Understanding an epidemic

It’s easy to think our gun violence crisis is intractable. Tens of thousands are killed by guns every year, and mass shootings no longer shock the public. Our goal in sharing this primer on gun violence is to demonstrate that while the issue may be as pervasive as it is complex, lives can be saved by embracing commonsense, data-driven solutions tailored to each facet of the gun violence epidemic. For an even more granular look into the numbers, explore our interactive Gun Violence Data Dashboards page or reach out to one of our gun safety experts.
DATA DASHBOARDSTALK TO AN EXPERT
46,000 Americans die from gun violence every year—an average of more than 125 per day

overview

A NATIONAL CRISIS

Gun violence takes many forms. The more we understand about how it impacts communities, the more targeted—and effective—our solutions can be. 

OVERVIEW

DEMOGRAPHICS & GEOGRAPHY

The toll of gun violence impacts us all, and nearly every American will know a victim of gun violence in their lifetime. But some feel this epidemic’s burden more than others. Learning about the communities where gun violence rears its head the most will put us in a better position to fight it.



The United States has more guns than people—over 400 million.1

OVERVIEW

gUN VIOLENCE TOTALS

At least 1.2 million Americans have been shot in the last decade, with 416,708 dying from gun violence.2

For every one person shot and killed, two more are shot and survive, often suffering a lifetime of devastating consequences.3

Nearly 1 in 5 Americans say they have personally witnessed someone shot, and almost every person in America—hundreds of millions—will know at least one victim of gun violence.4

OVERVIEW

PROVEN SOLUTIONS

The scale of gun violence in this country is unconscionable—and uniquely American. While the numbers may seem staggering, there are evidence-backed, commonsense solutions we can use to save lives.

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SPOTLIGHT

GUN LAW SCORECARD

The data is clear: States with stronger gun laws have less gun violence. See how your state compares in our annual ranking.

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intents

Gun Suicide

Gun suicide has long accounted for the majority of US gun deaths, and the instability and uncertainty many Americans have experienced in recent years—along with easy access to guns—has only enabled this problem to grow.

In 2023, both the rate and number of gun suicides—27,300—reached a 40-year high.5


Guns are involved in 52% of suicide deaths, even though they are used in less than 5% of suicide attempts.6

Access to a gun triples a person’s risk of suicide.7

Less than 5% of non-firearm suicide attempts are fatal, but 90% of gun suicide attempts end in death.8

  • Roughly 6 in 10 gun deaths are suicides.9
  • The vast majority of people who attempt suicide survive—unless they use a gun. Many suicide attempt survivors never attempt again, and 90% live out their lives and do not die by suicide.10
  • State firearm ownership rates are strongly correlated with rates of gun suicide. As such, gun suicides tend to concentrate in states with broad firearm access and weak gun laws.11
  • White men comprise 70% of gun suicide victims. Gun suicides also have a disproportionate impact on young adults, older Americans, Native Americans, and veterans.12 

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intents

GUN HOMICIDE

Widely available and uniquely lethal, guns are the weapon of choice for murder in the United States. Whether it’s domestic violence, mass shootings, or community violence, the presence of a firearm greatly increases the likelihood of death.


Gun homicides have risen dramatically in recent years—with rates 23% higher in 2023 compared to 2019.13

Guns are used in 79% of all homicides.14

  • Roughly 4 in 10 gun deaths are homicides.14
  • Access to a gun doubles the risk of being killed in a homicide.15
  • Black Americans represent the majority of gun homicide victims. In fact, in the US, Black residents are almost 13 times more likely than white residents to die by gun homicide.16
  • Gun homicides are concentrated in cities, with roughly half of all gun homicides taking place in just 127 cities.17 
  • States with high rates of firearm ownership consistently have higher firearm homicide rates, with studies suggesting that just a 1% increase in gun ownership in a state increases gun homicide rates by 0.9%.18

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intents

UNINTENTIONAL SHOOTINGS

Unsecured guns pose clear safety risks. Yet more than half of all gun owners store at least one gun unsafely, without any locks or other secure storage measures.



