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Which states have the highest rates of firearm-related homicides in 2024?
Executive summary
Statista’s 2024 state ranking lists Mississippi as having the highest gun‑violence rate per 100,000 residents (29.7), followed by Louisiana (28.2); Statista’s summary also lists New Mexico, Alabama and Montana among the top states for 2024 [1]. Federal and research bodies emphasize that firearm homicide rates vary widely by state and that different datasets and adjustments (age‑adjustment, inclusion/exclusion of suicides, provisional vs final counts) change rankings and absolute rates [2] [3] [4].
1. What the headline numbers say — and where they come from
Statista’s 2024 summary identifies Mississippi as the state with the highest gun‑violence rate per 100,000 (29.7), followed by Louisiana at 28.2, and lists New Mexico, Alabama and Montana as high‑rate states in that year [1]. Those headline figures are drawn from assembled state comparisons; other outlets and databases use CDC, FBI, or nonprofit compilations and can produce different orderings depending on whether they report total gun deaths, firearm homicides only, age‑adjusted rates, or provisional versus finalized data [5] [2] [6].
2. How definitions and methods alter the picture
“Gun violence” can mean total gun deaths (homicide + suicide + accidents) or firearm homicides specifically; the CDC’s firearm homicide pages focus on homicide rates and update provisional/final counts monthly, so year‑to‑year comparisons depend on whether you use final NVSS data or provisional tallies [2]. Research groups like the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation publish age‑adjusted firearm homicide rates (not raw counts), which change the ranking — for example, they report Washington, D.C. with an age‑adjusted high (14.4 per 100,000) and New Hampshire as a low (1.1 per 100,000) in their comparisons [3]. RAND’s state visualizations likewise note that multi‑year smoothing is sometimes used to stabilize estimates for small states [4].
3. State rankings are not a single uncontested list
Multiple reputable compilers exist: Statista’s 2024 state list (cited above) is one picture [1]; The Trace and Gun Violence Archive provide city and national trend reporting and note declines in 2024 overall [7]. Everytown/Everystat and RAND publish different breakdowns with age adjustments, different inclusion rules (e.g., whether police shootings count) and methodological notes; Everytown explicitly warns readers about rate adjustments and data limitations [8]. Those methodological choices mean “which states have the highest rates” depends on the specific metric chosen (raw homicide counts, per‑capita homicide rate, age‑adjusted rate, or combined gun death rate).
4. Broader trends and context beyond state ranks
Observers documented a decline in firearm injuries and homicides in 2024 compared with peak pandemic years — The Trace reported a nearly 14% drop in firearm injuries and noted many large cities saw sharp declines [7]. The Commonwealth Fund and other public‑health summaries frame U.S. firearm mortality as unusually high internationally and stress that firearms drive a large share of preventable death across nearly all states [9]. County Health Rankings emphasizes that most firearm fatalities nationally are suicides (about 54%) with homicides making up about 43% of firearm fatalities — a distinction that matters when interpreting “gun‑violence” rankings [10].
5. Competing explanations and caution about causal claims
Different commentators link state differences to law strength, gun trafficking, urbanization, poverty and other social factors. Statista’s summary suggests states with permissive gun policies often see higher rates but also warns that trafficking can blunt the effect of local laws [1]. RAND and academic work stress demographic and policy heterogeneity and caution against simple one‑to‑one causal claims — they provide tools to explore how policy changes might affect state rates but note limitations in the data [4].
6. What reporters and readers should watch for next
To answer “which states are highest” for a given year, use a single well‑documented dataset and note its definition: Statista’s 2024 list gives Mississippi and Louisiana the top two spots for gun‑violence rate per 100,000 [1]; CDC and IHME age‑adjusted tables may yield different leaders such as Washington, D.C., depending on the metric [2] [3]. Watch for finalized NVSS data releases and state‑level methodological notes from RAND or Everytown for reconciled multi‑year estimates [2] [4] [8].
Limitations: available sources do not mention a single, universally accepted 2024 “firearm‑homicide” ranking that every researcher uses; rankings depend on metric and adjustment choices [1] [2] [3] [4].