Fear Versus Facts: Gun Violence is Definitely Down
Fear Versus Facts: Gun Violence is Definitely Down
Following coordinated efforts from the federal to community level, American cities are becoming safer each year.
Today’s post is a share from our colleagues at Everytown for Gun Safety.
As GVPedia founder Devin Hughes has laid out recently, there has been a quick and decisive campaign waged by the far right and others to spread blatant statistical disinformation about recent crime data.
As Hughes stated in an email to gun violence prevention supporters last week, “John Lott's latest disinformation campaign launched last week against the FBI that accuses them of hiding a crime increase has gone viral. Virtually every right-wing media outlet has picked it up, along with multiple Republican members of Congress, Elon Musk's PAC, and Trump himself. Given the timing, and with crime being a major concern in the national discussion, Lott's disinformation could have catastrophic consequences if it is left unchecked.”
In this informative piece, Senior VP of Law & Policy Nick Suplina and Deputy Director of Research Megan J. O’Toole from Everytown help make sure these lies do not go unchecked.
They succinctly present the true picture of the reduction in gun violence over the last two years — including lives and taxpayer money saved — due to the coordinated efforts to address gun violence from the federal down to the community level.
Check out the article below; full article with footnotes here.
By: Nick Suplina, Megan J. O’Toole
Is violent crime on the rise in the United States? This election season, if you’re listening to fear-mongering media and campaign speeches, the answer is surely “yes.”
The data tells a different story. Following coordinated efforts to address gun violence from the federal down to the community level, American cities are becoming safer each year.
For the past two and a half years, violent crime has been trending downward, according to nearly every major data source. This holds true for overall violent crimes, homicides, aggravated assaults, and incidents specifically involving guns — the last of which is unsurprising, given that guns are the leading weapon used in American acts of violence.
For example, FBI data reveal that annual homicides decreased by 7 percent in 2022, 13 percent in 2023, and 26 percent through the first quarter of 2024. In other words, homicides are continuing to drop by increasingly large margins.
These most recent FBI figures are preliminary as we await some law enforcement agencies that have not yet reported and final vetting. However, multiple sources report similar patterns, indicating that the United States is likely experiencing the sharpest single-year homicide decrease in recorded history.
14% — Assault-related gun deaths and injuries dropped 14 percent in the first six months of 2024.
Source: Everytown Research analysis of Gun Violence Archive, Assault-Related Fatal and Nonfatal Shootings, accessed July 26, 2024, Gun Violence Archive. Count percent change and difference: January–June 2023 vs. January–June 2024.
Specific to gun violence, assault-related gun deaths and injuries have seen similar decreases, dropping 20 and 14 percent, respectively, from the 2021 gun violence peaks that coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic. In the first six months of 2024 alone, these gun deaths and injuries both dropped yet again by another 14 percent, relative to the same period the year prior — already saving 1,048 lives and avoiding 2,275 injuries.
Without a doubt, the lives saved and trauma spared by this progress is most important. But these declines have also saved taxpayers millions, money that could instead be spent on beneficial investments in health, education, and targeted programs that we know help to prevent this violence from happening in the first place.
Each gun homicide costs American taxpayers an average of $709,985 — from government expenses on medical and mental healthcare, ambulances, police investigations, and criminal justice costs. Gun assault injuries average $41,299 each.
In just the first six months of 2024, safer cities have also meant an estimated $838,019,544 in taxpayer savings. Putting these funds back into city coffers could support over 250,000 young people at risk for violence to benefit from a summer employment program, offering paid work, mentoring, and a supportive environment during a time of year when violence is at its highest levels.
$838M — Taxpayer savings from reduced gun violence through the first six months of 2024.
Source: Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, “Calculate the Economic Cost of Gun Violence,” February 9, 2023; Everytown Research analysis of Gun Violence Archive, Assault-Related Fatal and Nonfatal Shootings, accessed July 26, 2024, Gun Violence Archive. Count difference: January–June 2023 vs. January–June 2024.
A lot can be said about what’s likely driving violence down, much of which is tied to post-COVID “returns to normal,” whereby social services, employment opportunities, and after-school activities for young people are all improving. But importantly during this period, the federal government also took several meaningful steps to activate multi-pronged gun violence prevention efforts, including the 2021 American Rescue Plan, the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, and the 2023 formation of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention.
Collectively, these actions allowed cities across the country to scale up data- and community-driven violence prevention strategies by:
Expanding the presence of community violence intervention programs in the small social networks and geographic locations where gun violence remains the stickiest
Establishing local offices of violence prevention, capable of coordinating these efforts
Leveraging quality and timely data to inform and evaluate public safety initiatives
Enhancing background checks and gun trafficking prevention efforts
While this is worth celebrating, every life taken or forever changed due to gun violence is an avoidable tragedy. There’s certainly more progress to be made. Not all of these policies or investments have been fully implemented yet, nor have we fully reduced violence back to its pre-2020 level.
Sustained funding, implementation of existing policies and laws, and support for hyperlocal strategies are necessary to continue this progress in gun violence reduction across the United States in the years to come. That path has been laid; it’s now on us to eschew the political fiction and continue following the facts to a safer tomorrow.
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.