4.6 million minors live in homes with at least one loaded, unlocked firearm.19

Nearly a quarter of American gun owners store all their guns in an unlocked location in the home—and many children know exactly where they are.20

A child under age 18 is killed in nearly one in four unintentional gun deaths, with the risk highest for children between 11 and 15 years old, or under 5.21

  • Unintentional shootings comprise 1% of gun deaths.22 
  • Very young children (ages 0–5) and older adults most often die in self-inflicted unintentional shootings.23 
  • Older children and teens are most often killed in unintentional shootings caused by someone else, usually another child roughly their age.24 
  • Unintentional gun deaths among children and teens are often precipitated by playing with or showing a firearm to another person.24
  • Living in a home with a firearm significantly increases the risk of dying in an unintentional shooting.25

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intents

POLICE SHOOTINGS

Encounters with the police can turn deadly far too easily, driven by the presence of guns, the fear of the presence of guns, and systemic bias. Police shootings significantly diminish police-community trust, particularly in the marginalized communities that bear the brunt of gun violence. 

Shootings by police can erode community trust in law enforcement and fuel a cycle of gun violence that disproportionately impacts communities of color.

Unarmed Black civilians are three times more likely to be shot and killed by police than unarmed white civilians.26

  • 96% of people killed by police are killed with firearms.27 
  • A comprehensive database of police shootings finds that more than 1,100 civilians are fatally shot by law enforcement officers in an average year—nearly twice as many as recorded by federal data sources, including the CDC.28
  • One in six unarmed civilians shot and killed by police is under the age of 25.27 
  • The racial disparity in police shootings is not a reflection of increased crime in communities of color. Rather, police shooting disparities are amplified by residential segregation and the resulting social and economic disadvantaging of these communities.29
  • Shootings by police occur more frequently in states with high rates of gun ownership.30

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SPOTLIGHT

GUNS & DEMOCRACY

The use of guns to intimidate and threaten voters, elected officials, and peaceful demonstrators poses a serious threat to our democracy. We've gathered resources on the deadly connection between guns and extremism, and how to stop it.

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ISSUEs

COMMUNITY VIOLENCE

Community violence—shootings and other conflicts outside the home, in local neighborhoods—is one of the most prevalent drivers of the gun violence epidemic, the burden of which falls hardest on Black and Latino communities. Effective solutions to community violence exist, yet are often ignored in the policy debate about public safety.

Community gun violence is not only concentrated geographically but also among small networks of people.

In many cities, less than 1% of the population is associated with the vast majority of shootings in a given year.31 

  • Black boys and men represent 52% of all gun homicide victims, despite comprising just 6% of the US population.22
  • Gun homicides concentrate in cities, and within cities, gun violence is further clustered among racially segregated, economically disenfranchised neighborhoods.
  • For example, in Boston, 53% of the city’s gun violence occurred in less than 3% of the city’s intersections and streets.32
  • This concentration of gun violence fuels racial disparities in gun homicides. Black people are almost 13 times more likely than white people to die by gun homicide; Latinos are more than twice as likely to be killed in a gun homicide than white people.22

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ISSUEs

MASS SHOOTINGS

In the United States, there are more mass shootings—events in which four or more people are killed or injured by gunshots, not including the shooter—than days in the year. But embracing them as a “fact of life” is a policy choice, and it’s one we refuse to accept.

America has a tragic monopoly on mass shootings—more than three in four public mass shootings in developed countries happen in the US.33

From 2015 to 2023, the number of mass shootings in the US increased by nearly 100%.34

Mass shootings at schools and colleges have been a through line in America for 50 years, from the Texas Tower, Columbine, and Virginia Tech to Sandy Hook, Parkland, and Uvalde.   

