What was the total number of firearm deaths in the US in 2024?
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Executive summary
Different data compilers report divergent totals for U.S. firearm deaths in 2024: a CDC-based compilation and aggregators that include suicides put the total near 44,400 deaths (USAFacts), while incident-tracking groups that exclude suicides report far lower counts — for example, Gun Violence Archive’s count of shootings/injuries was 31,409 in 2024 (The Trace quoting GVA) [1] [2]. Sources agree suicides make up a majority of firearm deaths, so methodology (whether suicides are included) drives most of the discrepancy [3] [4].
1. Different tallies, different questions: why numbers diverge
Public-health tallies that rely on death certificates and CDC coding, used by outlets like USAFacts, count all firearm deaths (homicide, suicide, unintentional, legal intervention, undetermined) and estimate roughly 44.4K firearm deaths in 2024 [1]. Incident-based trackers such as Gun Violence Archive compile news and police reports about shootings and do not track suicides; The Trace reports GVA recorded 31,409 firearm injuries in 2024, explicitly noting GVA does not track suicides, which are more than half of gun deaths [2] [5]. The gap between ~31K and ~44K reflects inclusion of suicides and different case-ascertainment methods [2] [1].
2. Suicides dominate — the decisive methodological hinge
Public-health sources and scholarly centers emphasize that more than half of firearm deaths are suicides; Johns Hopkins and the CDC note suicides are the largest component of firearm fatalities, and JHU reports gun suicides reached levels like 27,032 in recent years [3] [6] [4]. Because incident databases often exclude suicides, any comparison that ignores that difference will understate total firearm mortality [2] [4].
3. Which number answers “total firearm deaths”?
If by “total” you mean every death where a firearm was the underlying cause on death certificates (the conventional public-health definition), USAFacts’ compilation of CDC-based data lists about 44.4K firearm deaths for 2024 — that figure includes suicides and homicides [1]. If you mean “shootings reported in news/police logs” or “gun injuries counted by incident trackers,” Gun Violence Archive’s figure (reported via The Trace) shows 31,409 firearm injuries in 2024 and explicitly excludes suicides [2] [5]. The two answers are both correct for different definitions [1] [2].
4. Trends and context: was 2024 more or less deadly than 2023?
Multiple sources describe a decline from 2023 to 2024 in several measures. The Trace reports GVA’s injuries fell nearly 14% from 36,338 in 2023 to 31,409 in 2024 — but again this measure excludes suicides [2]. USAFacts states the 44.4K total for 2024 represents about a 4% decrease from the same point in 2023, reflecting CDC-based death-certificate tallies [1]. Different measures point to declines, but the magnitude depends on what’s counted [2] [1].
5. What experts and institutions emphasize about interpretation
Public-health institutions stress that firearm suicides are central to overall mortality and must be included to understand the problem; the CDC and Johns Hopkins note more than half of firearm deaths are suicides and recommend prevention strategies accordingly [4] [3] [6]. Incident-trackers and media outlets often focus on shootings, homicides, mass shootings and nonfatal injuries because those events drive public attention; The Trace and AP highlight falling mass-shooting counts and city-level homicide declines while noting that these represent a subset of total gun deaths [2] [7].
6. How to read future reports: watch the definitions and sources
When you see a headline about “gun deaths” or “gun violence,” check whether the source uses CDC/CDC-WONDER/medical death-certificates (which include suicides) or relies on incident-collection (news/police reports) that may exclude suicides. CDC-based compilations (as reported by USAFacts) give the comprehensive mortality count (~44.4K in 2024), while Gun Violence Archive-style tallies yield substantially lower totals because they omit suicides (~31K injuries reported by GVA in 2024) [1] [2] [5].
Limitations and notes on sources: death-certificate compilations can lag and are subject to preliminary-data revisions; incident trackers may miss unreported shootings or misclassify intent. Available sources do not mention a single definitive federal "final" 2024 total beyond these published compilations and their methodologies; researchers continue to rely on CDC and GVA-style datasets for different analytic purposes [1] [2] [5].