Gun Violence

1. Civilian firearms and homicide rates in eight countries

The United States remains the clear outlier: the 2017 Small Arms Survey estimated 120.5 civilian firearms for every 100 residents, and its 2023 intentional-homicide rate was about 57.6 per million. Canada has far fewer firearms, 34.7 per 100, and a homicide rate near 19.8 per million in 2023. France has fewer guns still but a higher recent homicide rate than Germany or Australia. The comparison therefore has a broad pattern without a perfect rank order.

Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom are at the lower end of both series; the UK firearm figure is a population-weighted combination of England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. These are total intentional homicides, not just shootings. The firearm estimates are a 2017 stock snapshot, while homicide years are printed beside countries because the latest UN series varies, with UK data here ending in 2021. Other social and policing differences matter, so this chart cannot establish a causal effect of ownership.

Sources: Small Arms Survey: civilian-held firearms, 2017; UNODC homicide rates via Our World in Data, updated 2026

2. Old West homicide rates compared with the modern United States

The frontier locations in this historical comparison had much higher documented homicide rates than the modern national figure. Gila County, Arizona reached a minimum 164 per 100,000 adults annually in 1881–1900; Reconstruction-era Texas was 76 and Las Animas County, Colorado 34. The 2024 US homicide mortality rate was 6.0 per 100,000 on the CDC’s age-adjusted measure. The county spelling is Gila, correcting the old chart’s “Gilda”.

The Old West was not a continuous succession of gunfights: the underlying research says murders were not daily occurrences in most towns. Yet a small number of killings among comparatively small adult populations produced striking annual rates. These figures count all homicides, not firearm-only deaths. Historical estimates use residents aged 16 and over and may miss cases; the modern figure uses all ages and a different recording system. Their exact ratio should therefore not be read as a like-for-like measure of how much safer one setting was.

Sources: Randolph Roth, Ohio State: Homicide Rates in the Nineteenth-Century West; CDC: 2024 homicide mortality

3. NFA registrations and homicide across US census regions

The South has the highest figures on both measures: about 16.9 National Firearms Act registrations per 500 residents and 7.6 homicide deaths per 100,000 in 2024. The Northeast is lowest at 7.6 registrations and 3.4 homicide deaths. The Midwest has a higher homicide rate than the West, despite almost identical registration rates of roughly eleven per 500. This echoes the old page’s regional pattern while updating the numbers from federal records.

These registered items include silencers, short-barrelled firearms, machineguns and other regulated categories, including holdings by dealers and government bodies. Ordinary civilian firearms are generally not in this federal registry, so its figures are not regional gun-ownership rates. The homicide series includes every method, and large urban and rural populations sit within each broad region. The regional comparison is descriptive: it does not explain the differences in homicide or measure how many households own a gun.

Sources: ATF: 2024 NFA registry by state, Exhibit 10; CDC: state homicide deaths, 2024; Census Bureau: 2024 state populations and regions

4. Firearm death rates by US state, 2024 map

Darker blue indicates a higher 2024 firearm death rate. Hover for a state figure; open the text table below for every state and the District of Columbia.

Mississippi has the highest age-adjusted firearm death rate in the 2024 CDC map, at 28.0 per 100,000. New Mexico follows at 26.6, then Alaska at 24.4, Alabama at 23.7 and Wyoming at 23.4. Many southern and Mountain West states remain above the national rate of 13.3. Massachusetts and several northeastern states lie near the lower end, showing that the geography of firearm mortality varies greatly across the country.

The map combines firearm homicides, suicides, accidents and other manners of death. That matters for its geography: suicide can account for a substantial part of mortality in less densely populated states, while homicide is more prominent in some urban areas. The CDC’s age adjustment makes state rates more comparable despite different age structures, but it does not account for all social or economic differences. The collapsible text table beneath the map makes all 50 states and Washington, DC available without relying on colour or hover.

Sources: CDC/NCHS: final 2024 firearm mortality by state; CDC: map data and state counts

5. Firearm homicide rate in El Salvador, 2014–2022

El Salvador’s firearm homicide rate rose from 48.76 per 100,000 in 2014 to 89.53 in 2015, then fell in every subsequent year of this series. By 2022 it stood at 4.82. The sharpest sustained reduction came amid changes in gang activity and policing from the late 2010s, followed by the government’s state of exception beginning in March 2022. A decline of this size transformed the scale of violence experienced by many communities.

The UNODC firearm-specific series available here ends in 2022. Later official totals for all intentional homicides continue to fall and appear in chart 10, but they cannot be inserted into a firearm-only line as if the definitions matched. Firearm use accounted for a large share of killings in the earlier high-violence years; the share can change as counts become small. The decline is clear, while causal claims about any single intervention and the full treatment of deaths during the emergency require more than this chart.