  • Mass shootings are often connected to other forms of gun violence: The US has seen a rise in hate-motivated mass shootings, and one study found that 59% of mass shootings are connected to domestic violence.35 
  • Despite the large place they occupy in our public consciousness, mass shootings comprise a small fraction of all gun violence, with estimates showing that such violence constitutes just 1% of all gun deaths.36
  • The traumatic effects of mass shootings don’t end when the bullets stop firing, often leading to increased risk of PTSD, depression, and other adverse mental health consequences for survivors and members of affected communities.37 
  • The majority of mass shootings are between people who know each other, taking place in the home or local neighborhood. Of public mass shootings, workplaces and schools are the most common locations.38 
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ISSUEs

KIDS & GUNS

Since 2020, gun violence has been the leading cause of death for American children—outpacing deaths from car crashes, cancer, and drownings. We owe it to them to create a future free from gun violence.

An average of 2,345 American children are shot and killed each year.22 

Black children are nearly 16 times more likely to be killed in a gun homicide than white children.22

Over 3 million children are directly exposed to gun violence each year.39 

  • School shootings comprise just a fraction of the overall gun violence experienced by children, with less than 2% of homicides of school-aged children occurring on school grounds.40
  • Young children disproportionately experience gun homicides in the home—often related to domestic violence. Older children are at increased risk of gun suicide and gun homicides in their neighborhoods and communities.41 
  • In 2020, gun violence became the leading cause of death among children overall. Since 2006, gun violence has been the leading cause of death for Black children.42 
  • Unsupervised gun access is a major factor driving youth suicide and unintentional shooting rates. Household guns are used in more than 80% of youth suicides.43 
  • Between 2014 and 2023, firearm suicides involving minors increased by 42%.42
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ISSUEs

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

Guns are often used by domestic abusers as a tool to manipulate, threaten, and harm. It’s far too easy for people with histories of domestic violence to access guns in this country, which puts victims and survivors at tremendous risk. 

When an abusive partner has access to a gun, a domestic violence victim is five times more likely to be killed.44 

Nearly 25 million adults in the US—about 1 in 10—have lived through firearm abuse by an intimate partner.45

  • Every year, more than 700 American women are shot to death by intimate partners—more than one every 12 hours.46
  • American Indian/Alaska Native women and Black women are killed in intimate partner homicides with a gun at two and four times the rate of white women, respectively.46
  • Women with disabilities and pregnant and postpartum women experience an elevated risk of intimate partner violence with a gun.47 
  • Over one-third of callers to the National Domestic Violence Hotline report being threatened with a gun.48
  • Firearm threats can create psychological terror for victims. Research suggests that women who experience intimate partner abuse with a gun are significantly more likely to experience severe PTSD symptoms.49

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ISSUEs

HATE CRIMES

Hateful bias and easy access to firearms are a deadly combination. The threat of guns are often used to perpetuate violent hate and extremism, and in the worst cases guns facilitate lethal attacks that sow terror throughout entire communities. 

Each year, there are at least 23,000 hate crime incidents involving either the use or threatened use of guns in the United States.50

The majority of hate crimes take the form of individual attacks, and they don’t necessarily involve a gun being fired. 

  • Some of the deadliest mass shootings in our nation’s history have been motivated by hate and bias, including at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, a Walmart in El Paso, a grocery store in Buffalo, Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, and many more.
  • Hate crimes are on the rise—from 2014 to 2023, the total number of hate crimes has doubled.51 
  • On average, roughly 10,000 hate crimes are reported to police annually, though survey data suggests that around 250,000 hate crimes occur each year. Fear of reporting these crimes to police may partly explain this extreme discrepancy.52
  • Hate crimes rooted in race, ethnicity, or ancestry remain the most common, followed by hate crimes based on religion and sexual orientation.53

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SPOTLIGHT

REDUCING RISK

Explore the options and strategies available for addressing specific types of gun violence and reducing the risk of a dangerous situation ending in tragedy.

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METHODOLOGY

The graphics and statistics on this page are primarily sourced from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s WONDER mortality database. This CDC data is released with a lag, meaning that 2023 is the most recent year for which there is complete and final data. Unless a specific year is mentioned, figures typically represent a five-year average of the most recent data available (2019–2023). We generally use the CDC’s age-adjusted rates, except for age-stratified or county-level data. Because the CDC suppresses data when counts are small or unstable, stratified race breakdowns are not available for all comparisons. 

