Justice · 1968 — Present

Guns in America

44,447gun deaths

In 2024 — 62% of them suicides. The U.S. holds ~120 firearms per 100 residents, the highest rate on Earth.

More guns than people — and a death toll the data has tracked since 1968, through a violent peak and a long decline that few noticed. Federal mortality data tells a more complicated story than the headlines: a homicide surge that peaked in the early 1990s and then fell for decades, even as the total stock of firearms kept climbing past the size of the population. Suicides, not homicides, are the majority of gun deaths. This breaks down who dies and how across that half-century, what the laws actually are, what the evidence says works, and why the politics stay frozen.

Civilian guns per 100 residents

120

highest on Earth — Small Arms Survey 2017 (~393M firearms)

Gun homicide rate

7.0 → 4.7

per 100k: 1993 peak vs 2024 (CDC WONDER, age-adjusted)

Gun deaths, latest year

44,447

2024 — CDC, all intents

Share that are suicides

62%

27,593 of 44,447 in 2024 (CDC)

Gun-death rate vs peer nations

~11×

higher than other high-income countries

The story the headlines miss

Two facts dominate the gun-death record and almost cancel each other in the public mind. The first: gun homicide is a story of a peak and a long decline. The rate climbed into a 1974 high, surged again to about 7.0 per 100,000 in 1993, then fell for two decades to a 3.5 low in 2013 — a collapse most people never registered because crime news doesn't cover trends that go down. A pandemic-era spike (2020–2021) pushed it back up, but by 2024 it had fallen again to 4.7.

The second, quieter fact: suicide has risen almost without pause, from 10,911 deaths in 1968 to 27,593 in 2024 — and now makes up 62% of all gun deaths. When people picture "gun violence" they picture homicide; the data is mostly about something else. All of this plays out on top of a civilian arsenal that kept growing past the size of the population — roughly 393 million firearms, about 120 per 100 residents.

U.S. firearm deaths by intent · 1968 — 2024suicide is the majority

All gun deathsSuicideHomicide

Source: CDC WONDER, via the 1968–2022 half-century analysis (PMC) and Pew (2024). All-intents totals; "other" deaths (police, accidental, undetermined) make up the gap between the totals and the two named series. CDC coded 1968–1978 as "firearms or explosives," 1979 on as firearms only.

The per-capita view — where "peak then decline" actually lives

Raw counts rise with population. Age-adjusted rates per 100,000 are the honest way to compare across half a century.

Overall firearm death rate

12.01968→14.52022

The per-capita toll is higher now than at the 1968 baseline — but the mix has shifted from homicide to suicide.

Firearm homicide rate

7.21974 high→4.72024

Rose into a 1974 peak, fell, surged again to 7.0 in 1993, then declined for two decades to a 3.5 low in 2013 before a pandemic-era bump.

Firearm suicide rate

5.51968→7.62024

A near-monotonic climb. The 2024 rate sits at the all-time-high band (record 7.7 in 1977). Suicides are now the majority of all gun deaths.

How the U.S. compares

Among wealthy nations the United States is not an outlier by degree but by category. Its overall firearm-death rate runs roughly 11 times that of other high-income countries; for gun homicide specifically the gap is far larger — on the order of 25×. Studies of the high-income world find the U.S. accounts for the overwhelming majority of its gun deaths despite being a minority of its population. The civilian firearm stock — the highest per-person on Earth — is the variable that most cleanly separates the U.S. from its peers.