Sources: UNODC firearm homicide rates via Our World in Data; El Salvador Fiscalía: official intentional-homicide totals, 2022–2025

6. US firearm suicide and homicide rates, 2019–2024

Firearm homicide mortality climbed from 4.4 per 100,000 in 2019 to a peak of 6.3 in 2021, then declined to 4.6 by 2024. Firearm suicide followed a different course: it was 7.3 in 2019 and 2020, rose to 8.2 by 2023, and remained at 8.2 in 2024. The two lines therefore diverge after the early pandemic years rather than moving together.

The differing trajectories explain why the fall in killings has not produced an equally large drop in all firearm deaths. In 2024 the CDC counted 15,364 firearm homicide deaths and 27,593 firearm suicide deaths. Prevention needs to address both interpersonal violence and self-harm, which arise in different circumstances. The plotted rates are age-adjusted national mortality rates from one CDC series, so the change from year to year is directly comparable; the figures are deaths rather than nonfatal shootings.

Sources: CDC/NCHS: Mapping Injury, Overdose, and Violence, national annual data

7. How US firearm deaths were classified in 2024

Of 44,447 firearm deaths recorded by the CDC in 2024, 27,593 were suicides, about 62% of the total. Homicides accounted for 15,364, or roughly 35%. The remaining 1,490 include accidental shootings, legal intervention and deaths for which intent could not be determined. This wider view matters because a page devoted only to gun violence can otherwise give the impression that homicide is the main component of national firearm mortality.

The mix varies by place and population. A state can have a high overall firearm death rate for reasons that differ from those of another state, as the map above illustrates. Homicide fell appreciably after 2021, while firearm suicide remained high through 2024. The categories here come from the same death-certificate system and add to the national total; they are not police incident counts. “Other or undetermined” is a calculated remainder rather than a claim that every case had the same circumstances.

Sources: CDC/NCHS: 2024 firearm deaths by intent, national data

8. Ten highest state firearm death rates in 2024

Mississippi, New Mexico, Alaska, Alabama and Wyoming lead the 2024 list, all above 23 firearm deaths per 100,000. Louisiana follows at 22.9, then Arkansas and Montana above 20. Tennessee and Washington, DC round out the ten. This ranking makes the map’s darkest areas easier to read and shows that the problem is not confined to one part of the country: southern, western, northern and urban jurisdictions all appear.

The national age-adjusted rate was 13.3 in 2024, so every place shown is substantially higher. A ranking of overall firearm deaths mixes homicides and suicides, however, and the composition can vary sharply between places. Washington, DC is included as a district rather than a state and has a small population; its rate can move quickly with a modest change in deaths. The CDC’s 2024 final data replace the older, undated figures on the original map.

Sources: CDC/NCHS: 2024 age-adjusted firearm death rates by state

9. Largest falls in state firearm death rates, 2021–2024

Louisiana’s age-adjusted firearm death rate fell by 6.2 per 100,000 between 2021 and 2024, from 29.1 to 22.9. Mississippi declined by 5.9, from 33.9 to 28.0, while Montana fell by 4.9. Delaware, Washington, DC and North Dakota also registered reductions greater than four points. The movement shows that the very high rates of the pandemic period did not persist unchanged everywhere.

The declines should be read alongside the latest levels: Mississippi and Louisiana still sit near the top of the 2024 mortality ranking despite their improvements. Some states with lower starting rates also made progress, including Illinois and Maryland. This chart compares two final CDC age-adjusted years for the same jurisdictions; it does not assign credit to one policy, and a fall in total firearm deaths may reflect different changes in homicide and suicide. The supporting CSV records both endpoints.

Sources: CDC/NCHS: state firearm death rates, 2021 and 2024

10. Official intentional homicides in El Salvador, 2022–2025

El Salvador’s prosecution service recorded 496 intentional homicides in 2022, falling to 154 in 2023, 114 in 2024 and 82 in 2025. The direction extends the striking earlier decline in firearm killings shown in chart 5. For residents of neighbourhoods once heavily affected by gang violence, the reduction in recorded murders represents a major change in everyday security. The later figures are far below the 2015 total of more than 6,600 homicides.

These counts cover all recorded methods of killing, including firearms and other weapons. They do not indicate how many of the 2023–25 victims were shot, and the prosecution service’s classification may omit deaths in separate categories such as confrontation with security forces or deaths in custody. The state of exception and mass detentions remain central to the period, as do questions about civil liberties and the completeness of official reporting. The chart reports the published totals while keeping those limits visible.

Sources: Fiscalía General de la República: homicide statistics by year; Peer-reviewed study of homicide trends and gang violence, PLOS One