While the CDC’s mortality database is considered the most comprehensive source of data on gun deaths, in some instances we supplemented our information with additional data sources. Because of well-documented issues with the federal government’s collection of police shooting data, we pulled data from Mapping Police Violence for in-depth analysis of police shootings. Domestic violence data was pulled from the CDC’s National Violent Death Reporting System, while mass shooting data was pulled from the Gun Violence Archive. Hate crime data was pulled primarily from the FBI’s Crime Data Explorer and supplemented with other Department of Justice datasets. For each of these data sources, we pulled information through the most recent complete year of data.

If you have questions about gun violence statistics or how we compiled them—or if you want assistance crafting legislation to prevent gun violence—you can reach out to our team of gun safety experts. For researchers and others interested in a deeper dive into CDC gun death data, visit our Gun Violence Data Dashboards.

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Notes

  1. Aaron Karp, “Estimating Global Civilian-Held Firearms Numbers,” US Small Arms Survey, 2018, https://www.smallarmssurvey.org/resource/estimating-global-civilian-held-firearms-numbers.
  2. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research (WONDER), “Underlying Cause of Death, 2018-2023, Single Race,” and “Underlying Cause of Death by Bridged-Race Categories, 1999-2020,” last accessed January 17, 2025. https://wonder.cdc.gov; Elinore J. Kaufman et al. “Epidemiologic Trends in Fatal and Nonfatal Firearm Injuries in the US, 2009-2017,” JAMA Internal Medicine 181, no. 2 (2021); Kathryn Schnippel et al., “Nonfatal Firearm Injuries by Intent in the United States: 2016-2018 Hospital Discharge Records from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project,” Western Journal of Emergency Medicine 22, no. 3 (2021): 462–470.
  3. Kathryn Schnippel et al., “Nonfatal Firearm Injuries by Intent in the United States: 2016-2018 Hospital Discharge Records from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project,” Western Journal of Emergency Medicine 22, no. 3 (2021): 462–470.
  4. Shannon Schumacher et al., “Americans Experiences with Gun-Related Violence, Injuries, and Deaths,” Kaiser Family Foundation, April 11, 2023, https://www.kff.org/other/poll-finding/americans-experiences-with-gun-related-violence-injuries-and-deaths; Bindu Kalesan, Janice Weinberg, and Sandro Galea, “Gun Violence in Americans’ Social Network During Their Lifetime,” Preventive Medicine 93 (2016): 53–56.
  5. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research (WONDER), “Underlying Cause of Death, 2018-2023, Single Race,” last accessed January 17, 2025. https://wonder.cdc.gov.
  6. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research (WONDER), “Underlying Cause of Death, 2018-2023, Single Race,” last accessed January 17, 2025, https://wonder.cdc.gov; Andrew Conner, Deborah Azrael, and Matthew Miller, “Suicide Case-Fatality Rates in the United States, 2007 to 2014: a Nationwide Population-based Study,” Annals of Internal Medicine 171, no. 12 (2019).
  7. Andrew Anglemyer, Tara Horvath, and George Rutherford, “The Accessibility of Firearms and Risk for Suicide and Homicide Victimization among Household Members: a Systematic Review and Meta–analysis,” Annals of Internal Medicine 160, no. 2 (2014): 101–110.
  8. Andrew Conner, Deborah Azrael, and Matthew Miller, “Suicide Case-Fatality Rates in the United States, 2007 to 2014: a Nationwide Population-based Study,” Annals of Internal Medicine 171, no. 12 (2019).
  9. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research (WONDER), “Underlying Cause of Death, 2018-2023, Single Race,” last accessed January 17, 2025. https://wonder.cdc.gov. Figures represent an average of the five years of most recent available data: 2019 to 2023.
  10. David Owens, Judith Horrocks, and Allan House, “Fatal and Non-fatal Repetition of Self-harm: Systematic Review,” The British Journal of Psychiatry 181, no. 3 (2002).
