Summary
In the midst of one public health epidemic, COVID-19, 2021 and 2020 were also two of the deadliest years on record for another public health crisis—gun violence. The United States saw a 34 percent increase from 2019 to 2020 in the rate of gun homicides. This upward trend continued—but slowed—through the end of 2021 during which time there was an additional 7 percent increase in gun homicides relative to 2020.2Everytown analysis using Gun Violence Archive 2020–2021 data on gun homicides and fatal police shootings and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 1999–2020 data. According to Gun Violence Archive, there were 19,502 gun homicides and fatal police shootings in 2020, and 20,869 in 2021. Gun Violence Archive, accessed March 24, 2022, https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, WONDER Online Database, Underlying Cause of Death, 1999–2020, https://wonder.cdc.gov/ucd-icd10.html.
Due to limited funding and inconsistent data collection, data on city gun violence is too often old, incomplete, and conflicting from one federal agency to another. Below is the most recent, available, reliable data on murders (firearm and non-firearm) from 2016 to 2021 and on gun homicides from 2016 to 2020 in nearly 500 cities.
Key Findings
- Murder increased by 1 percent in 2021, across 168 cities with populations 100,000+ that have reported to the FBI so far.
- In 2020, murders and gun homicides increased in the US at record rates. In cities overall, murders increased by 33 percent, and gun homicides increased by 37 percent compared to 20191Everytown analysis using FBI Supplementary Homicide Report data for cities only from 2019-2020..
- Midwestern states experienced the highest rate of gun homicide in 2020 and the largest increase in gun homicides—1.5 times higher than in 2019.
- In seven cities, the gun homicide rate at least doubled in 2020 compared to 2019: Lubbock, TX; Des Moines, IA; Fresno, CA; Vallejo, CA; Trenton, NJ; Columbus, OH; Syracuse, NY; and Milwaukee, WI.
- The seven cities that experienced the greatest declines in the gun homicide rate from 2019 to 2020 were Virginia Beach, VA; El Paso, TX; High Point, NC; Anchorage, AK; Salt Lake City, UT; Oklahoma City, OK; and Long Beach, CA.
Murder and Gun Homicide Trends by City
Compare Murder and Gun Homicide Across Cities
Compare Murder and Gun Homicide Across Cities
Data Tables: Murder and Gun Homicide
Methodology and Sources
Gun homicide data is featured in this dashboard for cities that reported annual data to the FBI’s Supplementary Homicide Report (SHR) and had populations of at least 65,000. Murder data is featured for cities data to the FBI via the Summary Reporting System (SRS) or the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). Because FBI crime reporting is optional for each month of the year, SRS and SHR values occasionally do not match. In cases where (1) SRS and SHR differed by three or more homicides, and, and (2) this difference was greater than five percent of the total murders reported via SRS, data was included but marked with instructions to interpret with caution. In total, 38 instances of specific city-year combinations were flagged. Separately, FBI data in four cities (Atlanta, GA; Lincoln, NE; Louisville, KY; and Wichita, KS) was removed due to underreporting in both SRS and SHR. In two cities (Philadelphia, PA; Pittsburgh, PA) FBI data was replaced by police department data due to underreporting in both SRS and SHR. For cities with populations over 500,000 that did not report quarterly, the number of murders was obtained from the American Violence website (accessed March 2022).
The FBI defines gun homicides as “murders, non-negligent manslaughters, killings of felons by law enforcement officers or private citizens, and negligent manslaughters.” This data is released by the FBI annually.. Murders are defined by the FBI as the “willful killing of one individual by another.” Typically, gun homicide and murder counts are very similar, because while one includes more crimes, the other includes more weapons; however, murders may surpass gun homicides on occasion, particularly when the proportion of assault-related killings that involve guns (as opposed to weapons like knives, fists, and blunt objections) are relatively low in a given city.
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 both define city boundaries and populations and allocate law enforcement agencies. For county-level data, please see EveryStat.
Rates and percent changes are only calculated for cities with murder or firearm homicide counts of 10 people and above. Averages are calculated based on the selected and displayed cities. Victim characteristic graphics are calculated using SHR five year totals, and due to rounding, graphs may not add to 100 percent.
Sources:
- FBI Supplementary Homicide Report, 2016-2020 (accessed September 2021) https://crime-data-explorer.fr.cloud.gov/pages/downloads
- FBI Summary Reporting Statistics, Return A (accessed September 2021) https://crime-data-explorer.app.cloud.gov/pages/downloads
- Quarterly Uniform Crime Report, 2021 (accessed March 2022) https://crime-data-explorer.fr.cloud.gov/explorer/national/united-states/prelim-quarter
- American Community Survey 2016 to 2019 (accessed December 2020) https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs
- US Census, 2020, (accessed September 2021) https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-kits/2021/2020-census-redistricting.html
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.
