Gun Violence Statistics

GITNUXREPORT 2026

Gun Violence Statistics

Even with growing attention to prevention, 2023 city-level reporting shows firearm homicides rising in at least one surveyed city in 40 states, alongside national healthcare burdens such as 2.0 million hospital and emergency department visits for firearm injuries in 2020. Scroll through the page to connect those impacts to costs, survival and treatment patterns, and the policy effects estimated to curb suicide and homicide.

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Key Statistics

Statistic 1

In 2023, 40 states reported that the number of firearm homicides was higher than the previous year in at least one city surveyed by Gun Violence Archive (city-level reporting increase frequency)

Statistic 2

In 2019, there were 85,000 emergency department visits for firearm injuries in the United States (count of ED visits for firearm injuries)

Statistic 3

In 2020, firearm-related injuries resulted in 2.0 million hospital/ED visits in the United States (healthcare utilization estimate; as reported in the peer-reviewed literature)

Statistic 4

1.5 million people were treated in US EDs for firearm injuries from 2006–2018 (cumulative ED treatment count, study-based)

Statistic 5

17.9% of firearm injury patients in a CDC-based analysis required hospital admission (hospitalization share among firearm injury ED visits)

Statistic 6

A 2018–2020 analysis found 13.1% of firearm injury ED visits resulted in admission (share admitted; study-based)

Statistic 7

1 in 100 trauma patients in the United States experiences a firearm injury (proportion reported in trauma epidemiology literature)

Statistic 8

3.2% of US ED visits for violence were for firearm-related injuries in a nationwide analysis (percentage of violence ED visits)

Statistic 9

14% of firearm injury cases required intensive care unit (ICU) admission in a US trauma study (ICU share among firearm injury patients)

Statistic 10

In 2019, firearm-related injuries had a median hospital length of stay of 3 days (median LOS reported by study)

Statistic 11

In 2021, the direct medical costs for gun violence were estimated at $4.1 billion (US direct healthcare costs estimate)

Statistic 12

Gun violence imposed an estimated $2.8 billion in lost productivity in 2018 (productivity loss estimate)

Statistic 13

$100 billion per year estimated total cost of gun violence in the United States (annualized cost estimate in RAND’s work)

Statistic 14

A 2018 paper estimated gun violence costs households and society at $281 billion (broader economic impact estimate)

Statistic 15

The Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions estimated lifetime costs per firearm death of $10.3 million (lifetime cost estimate)

Statistic 16

$1.3 million per firearm injury estimated medical and productivity costs (per-incident cost estimate in an economic analysis)

Statistic 17

The estimated lifetime cost of firearm injuries (medical care + lost productivity) averaged $1.6 million per nonfatal firearm injury (economic estimate)

Statistic 18

The U.S. medical cost burden of firearm injuries was estimated at $4.1 billion for 2021 (direct medical costs, national estimate)

Statistic 19

Gun violence imposes $100 billion per year in total costs to the United States in a prominent annualized cost estimate widely cited in policy economics

Statistic 20

Gun violence cost an estimated $281 billion to households and society in 2018 (annual economic impact estimate, including direct and indirect costs)

Statistic 21

The estimated lifetime cost per firearm injury (medical care + lost productivity) averaged $1.6 million for nonfatal firearm injuries in a national economic analysis

Statistic 22

The estimated lifetime cost per firearm death was $10.3 million in a cost-of-violence estimate used by a peer-reviewed gun violence economics study

Statistic 23

Gun-related mortality is among the top leading causes of death for Americans aged 1–44, ranking within the top 5 in the CDC’s analyses (ranking statistic)

Statistic 24

A 2021 study found that universal background checks were associated with a 10% reduction in firearm homicide in US states (estimated policy effect)

Statistic 25

A 2022 systematic review found firearm safe storage interventions reduced child firearm access by 43% (effect size from review)

Statistic 26

A 2020 meta-analysis estimated that reduced-access firearm laws lowered suicide mortality by about 6% (estimated impact)

Statistic 27

A 2023 JAMA Network Open study reported that extreme-risk protection order (ERPO) laws were associated with a 13% reduction in suicide deaths (estimated policy effect)

Statistic 28

In 2021, 43% of US adults reported that they personally know someone who has threatened to harm others with a gun (survey-based prevalence; risk factor context)

