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    Data Tracker

    City Dashboard: Gun Homicide

    11.4.2022

    Last Updated: 10.29.2024

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      Summary

      Across the United States, gun homicides dropped by a record-setting -11.3 percent in 2023.1 Everytown Research analysis of Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Expanded Homicide Data, Table 8: Murder Victims by Weapon, 2019–2023,” Crime Data Explorer, https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATEST/webapp/#. By comparison, national murder rates dropped 10.0 percent from 1995 to 1996. Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Crime in the United States 1996,” September 1997, https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/1996. In effect, 1,715 fewer lives were taken by gun homicides in 2023, compared to 2022. Aggravated assaults involving guns, robberies involving guns, and overall violent crime fell along with it (-6.6 percent, -5.1 percent, and -3.0 percent, respectively).2Federal Bureau of Investigation, “UCR Summary of Crime in the Nation, 2023,” September 2024, https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATEST/webapp/#/pages/explorer/crime/special-reports. Post-COVID-19 “returns-to-normal” likely played a role in these declines, but so too did a series of federal actions that allowed cities across the country to scale up meaningful gun violence prevention strategies.

      While this progress is worth celebrating, every life taken or forever changed due to gun violence is an avoidable tragedy. Factors like systemic racism, social determinants of health, and state-level gun safety policies contributed to some communities reaping these benefits more than others. In 2023, Black people in the US died by gun homicides at a rate six times higher than white people.3 Everytown Research analysis of FBI NIBRS data, 2023, accessed October 2024. In FBI-reporting cities with populations of at least 65,000, Black people in the US died by gun homicides at a rate of 27.5 per 100,000 people, and white people died by gun homicides at a rate of 4.4 per 100,000 people in 2023. And as always, gun homicides continued to cluster in America’s cities. Over half of the country’s reported gun homicides occurred in just 42 cities, including Chicago, Philadelphia, Memphis, Houston, and others.4Everytown Research analysis of FBI NIBRS data, 2023, accessed October 2024. The full list of cities includes: Chicago, IL; Philadelphia, PA; Memphis, TN; Houston, TX; Los Angeles, CA; Washington, DC; Dallas, TX; Detroit, MI; Baltimore, MD; New York, NY; Phoenix, AZ; Kansas City, MO; Milwaukee, WI; Indianapolis, IN; St. Louis, MO; San Antonio, TX; Louisville, KY; Cleveland, OH; Atlanta, GA; Oakland, CA; Birmingham, AL; Nashville, TN; Las Vegas, NV; Albuquerque, NM; Charlotte-Mecklenburg, NC; Fort Worth, TX; Columbus, OH; Denver, CO; Greensboro, NC; Minneapolis, MN; Cincinnati, OH; Portland, OR; Richmond, VA; Austin, TX; Little Rock, AR; Oklahoma City, OK; Seattle, WA; Baton Rouge, LA; Gary, IN; Newark, NJ; Stockton, CA; and Rochester, NY.

      The FBI is the leading source of city gun violence data, covering over 94 percent of the US population in 2023.5Federal Bureau of Investigation, “UCR Summary of Crime in the Nation, 2023,” September 2024, https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATEST/webapp/#/pages/explorer/crime/special-reports. Everytown’s City Gun Homicide dashboard allows users to explore gun homicide trends in nearly 600 cities with populations of 65,000+ that reported data to the FBI from 2019 to 2023.

      Key Takeaways

      Across FBI-reporting cities with populations 65,000+:

