A Devastating Toll: 2021 FBI Data Shows Guns Fueling Homicides, Makes Clear the Need for Continued Action to Address Gun Violence in America

Washington DC — Today, the FBI released new crime data estimates suggesting that homicides rose 4% from 2020 to 2021, with gun homicides rising 6%. These increases come on top of a 30% increase in homicides recorded from 2019 to 2020. Alarmingly, this data shows that nearly 80% of 2021 homicides reported to the FBI involved firearms—the highest level on record.

“The crime estimates from the FBI are just the latest statistics of many showing the devastating toll gun violence is taking on our communities. Firearm homicides are rising, while other violent crimes remain stable or are falling. The Bruen decision from the Supreme Court this summer threatens to set us up for even more increases in violence and threats to public safety. Our nation’s gun violence crisis demands to be addressed with gun safety laws, like universal background checks, to save lives.”

Importantly, while the FBI data suggests that homicides increased in 2021, their estimates suggest that crime overall remained stable, with both violent and non-violent crime remaining essentially flat between 2020 and 2021. This data would suggest, as other reports and data have, that the urgent crime issue our country faces is largely one of gun violence.

After a wave of deadly mass shootings this summer, Congress passed the first major piece of gun safety legislation in nearly three decades, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA). However, both the FBI and CDC data make clear that Congress must do more to address our nation’s gun violence crisis. Additionally, the Biden administration must properly implement the BSCA to ensure it is as effective as possible.

It’s important to note that the new FBI data is not necessarily comprehensive. In 2021, the FBI moved to a new system to track crime in the United States, the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). NIBRS allows for the collection of more nuanced and detailed crime data, and should provide additional information about victim characteristics, crime circumstances, and the role of firearms in certain crimes.

However, police agencies have been slow to transition to this new system, meaning that the 2021 data is far less complete than data from previous years. In fact, a third of all the police agencies in the US—including large cities like New York and Los Angeles—did not submit any crime data to the FBI in 2021. Given the amount of missing data, the FBI used statistical techniques to estimate national crime data. These estimates may not be a precise count of crime or crime trends in the US. Giffords urges the FBI to conduct a thorough review of how state and local law enforcement are engaging and utilizing the NIBRS system, as well as investigate the obstacles that limit agencies from uploading crime data into the NIBRS system. 

It’s also worth noting that these FBI estimates are relatively similar to available data from other sources. Provisional homicide data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), for example, suggests that homicides rose 6%, with an 8% increase in gun homicides, from 2020 to 2021. Additionally, provisional CDC data shows that guns were used in 81% of 2021 homicides, the highest percentage in at least four decades. Some difference in FBI and CDC data is expected given different definitions used to group data.

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