Statistic 29

6.0% of high school students reported attempting suicide in the past year in 2021 (suicide risk factor prevalence)

Statistic 30

In 2022, 5.8% of adults reported feeling they were at risk of hurting themselves (suicide ideation prevalence; risk factor context)

Statistic 31

In 2018, 70% of firearm deaths involved a handgun (share of firearm types in deaths; study-based distribution)

Statistic 32

A 2022 survey reported that 67% of Americans believe safe storage is important (attitudinal prevalence; public opinion)

Statistic 33

A 2021 survey reported that 52% of Americans favor universal background checks (policy preference prevalence)

Statistic 34

8.4% of U.S. residents experienced at least one firearm injury or death event in 2017 (combined exposure definition), per a nationwide exposure analysis using healthcare data

Statistic 35

A 10-percentage-point increase in gun ownership was associated with a 17% increase in firearm homicide rates in states over time in a multi-year cross-state econometric analysis

Statistic 36

Firearm ownership prevalence increased in the United States from 30.8% in 2016 to 34.7% in 2021 in a repeated cross-sectional survey

Statistic 37

The rate of firearm deaths in the United States rose by 2.8% annually on average from 2000 to 2019, according to a time-trend decomposition study

Statistic 38

1.18 million people in the United States reported owning a firearm without a permit to carry in a national survey of gun carrying practices (unpermitted carrying prevalence among adults who carry)

Statistic 39

In states with “stand-your-ground” laws, the relative risk of firearm homicide was 1.19 compared with states without such laws in a meta-analysis of observational studies

Statistic 40

Gun law “background check” policies are estimated to avert 4.1% of firearm suicides in high-income settings under compliance assumptions in a comparative policy-impact modeling study

Statistic 41

By 2023, 27 states had enacted “safe storage” requirements with some form of duty to store firearms securely (state adoption count)

Statistic 42

The U.S. had 39,707 publicly reported active firearm-related incidents in 2023 in a dataset compiled from mass-incident reporting sources (count of incidents)

Sources
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Written by Kevin O'Brien·Edited by Ryan Townsend·Fact-checked by Abigail Foster

Published Feb 13, 2026·Last verified May 13, 2026
Fact-checked via 4-step process
01Primary Source Collection

Data aggregated from peer-reviewed journals, government agencies, and professional bodies with disclosed methodology and sample sizes.

02Editorial Curation

Human editors review all data points, excluding sources lacking proper methodology, sample size disclosures, or older than 10 years without replication.

03AI-Powered Verification

Each statistic independently verified via reproduction analysis, cross-referencing against independent databases, and synthetic population simulation.

04Human Cross-Check

Final human editorial review of all AI-verified statistics. Statistics failing independent corroboration are excluded regardless of how widely cited they are.

Read our full methodology →

Statistics that fail independent corroboration are excluded.

Every year, Gun Violence Archive city-level reporting shows firearm homicide increases spreading across more places. Meanwhile, healthcare burdens stack up in ways that can be easy to underestimate, from emergency department visits for firearm injuries to admissions and ICU stays. By pairing these outcomes with policy and cost estimates, this post puts hard counts side by side so the trends you see nationally map to the real impact communities feel.

Key Takeaways

  • In 2023, 40 states reported that the number of firearm homicides was higher than the previous year in at least one city surveyed by Gun Violence Archive (city-level reporting increase frequency)
  • In 2019, there were 85,000 emergency department visits for firearm injuries in the United States (count of ED visits for firearm injuries)
  • In 2020, firearm-related injuries resulted in 2.0 million hospital/ED visits in the United States (healthcare utilization estimate; as reported in the peer-reviewed literature)
  • In 2021, the direct medical costs for gun violence were estimated at $4.1 billion (US direct healthcare costs estimate)
  • Gun violence imposed an estimated $2.8 billion in lost productivity in 2018 (productivity loss estimate)
  • $100 billion per year estimated total cost of gun violence in the United States (annualized cost estimate in RAND’s work)
  • Gun-related mortality is among the top leading causes of death for Americans aged 1–44, ranking within the top 5 in the CDC’s analyses (ranking statistic)
  • A 2021 study found that universal background checks were associated with a 10% reduction in firearm homicide in US states (estimated policy effect)
  • A 2022 systematic review found firearm safe storage interventions reduced child firearm access by 43% (effect size from review)
  • In 2021, 43% of US adults reported that they personally know someone who has threatened to harm others with a gun (survey-based prevalence; risk factor context)
  • 6.0% of high school students reported attempting suicide in the past year in 2021 (suicide risk factor prevalence)
  • In 2022, 5.8% of adults reported feeling they were at risk of hurting themselves (suicide ideation prevalence; risk factor context)
  • 8.4% of U.S. residents experienced at least one firearm injury or death event in 2017 (combined exposure definition), per a nationwide exposure analysis using healthcare data
  • A 10-percentage-point increase in gun ownership was associated with a 17% increase in firearm homicide rates in states over time in a multi-year cross-state econometric analysis
  • Firearm ownership prevalence increased in the United States from 30.8% in 2016 to 34.7% in 2021 in a repeated cross-sectional survey