  11. April Opoliner et al, “Explaining Geographic Patterns of Suicide in the US: the Role of Firearms and Antidepressants,” Injury Epidemiology 1, no. 1 (2014); Michael D. Anestis and Joye C. Anestis, "Suicide Rates and State Laws Regulating Access and Exposure to Handguns," American Journal of Public Health 105, no. 10 (2015).
  12. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research (WONDER), “Underlying Cause of Death, 2018-2023, Single Race,” last accessed January 17, 2025. https://wonder.cdc.gov; Kelly Drane, “Our Country’s Veteran Suicide Crisis,” GIFFORDS Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, November 10, 2022, https://giffords.org/lawcenter/memo/our-countrys-veteran-suicide-crisis.
  13. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research (WONDER), “Underlying Cause of Death, 2018-2023, Single Race,” last accessed January 17, 2025. https://wonder.cdc.gov. Figures represent an average of the five years of most recent available data: 2019 to 2023.
  14. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research (WONDER), “Underlying Cause of Death, 2018-2023, Single Race,” last accessed January 17, 2025. https://wonder.cdc.gov/. Figures represent an average of the five years of most recent available data: 2019 to 2023.
  15. Andrew Anglemyer, Tara Horvath, and George Rutherford, "The Accessibility of Firearms and Risk for Suicide and Homicide Victimization among Household Members: a Systematic Review and Meta–analysis," Annals of Internal Medicine 160, no. 2 (2014): 101–110.
  16. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research (WONDER), “Underlying Cause of Death, 2018-2023, Single Race,” last accessed January 17, 2025. https://wonder.cdc.gov/. Figures represent an average of the five years of most recent available data: 2019 to 2023.
  17. Aliza Aufrichtig, Lois Beckett, Jan Diehm and Jamiles Lartey, “Want to Fix Gun Violence in America? Go Local,” The Guardian, January 9, 2017. https://bit.ly/2i6kaKw.
  18. Michael Siegel, Craig S. Ross, and Charles King III, "The Relationship Between Gun Ownership and Firearm Homicide Rates in the United States, 1981–2010," American Journal of Public Health 103, no. 11 (2013): 2098–2105; Michael Siegel, Craig S. Ross, and Charles King, "Examining the Relationship Between the Prevalence of Guns and Homicide Rates in the USA Using a New and Improved State-level Gun Ownership Proxy," Injury Prevention 20, no. 6 (2014).
  19. Deborah Azrael et al, “Firearm Storage in Gun–owning Households with Children: Results of a 2015 National Survey,” Journal of Urban Health 95, no. 3 (2018): 295–304; Matthew Miller and Deborah Azrael, “Firearm Storage in US Households With Children Findings From the 2021 National Firearm Survey,” Pediatrics 5, no. 2 (2022).
  20. Cassandra K. Crifasi et al., “Storage Practices of US Gun Owners in 2016,” American Journal of Public Health 108, no. 4 (2018); Michael D. Anestis et al, “Assessment of Firearm Storage Practices in the US, 2022,” JAMA Network Open 6, no. 3 (2023). See also, Norah W. Friar et al, “Firearm Storage Behaviors — Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, Eight States, 2021-2022,” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 73, no. 23 (2024).
  21. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research (WONDER), “Underlying Cause of Death, 2018-2023, Single Race,” last accessed January 17, 2025. https://wonder.cdc.gov; Rebecca F. Wilson et al, "Unintentional Firearm Injury Deaths Among Children and Adolescents Aged 0–17 years—National Violent Death Reporting System, United States, 2003–2021," Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 72 (2023).
  22. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research (WONDER), “Underlying Cause of Death, 2018-2023, Single Race,” last accessed January 17, 2025. https://wonder.cdc.gov/. Based on an average of the five years of most recent available data: 2019 to 2023.