      1. 54 percent of cities have now returned to pre-Covid gun homicide rates.1Of the 577 cities that reported data in both 2023 and 2019, 312 experienced 2023 gun homicide rates at or below their 2019 rates.
      2. Nine of the 10 largest cities experienced fewer gun homicides in 2023 than they did in 2022.2The 2022 to 2023 gun homicide count and rate percent difference in the 10 largest cities are: New York, NY (-70, -26 percent); Los Angeles, CA (-58, -19 percent); Chicago, IL (-98, -18 percent); Houston, TX (-80, -21 percent); Phoenix, AZ (-43, -19 percent); Philadelphia, PA (-121, -25 percent); San Antonio, TX (-11, -7 percent); San Diego, CA (-7, -26 percent); Dallas, TX (+38, +21 percent); and San Jose, CA (-7, -32 percent). These reductions were stark, saving nearly 500 lives in these cities alone.
      3. Only 2 percent of cities reported gun homicide increases of 10 or more people in 2023.3The 2022 to 2023 gun homicide count and rate percent difference in cities with 10+ additional gun homicides in 2023 include: Washington, DC (+62, +37 percent); Memphis, TN (+54, +20 percent); Dallas, TX (+38, +21 percent); Greensboro, NC (+30, +88 percent); Nashville, TN (+21, +29 percent); Kansas City, MO (+20, +13 percent); Springfield, MA (+15, +125 percent); Newport News, VA (+14, +54 percent); El Paso, TX (+14, +108 percent); and Topeka, KS (+14, +300 percent).
      4. Black and Latinx people in the US—two of the racial groups most disproportionately impacted by gun homicides across the country—experienced the sharpest declines in 2023 gun homicides (-15 percent and -17 percent, respectively).4The 2022 and 2023 gun homicide rates per 100,000 and percent changes across racial groups are as follows: white people in the US (2,951 ro 2,651, or -10 percent); Black people in the US (6,406 to 5,469, or -15 percent); Latinx (1,799 to 1,488, or -17 percent); other race (383 to 427, +11 percent).
      5. City gun homicides decreased the most in the West and Northeast (-16 percent), followed by the Midwest (-14 percent) then the South (-7 percent).5Average 2023 gun homicide rates per 100,000 and 2022 to 2023 rate percent differences by region were: Midwest (11.2, -14 percent); Northeast (6.0, -16 percent); South (9.1, -7 percent); and West (4.6, -16 percent).
      6. Mid-sized cities saw the sharpest gun homicide declines (-19 percent), but small cities continued to have the lowest rates.6Average 2023 gun homicide rates per 100,000 and 2022 to 2023 rate percent differences by city population group were: 1,000,000+ (8.3, -18 percent); 500,000–999,999 (13.7, -7 percent); 250,000–499,999 (7.9, -19 percent); 100,000–249,999 (5.2, -10 percent); and 65,000–99,999 (3.6, -2 percent).
      Everytown analysis of 2019-2022 FBI Supplementary Homicide Report (accessed December 2023) and 2021-2023 FBI National Incident-Based Reporting System (accessed October 2024).

      Compare Gun Homicide Across Cities

      Everytown analysis of 2022-2023 FBI Supplementary Homicide Report (accessed December 2023) and 2022-2023 FBI National Incident-Based Reporting System (accessed October 2024).

      Data Tables: Gun Homicide

      Everytown analysis of 2019-2022 FBI Supplementary Homicide Report (accessed December 2023) and 2021-2023 FBI National Incident-Based Reporting System (accessed October 2024).

      Cities with Real-Time Gun Violence Data

      Methodology and Sources

      Gun homicide data featured in this dashboard is drawn primarily from the FBI’s annual National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), and from the Supplementary Homicide Report (SHR) when NIBRS was unavailable. The FBI defines gun homicides as “murders, non-negligent manslaughters, killings of felons by law enforcement officers or private citizens, and negligent manslaughters.”Data was flagged as unreliable when FBI data notably differed from data reported directly by local law enforcement agencies.

      All cities with populations of at least 65,000 and a law enforcement agency that reported 12 months of data per year to the FBI were included. Across the country, city definitions and geographic boundaries lack clarity and are often conflated with counties, metropolitan statistical areas, and more localized communities within them. This dashboard uses Census places to define city boundaries and populations and to allocate law enforcement agencies. For state- and county-level data, please see EveryStat.

      Rates and percent changes are only calculated for cities with firearm homicide counts of 10 people and above. Averages are calculated based on the selected and displayed cities. Victim characteristic graphics are calculated using FBI five-year totals, and due to rounding, graphs may not add to 100 percent. If five years of data were not available for a city, the values were calculated using all available data. Visualizations with year-over-year changes only display cities that reported complete data in both the current and prior year. Cities that reported unreliable data for either 2021 or 2022 are also excluded from the rate change analysis.

      Know a city that reports real-time gun violence data and isn’t featured in this dashboard? Email the link to [email protected].

      Sources:

      1. FBI Supplementary Homicide Report, 2019–2023, (accessed October 2024), https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATEST/webapp/#/pages/downloads.
      2. FBI National Incident-Based Reporting System, 2021–2023, (accessed October 2024), https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATEST/webapp/#/pages/downloads.
      3. American Community Survey, 2016–2022, (accessed October 2023), https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs.

      Everytown Research & Policy is a program of Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, an independent, non-partisan organization dedicated to understanding and reducing gun violence. Everytown Research & Policy works to do so by conducting methodologically rigorous research, supporting evidence-based policies, and communicating this knowledge to the American public.

      The Latest

      Did you know?

      Every day, 125 people in the United States are killed with guns, twice as many are shot and wounded, and countless others are impacted by acts of gun violence.

      Everytown Research analysis of CDC, WONDER, Provisional Mortality Statistics, Multiple Cause of Death, 2019–2023; Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project nonfatal firearm injury data, 2020; and SurveyUSA, Market Research Study #26602, 2022.

      Last updated: 11.8.2024