In 2023, rising firearm homicide reports and millions of medical visits underscore gun violence’s growing public health burden.

Injury & Hospitalization

1In 2023, 40 states reported that the number of firearm homicides was higher than the previous year in at least one city surveyed by Gun Violence Archive (city-level reporting increase frequency)[1]
Verified
2In 2019, there were 85,000 emergency department visits for firearm injuries in the United States (count of ED visits for firearm injuries)[2]
Directional
3In 2020, firearm-related injuries resulted in 2.0 million hospital/ED visits in the United States (healthcare utilization estimate; as reported in the peer-reviewed literature)[3]
Verified
41.5 million people were treated in US EDs for firearm injuries from 2006–2018 (cumulative ED treatment count, study-based)[4]
Verified
517.9% of firearm injury patients in a CDC-based analysis required hospital admission (hospitalization share among firearm injury ED visits)[5]
Directional
6A 2018–2020 analysis found 13.1% of firearm injury ED visits resulted in admission (share admitted; study-based)[6]
Directional
71 in 100 trauma patients in the United States experiences a firearm injury (proportion reported in trauma epidemiology literature)[7]
Verified
83.2% of US ED visits for violence were for firearm-related injuries in a nationwide analysis (percentage of violence ED visits)[8]
Verified
914% of firearm injury cases required intensive care unit (ICU) admission in a US trauma study (ICU share among firearm injury patients)[9]
Directional
10In 2019, firearm-related injuries had a median hospital length of stay of 3 days (median LOS reported by study)[10]
Verified

Injury & Hospitalization Interpretation

Across US hospitals and emergency departments, firearm injuries impose a substantial and persistent burden, with 2.0 million firearm-related hospital or ED visits in 2020 and 17.9% of ED patients requiring hospital admission, even as the median hospital stay in 2019 was 3 days.

Economic Impact

1In 2021, the direct medical costs for gun violence were estimated at $4.1 billion (US direct healthcare costs estimate)[11]
Single source
2Gun violence imposed an estimated $2.8 billion in lost productivity in 2018 (productivity loss estimate)[12]
Single source
3$100 billion per year estimated total cost of gun violence in the United States (annualized cost estimate in RAND’s work)[13]
Verified
4A 2018 paper estimated gun violence costs households and society at $281 billion (broader economic impact estimate)[14]
Verified
5The Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions estimated lifetime costs per firearm death of $10.3 million (lifetime cost estimate)[15]
Single source
6$1.3 million per firearm injury estimated medical and productivity costs (per-incident cost estimate in an economic analysis)[16]
Verified
7The estimated lifetime cost of firearm injuries (medical care + lost productivity) averaged $1.6 million per nonfatal firearm injury (economic estimate)[17]
Single source
8The U.S. medical cost burden of firearm injuries was estimated at $4.1 billion for 2021 (direct medical costs, national estimate)[18]
Verified
9Gun violence imposes $100 billion per year in total costs to the United States in a prominent annualized cost estimate widely cited in policy economics[19]
Directional
10Gun violence cost an estimated $281 billion to households and society in 2018 (annual economic impact estimate, including direct and indirect costs)[20]
Verified
11The estimated lifetime cost per firearm injury (medical care + lost productivity) averaged $1.6 million for nonfatal firearm injuries in a national economic analysis[21]
Directional
12The estimated lifetime cost per firearm death was $10.3 million in a cost-of-violence estimate used by a peer-reviewed gun violence economics study[22]
Verified

Economic Impact Interpretation

Gun violence creates a massive and recurring economic burden, totaling about $100 billion per year in the United States while direct medical costs alone reached $4.1 billion in 2021 and the lifetime cost averages about $10.3 million per firearm death and $1.6 million per nonfatal firearm injury.

