Today, gun violence in the United States is an epidemic. Over the past decade, more than 1.2 million Americans were shot, and on average more than 36,000 Americans were killed every year by guns. Troublingly, the high number of gun deaths in the United States shows no signs of abating; between 2014 and 2017, gun fatalities increased by 16 percent. In the national discussion around gun violence, mass shootings dominate the headlines. The Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit organization that studies gun violence, defines a mass shooting as an incident in which four or more people are shot, not including the shooter. According to the GVA, there were 417 total mass shootings in the United States in 2019, an average of more than one per day.
Yet while mass shootings are unique in causing many fatalities in a short amount of time, they actually represent a small percentage of overall gun deaths in the United States. Of the 35,637 firearm deaths that occurred from January-November 2019, 21,912 or 61.5 percent of them were suicides. This reality defies popular perception: Most Americans are unaware that suicides represent such a high percentage of gun deaths. According to an October 2019 poll by the American Public Media Research Lab, only 23 percent of Americans correctly identified suicides as the leading cause of gun fatalities. The public perception is likely warped by a general stigma around open discussion of mental health issues, which is closely tied to suicide. However, if activists hope to significantly reduce gun violence in American society, they must overcome this culture of silence and consider the close link between access to guns and suicide.
National Trends in Gun Deaths
Using data collected from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the chart below displays the number of suicides and homicides by firearm per 100,000 people between 1999 and 2017.
The CDC data highlights that suicide is the leading cause of firearm deaths in the United States. In each year from 1999 to 2017, suicides represented a greater percentage of overall gun deaths than homicides. Additionally, the data suggests that the overall increase in gun violence in the United States may be driven by a rise in suicides. While the number of homicides has fluctuated, the number of gun deaths corresponding to suicides has increased every year since 2006 except for 2014. The nearly continual increase in suicides by firearm over the past 13 years thus mirrors the overall rise in gun deaths over the same period. This trend highlights the disconnect between media coverage of gun violence and the reality of the situation. While news sources center their analysis on mass shootings, firearm suicides represent the largest fraction of gun deaths in the United States and are increasing in frequency.
State-by-State Trends in Gun Deaths
CDC data also reveals that suicides represent varying fractions of total firearm deaths in states across the country. The interactive map below shows the percentage of firearm deaths that were suicides in each state in 2017. It suggests that low population density is a strong predictor of whether suicides represent a high percentage of total gun deaths in a specific state.