those aged 15 to 24. The states with the highest mortality rates from firearms are Mississippi, Louisiana, and Wyoming. Firearm suicides The use of firearms is one of the most common methods for suicide in the United States. Around 60 percent of male suicides and 35 percent of female suicides are conducted by firearms. In 2020, there were a total of 24,292 suicide deaths from firearms. Suicide is currently the 11th leading cause of death in the United States.

Number of homicide victims, by method used to commit the homicide (total methods used; shooting; stabbing; beating; strangulation; fire (burns or suffocation); other methods used; methods used unknown), Canada, 1974 to 2023.

Mortality rate from firearms includes homicides, suicides, accidental deaths, deaths by law enforcement, and deaths for which intent was undetermined. Mortality rate is based on the location of residence and has been age-adjusted to the 2000 U.S. standard population. ICD 10 codes used to identify firearm deaths are W32-W34, X72-X74, X93-X95, Y22-Y24, Y35.0, and U01.4. Single-year data are only available for Los Angeles County overall, Service Planning Areas, Supervisorial Districts, City of Los Angeles overall, and City of Los Angeles Council Districts.Violence is a public health crisis in the US, with gun violence being a major driver. In the US, the age-adjusted homicide rate from firearms is more than 20 times higher than in the European Union or in Australia. Significant disparities by age, sex, and race and ethnicity exist, with young adults (ages 15-34 years), males, and Black individuals most disproportionately impacted. Firearm-related suicides disproportionately impact older, White men. Comprehensive prevention strategies should work to address underlying physical, social, economic, and structural conditions known to increase risk.For more information about the Community Health Profiles Data Initiative, please see the initiative homepage.

List of every shooting incident that occurred in NYC during the current calendar year.

This is a breakdown of every shooting incident that occurred in NYC during the current calendar year. This data is manually extracted every quarter and reviewed by the Office of Management Analysis and Planning before being posted on the NYPD website. Each record represents a shooting incident in NYC and includes information about the event, the location and time of occurrence. In addition, information related to suspect and victim demographics is also included. This data can be used by the public to explore the nature of police enforcement activity. Please refer to the attached data footnotes for additional information about this dataset.

BackgroundPrior research suggests that United States governmental sources documenting the number of law-enforcement-related deaths (i.e., fatalities due to injuries inflicted by law enforcement officers) undercount these incidents. The National Vital Statistics System (NVSS), administered by the federal government and based on state death certificate data, identifies such deaths by assigning them diagnostic codes corresponding to “legal intervention” in accordance with the International Classification of Diseases–10th Revision (ICD-10). Newer, nongovernmental databases track law-enforcement-related deaths by compiling news media reports and provide an opportunity to assess the magnitude and determinants of suspected NVSS underreporting. Our a priori hypotheses were that underreporting by the NVSS would exceed that by the news media sources, and that underreporting rates would be higher for decedents of color versus white, decedents in lower versus higher income counties, decedents killed by non-firearm (e.g., Taser) versus firearm mechanisms, and deaths recorded by a medical examiner versus coroner.Methods and findingsWe created a new US-wide dataset by matching cases reported in a nongovernmental, news-media-based dataset produced by the newspaper The Guardian, The Counted, to identifiable NVSS mortality records for 2015. We conducted 2 main analyses for this cross-sectional study: (1) an estimate of the total number of deaths and the proportion unreported by each source using capture–recapture analysis and (2) an assessment of correlates of underreporting of law-enforcement-related deaths (demographic characteristics of the decedent, mechanism of death, death investigator type [medical examiner versus coroner], county median income, and county urbanicity) in the NVSS using multilevel logistic regression. We estimated that the total number of law-enforcement-related deaths in 2015 was 1,166 (95% CI: 1,153, 1,184). There were 599 deaths reported in The Counted only, 36 reported in the NVSS only, 487 reported in both lists, and an estimated 44 (95% CI: 31, 62) not reported in either source. The NVSS documented 44.9% (95% CI: 44.2%, 45.4%) of the total number of deaths, and The Counted documented 93.1% (95% CI: 91.7%, 94.2%). In a multivariable mixed-effects logistic model that controlled for all individual- and county-level covariates, decedents injured by non-firearm mechanisms had higher odds of underreporting in the NVSS than those injured by firearms (odds ratio [OR]: 68.2; 95% CI: 15.7, 297.5; p < 0.01), and underreporting was also more likely outside of the highest-income-quintile counties (OR for the lowest versus highest income quintile: 10.1; 95% CI: 2.4, 42.8; p < 0.01). There was no statistically significant difference in the odds of underreporting in the NVSS for deaths certified by coroners compared to medical examiners, and the odds of underreporting did not vary by race/ethnicity. One limitation of our analyses is that we were unable to examine the characteristics of cases that were unreported in The Counted.ConclusionsThe media-based source, The Counted, reported a considerably higher proportion of law-enforcement-related deaths than the NVSS, which failed to report a majority of these incidents. For the NVSS, rates of underreporting were higher in lower income counties and for decedents killed by non-firearm mechanisms. There was no evidence suggesting that underreporting varied by death investigator type (medical examiner versus coroner) or race/ethnicity.