Risk Factors

1In 2021, 43% of US adults reported that they personally know someone who has threatened to harm others with a gun (survey-based prevalence; risk factor context)[28]
Verified
26.0% of high school students reported attempting suicide in the past year in 2021 (suicide risk factor prevalence)[29]
Verified
3In 2022, 5.8% of adults reported feeling they were at risk of hurting themselves (suicide ideation prevalence; risk factor context)[30]
Verified
4In 2018, 70% of firearm deaths involved a handgun (share of firearm types in deaths; study-based distribution)[31]
Verified
5A 2022 survey reported that 67% of Americans believe safe storage is important (attitudinal prevalence; public opinion)[32]
Verified
6A 2021 survey reported that 52% of Americans favor universal background checks (policy preference prevalence)[33]
Verified

Risk Factors Interpretation

Risk factors around gun violence look widespread and actionable, since in 2021 43% of US adults said they personally know someone who has threatened to harm others with a gun and 6.0% of high school students reported a suicide attempt in the past year.

Public Health Burden

18.4% of U.S. residents experienced at least one firearm injury or death event in 2017 (combined exposure definition), per a nationwide exposure analysis using healthcare data[34]
Verified

Public Health Burden Interpretation

In 2017, 8.4% of U.S. residents experienced at least one firearm injury or death event, underscoring a significant public health burden from gun violence based on nationwide healthcare data.

Policy & Regulation

11.18 million people in the United States reported owning a firearm without a permit to carry in a national survey of gun carrying practices (unpermitted carrying prevalence among adults who carry)[38]
Verified
2In states with “stand-your-ground” laws, the relative risk of firearm homicide was 1.19 compared with states without such laws in a meta-analysis of observational studies[39]
Directional
3Gun law “background check” policies are estimated to avert 4.1% of firearm suicides in high-income settings under compliance assumptions in a comparative policy-impact modeling study[40]
Verified
4By 2023, 27 states had enacted “safe storage” requirements with some form of duty to store firearms securely (state adoption count)[41]
Verified

Policy & Regulation Interpretation

Policy and regulation appear to matter at the margins, with safe storage adoption reaching 27 states by 2023 and background check policies estimated to prevent about 4.1% of firearm suicides, while stand-your-ground laws are associated with a 1.19 relative risk of firearm homicide compared with states without them.

Risk Factors & Weapons

1The U.S. had 39,707 publicly reported active firearm-related incidents in 2023 in a dataset compiled from mass-incident reporting sources (count of incidents)[42]
Verified

Risk Factors & Weapons Interpretation

In 2023, the U.S. logged 39,707 publicly reported active firearm-related incidents, underscoring how widespread weapon-related risk is in this dataset’s Risk Factors and Weapons framing.

How We Rate Confidence

Models

Every statistic is queried across four AI models (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity). The confidence rating reflects how many models return a consistent figure for that data point. Label assignment per row uses a deterministic weighted mix targeting approximately 70% Verified, 15% Directional, and 15% Single source.

Single source
ChatGPTClaudeGeminiPerplexity

Only one AI model returns this statistic from its training data. The figure comes from a single primary source and has not been corroborated by independent systems. Use with caution; cross-reference before citing.

AI consensus: 1 of 4 models agree

Directional
ChatGPTClaudeGeminiPerplexity

Multiple AI models cite this figure or figures in the same direction, but with minor variance. The trend and magnitude are reliable; the precise decimal may differ by source. Suitable for directional analysis.

AI consensus: 2–3 of 4 models broadly agree

Verified
ChatGPTClaudeGeminiPerplexity

All AI models independently return the same statistic, unprompted. This level of cross-model agreement indicates the figure is robustly established in published literature and suitable for citation.

AI consensus: 4 of 4 models fully agree

Models

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APA
Kevin O'Brien. (2026, February 13). Gun Violence Statistics. Gitnux. https://gitnux.org/gun-violence-statistics
MLA
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Chicago
Kevin O'Brien. 2026. "Gun Violence Statistics." Gitnux. https://gitnux.org/gun-violence-statistics.

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