Gun related death per capita for all countries
Executive summary
A complete, per-capita accounting of gun-related deaths exists in international datasets but cannot be sensibly printed in full here; authoritative compilations include the UNODC-derived Our World in Data database (homicides where the weapon was a firearm) and country-by-country tables published by World Population Review and similar aggregators (which split totals into homicide, suicide and unintentional deaths) [1] [2] [3]. Rates vary dramatically — from fractions of a death per 100,000 in very low-rate countries to dozens per 100,000 in parts of Latin America — and differences in methodology (whether suicides and accidental deaths are counted, whether data come from police or health systems) materially affect rankings and interpretation [4] [1].
1. What “per capita gun deaths” means and why numbers differ
Per-capita “gun death” rates are normally expressed as deaths per 100,000 people and may represent different concepts: firearm homicides only, all firearm-related deaths (homicide, suicide and unintentional), or age‑adjusted rates — and sources mix these definitions, producing different country lists [4] [1] [3]. The UNODC/Our World in Data series documents intentional homicides by firearm collected from criminal justice or public health systems and is explicit about those source differences, which can cause a country’s rate to shift depending on whether police records or death certificates are the primary source [1].
2. Global shape of the data: extremes and the middle
Across global compilations the highest firearm death rates cluster in volatile regions: for example, World Population Review and similar summaries report rates as high as roughly 42 per 100,000 for El Salvador in some years and other Latin American countries frequently occupy the top ranks, while small, tightly policed or low‑ownership countries like Singapore appear near zero [3] [5]. Our World in Data provides machine-readable country-by-country rates that confirm wide dispersion: many nations record single‑digit rates per 100,000, while the worst-affected record multiple tens per 100,000 [1] [3].
3. Where the United States sits in comparative perspective
The United States is a conspicuous outlier among high‑income nations: analyses using age-adjusted homicide and broader firearm‑death measures find U.S. firearm-homicide rates far above peer countries, and recent reporting places U.S. overall firearm deaths at about 13.7 per 100,000 in 2023 (Pew Research) and describes the U.S. as having the highest firearm homicide rate among large high‑income countries [6] [7]. Public health studies and think-tank analyses repeatedly show the U.S. well above Canada, Australia, Germany and France on comparable measures [6] [7] [8].
4. Causes, correlations and contested interpretations
Scholarly work finds a strong positive association between civilian gun ownership and firearm-related death rates among developed countries (for example, a 2013 study reported r = 0.80 across 27 developed nations), which supporters of stricter gun policy cite as evidence that more guns mean more gun deaths [9]. Others emphasize social drivers — organized crime, drug markets, weak institutions — in explaining very high rates in some Latin American states, and note that counting conventions (homicide vs. suicide) change the story in countries where suicide by firearm is the dominant category [3] [4].
5. Sources, advocacy and hidden agendas in the data landscape
Datasets and analyses are produced by public agencies and by advocacy groups with clear missions; for instance, Everytown and EveryStat publish detailed U.S. gun-recovery and mortality analyses and explicitly advance policy aims, while Project Unloaded frames firearm mortality as a public health epidemic to press for legal change [10] [11] [12]. Researchers and data platforms (Our World in Data, UNODC, IHME/GBD) emphasize methodology and comparability; users should read metadata because advocacy-oriented presentations can selectively highlight subsets [1] [7] [13].
6. Practical guidance: where to get a full country list and caveats
For a downloadable, country-by-country per-100,000 table covering firearm homicides, Our World in Data (which archives UNODC and related inputs) is the most usable source; World Population Review and travel/safety sites repackage those numbers and add breakdowns for homicide/suicide/unintentional deaths but sometimes omit methodological notes [1] [2] [3]. Any comparative use must state which deaths are counted (homicide only, or homicide+s uicide+accidents), whether rates are age-adjusted, and which year are used — otherwise cross-country comparisons can mislead [4] [1].