In 2019, ** children younger than one year died due to firearms in the United States. In that same year, ***** people between the ages of 25 and 34 years old died and ***** people between the ages of 45 and 54 years old died due to firearms across the country.

Context

The Gun Violence Archive is an online archive of gun violence incidents collected from over 2,000 media, law enforcement, government and commercial sources daily in an effort to provide near-real time data about the results of gun violence. GVA in an independent data collection and research group with no affiliation with any advocacy organization.

Content

This dataset includes files that separate gun violence incidents by category, including deaths and injuries of children and teens, and a collection of mass shootings.

Inspiration

• What has been the trend of gun violence in the past few years?
• What states have the highest incidents per capita per year? How has this metric changed over time?
• Are officer involved shootings on the rise? Where are they most concentrated? Do they correlate with the rates of accidental deaths and mass shootings?

Acknowledgements

This dataset is owned by the Gun Violence Archive, and can be accessed in its original form here.

Homicides by firearm of Canada jumped by 14.77% from 298 number in 2021 to 342 number in 2022. Since the 5.99% drop in 2018, homicides by firearm shot up by 36.25% in 2022. “Homicide” is defined as unlawful death purposefully inflicted on a person by another person

Number, rate and percentage changes in rates of homicide victims, Canada, provinces and territories, 1961 to 2023.

BackgroundGun violence has shortened the average life expectancy of Americans, and better knowledge about the root causes of gun violence is crucial to its prevention. While some empirical evidence exists regarding the impacts of social and economic factors on violence and firearm homicide rates, to the author’s knowledge, there has yet to be a comprehensive and comparative lagged, multilevel investigation of major social determinants of health in relation to firearm homicides and mass shootings.Methods and findingsThis study used negative binomial regression models and geolocated gun homicide incident data from January 1, 2015, to December 31, 2015, to explore and compare the independent associations of key state-, county-, and neighborhood-level social determinants of health—social mobility, social capital, income inequality, racial and economic segregation, and social spending—with neighborhood firearm-related homicides and mass shootings in the United States, accounting for relevant state firearm laws and a variety of state, county, and neighborhood (census tract [CT]) characteristics. Latitude and longitude coordinates on firearm-related deaths were previously collected by the Gun Violence Archive, and then linked by the British newspaper The Guardian to CTs according to 2010 Census geographies. The study population consisted of all 74,134 CTs as defined for the 2010 Census in the 48 states of the contiguous US. The final sample spanned 70,579 CTs, containing an estimated 314,247,908 individuals, or 98% of the total US population in 2015. The analyses were based on 13,060 firearm-related deaths in 2015, with 11,244 non-mass shootings taking place in 8,673 CTs and 141 mass shootings occurring in 138 CTs. For area-level social determinants, lag periods of 3 to 17 years were examined based on existing theory, empirical evidence, and data availability. County-level institutional social capital (levels of trust in institutions), social mobility, income inequality, and public welfare spending exhibited robust relationships with CT-level gun homicide rates and the total numbers of combined non-mass and mass shooting homicide incidents and non-mass shooting homicide incidents alone. A 1–standard deviation (SD) increase in institutional social capital was linked to a 19% reduction in the homicide rate (incidence rate ratio [IRR] = 0.81, 95% CI 0.73–0.91, p

In the United States, Black people have higher rates of gun homicide than White people across all age groups. As of 2022, gun homicide rates were highest among Black people aged between 15 and 24 years, at 63.78 gun homicides per 100,000 of the population. In comparison, there were only 2.58 gun homicides per 100,000 of the White population within this age range. However, the risk for gun homicide was greatest among all adolescents and adults between the ages of 15 to 44 in that year. The impact of guns on young Americans In the last few years, firearms have become the leading cause of death for American children and teenagers aged one to 19 years old, accounting for more deaths than car crashes and diseases. School shootings also remain on the rise recently, with the U.S. recording 57 times as many school shootings than other high-income nations from 2009 to 2018. Black students in particular experience a disproportionately high number of school shootings relative to their population, and K-12 teachers at schools made up mostly of students of color are more likely to report feeling afraid that they or their students would be a victim of attack or harm. The right to bear arms Despite increasingly high rates of gun-related violence, gun ownership remains a significant part of American culture, largely due to the fact that the right to bear arms is written into the U.S. Constitution. Although firearms are the most common murder weapon used in the U.S., accounting for approximately 15,000 homicides in 2022, almost half of American households have at least one firearm in their possession. Consequently, it is evident that firearms remain easily accessible nationwide, even though gun laws may vary from state to state. However, the topic of gun control still causes political controversy, as the majority of Republicans agree that it is more important to protect the right of Americans to own guns, while Democrats are more inclined to believe that it is more important to limit gun ownership.

This statistic shows the number of gun deaths in the United States annually as an average from the years 2012 to 2014, by race per 100,000 population. On average, there were 20 deaths per 100,000 people annually among to the black population of the United States. The corresponding rate among the white population was nearly half at 11.2 gun deaths per 100,000 people annually.

Number and rate (per 100,000 population) of homicide victims, Canada and Census Metropolitan Areas, 1981 to 2023.