  23. Rebecca F. Wilson et al, "Unintentional Firearm Injury Deaths Among Children and Adolescents Aged 0–17 years—National Violent Death Reporting System, United States, 2003–2021," Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 72 (2023); David Hemenway, Catherine Barber, and Matthew Miller, "Unintentional Firearm Deaths: a Comparison of Other–inflicted and Self–inflicted Shootings," Accident Analysis & Prevention 42, no. 4 (2010).
  24. Rebecca F. Wilson et al, "Unintentional Firearm Injury Deaths Among Children and Adolescents Aged 0–17 years—National Violent Death Reporting System, United States, 2003–2021," Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 72 (2023).
  25. Douglas J. Wiebe, "Firearms in US Homes as a Risk Factor for Unintentional Gunshot Fatality," Accident Analysis & Prevention 35, no. 5 (2003).
  26. Mapping Police Violence, “National Trends,” last accessed July 27, 2023, https://mappingpoliceviolence.squarespace.com.
  27. Mapping Police Violence, “National Trends,” last accessed July 27, 2023, https://mappingpoliceviolence.squarespace.com/.
  28. Mapping Police Violence, “National Trends,” last accessed July 27, 2023, https://mappingpoliceviolence.squarespace.com/; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research (WONDER), “Underlying Cause of Death, 2019-2023, Single Race,” last accessed January 17, 2025. https://wonder.cdc.gov.
  29. Aldina Mesic et al, "The Relationship between Structural Racism and Black-white Disparities in Fatal Police Shootings at the State Level," Journal of the National Medical Association 110, no. 2 (2018).
  30. David Hemenway et al, "Variation in Rates of Fatal Police Shootings Across US States: the Role of Firearm Availability," Journal of Urban Health (2018).
  31. Anthony A. Braga and David L. Weisburd, "Focused Deterrence and the Prevention of Violent Gun Injuries: Practice, Theoretical Principles, and Scientific Evidence," Annual Review of Public Health 36, no. 1 (2015); Andrew V. Papachristos, Christopher Wildeman, and Elizabeth Roberto, "Tragic, but not Random: The Social Contagion of Nonfatal Gunshot Injuries," Social Science & Medicine 125 (2015); Nicholas Corsaro and Robin S. Engel, "Most Challenging of Contexts: Assessing the Impact of Focused Deterrence on Serious Violence in New Orleans," Criminology & Public Policy 14, no. 3 (2015).
  32. Anthony A. Braga, Andrew V. Papachristos, and David M. Hureau, "The Concentration and Stability of Gun Violence at Micro Places in Boston, 1980–2008," Journal of Quantitative Criminology 26, no. 1 (2010).
  33. Silva, Jason R. "Advancing Understanding of Global Mass Murder: A Comparison of Public Mass Stabbings and Shootings," Homicide Studies (2023). See also, Jason R. Silva, “Public Mass Shootings Around the World: Prevalence, Context, and Prevention,” Rockefeller Institute of Government, February 20, 2024, https://rockinst.org/blog/public-mass-shootings-around-the-world-prevalence-context-and-prevention.
  34. Gun Violence Archive, Database and Past Year Ledgers, last accessed Feb. 3, 2025, https://www.gunviolencearchive.org.
  35. “Hate Crimes,” GIFFORDS, last accessed March 6, 2025, https://giffords.org/issues/hate-crimes; Lisa B. Geller, Marisa Booty, and Cassandra K. Crifasi, "The Role of Domestic Violence in Fatal Mass Shootings in the United States, 2014–2019," Injury Epidemiology 8 (2021).
  36. Calculated by GIFFORDS Law Center by dividing the number of gun deaths from mass shootings from 2019-2023 sourced from the Gun Violence Archive (3017) by the total number of gun deaths from 2019-2023 sourced from the Centers for Disease Control (228,691). Gun Violence Archive, Database and Past Year Ledgers, last accessed Feb. 3, 2025, https://www.gunviolencearchive.org; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research (WONDER), “Underlying Cause of Death, 2018-2023, Single Race,” last accessed January 17, 2025. https://wonder.cdc.gov.
  37. Sarah R. Lowe and Sandro Galea, "The Mental Health Consequences of Mass Shootings," Trauma, Violence, & Abuse 18, no. 1 (2017); Ali Rowhani-Rahbar, Douglas F. Zatzick, and Frederick P. Rivara, "Long-lasting Consequences of Gun Violence and Mass Shootings," JAMA 321, no. 18 (2019).
  38. Jaclyn Schildkraut, “Can Mass Shootings  be Stopped?: To Address the Problem, We Must Better Understand the Phenomenon,” Rockefeller Institute of Government, July 2021, https://rockinst.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Public-Mass-Shootings-Brief.pdf.
  39. David 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 (2015).
  40. “Key Findings: School-Associated Violent Death Study,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, April 23, 2024, https://www.cdc.gov/youth-violence/data-research/school-associatedviolentdeathstudy/index.html; “Violent Deaths at School and Away From School, and Active Shooter Incidents,” National Center for Education Statistics, July 2024, https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/a01/violent-deaths-and-shootings; Kristin Holland, "Characteristics of School-associated Youth Homicides—United States, 1994–2018," Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 68 (2019).
  41. Katherine Fowler et al, “Childhood Firearm Injuries in the United States,” Pediatrics 140, no. 1 (2017).
  42. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research (WONDER), “Underlying Cause of Death, 2018-2023, Single Race,” and “Underlying Cause of Death by Bridged-Race Categories, 1999-2020,” last accessed January 17, 2025. https://wonder.cdc.gov.
  43. Renee M. Johnson et al, "Who Are the Owners of Firearms Used in Adolescent Suicides?," Suicide and Life‐Threatening Behavior 40, no. 6 (2010).
  44. J.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 (2003).
  45. Avanti Adhia et al, “Nonfatal Use of Firearms in Intimate Partner Violence: Results of a National Survey,” Preventive Medicine 147, (2021).
  46. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS), “WISQARS National Violent Death Reporting System,” last accessed Feb. 27, 2024, https://wisqars.cdc.gov/nvdrs.
  47. Matthew J. Breiding and Brian S. Armour, “The Association Between Disability and Intimate Partner Violence in the United States,” Annals of Epidemiology 25, no. 6 (2015); Maeve E. Wallace, “Trends in Pregnancy-associated Homicide, United States, 2020,” American Journal of Public Health 112, no. 9 (2022); Anna M. Modest, Laura C. Prater, and Naima T. Joseph, “Pregnancy-associated Homicide and Suicide: An Analysis of the National Violent Death Reporting System, 2008–2019,” Obstetrics & Gynecology 140, no. 4 (2022).
  48. T.K. Logan and Kellie R. Lynch, "Dangerous Liaisons: Examining the Connection of Stalking and Gun Threats Among Partner Abuse Victims," Violence and Victims 33, no. 3 (2018).
  49. Tami P. Sullivan and Nicole H. Weiss, “Is Firearm Threat in Intimate Relationships Associated with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms Among Women?,” Violence and Gender 4, no. 2 (2017).
  50. GIFFORDS Law Center analysis of National Crime Victimization Survey data. National Crime Victimization Survey, United States Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, last accessed October 2024.
  51. “Hate Crime in the United States Incident Analysis,” Crime Data Explorer, Federal Bureau of Investigation, last accessed Feb. 4, 2025, https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATEST/webapp/#/pages/explorer/crime/hate-crime.
  52. Hate Crime in the United States Incident Analysis,” Crime Data Explorer, Federal Bureau of Investigation, last accessed Feb. 4, 2025, https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATEST/webapp/#/pages/explorer/crime/hate-crime; Grace Kena and Alexandra Thompson, “Hate Crime Victimization, 2005–2019,” Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2021, https://bjs.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh236/files/media/document/hcv0519_1.pdf.
  53. “Hate Crime in the United States Incident Analysis,” Crime Data Explorer, Federal Bureau of Investigation, last accessed Feb. 4, 2025, https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATEST/webapp/#/pages/explorer/crime/hate-crime; see also, Grace Kena and Alexandra Thompson, “Hate Crime Victimization, 2005–2019,” Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2021, https://bjs.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh236/files/media/document/hcv0519_1.pdf.

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