Data contained in EveryStat comes from federal agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and from the The Washington Post’s frequently cited tracking database, Fatal Force. Further details on the data sources and analysis used in EveryStat can be found in our methodology.

The CDC does collect nonfatal firearm injury data in an annual survey but these estimates are widely considered to be unreliable due in part to the CDC dataset’s limited sample size. The survey contains data related to gunshot wounds for fewer than 2% of US hospitals. The CDC is in the process of improving its estimates.

Absolutely. The data behind EveryStat is available for users to download as Excel files. Links to the dataset are provided at the bottom of each section of the tool.

The CDC dataset does not include comprehensive data at the city level. For a full explanation of data sources and their limitations, check out our methodology.

The CDC releases its fatal injury data every year, usually in December. EveryStat will be updated soon after annual CDC updates.

While financial information like GDP and inflation data is collected with great regularity, non-financial metrics, such as health or education data, are generally collected only annually—often with a lag time of one to three years.

Averages in EveryStat are calculated based on the last five years of available data: 2014 to 2018. EveryStat presents these averages in order to account for normal fluctuations that occur between years. For a full explanation of data sources and the years used, check out our methodology.

No, it’s not that simple. When policy changes overlap with changes in gun violence, we merely have evidence of correlation, not causation. It may be the case that some other changes (e.g., increased funding, innovative programming, changes in policing strategies, population changes, etc.) simultaneously occurred, and these could also play a role in driving increases or decreases in gun violence. Without scientific testing and statistical control for other variables, it is not accurate to claim that policy change alone was responsible for the changes in gun deaths. To compare the strength of state gun laws, track trends over time, and identify gaps in the gun laws in your state, check out The Gun Law Navigator. It is the largest historical database of modern U.S. gun laws, drawing on Everytown for Gun Safety’s survey of state gun laws back to 1991.

State fact sheets that include all key EveryStat facts have been developed for users to download as PDFs. State fact sheets can be accessed by clicking State PDFs at the top of this page, or by clicking here.

Publicly available data and research on homicides involving firearms among LGBTQ people are limited due to lack of data on sexual orientation and gender identity included in death records. Data on firearm homicides involving transgender and gender nonconforming people is compiled in real-time by Everytown through the tracking of media reports. A comparable database on homicides among cisgender LGBTQ people does not yet exist.

The race/ethnicity categories presented in EveryStat are constrained by CDC conventions. For instance, while “American Indian,” “Asian,” “Black,” and “white” are designations that describe race, “Hispanic” is considered an ethnicity.

Following CDC conventions, Hispanic captures those who self-identify as Latinx. However, the terms “Latinx” and “Hispanic” are not completely interchangeable. “Latinx” typically describes individuals of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South American, or Central American ancestry. It does not include people who trace their ancestry to Spain.

The category “Asian” encompasses those who would self-identify as Pacific Islander, and the category, “American Indian” encompasses those who would self-identify as Native American, First Nations, Indigenous American, or Alaska Native.

For some states, statistics are provided to show how gun violence impacts the most urban and rural counties. These levels of urbanization come from the CDC’s 2013 National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) Urban-Rural Classification Scheme. Counties are categorized into six distinct groups. More information on this classification scheme can be found here.

Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund. 2020. EveryStat for Gun Safety. http://www.everytownresearch.org/everystat

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Statistics on intimate partner homicides are based on data from the FBI’s Supplementary Homicide Reports and from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Data provided by the FBI is compiled from data submitted by law enforcement agencies. However, agencies are not required to submit their data to the FBI each year. Due to gaps in reporting, comparing rates of intimate partner homicide between states is not advised. Everytown is in the process of obtaining more comprehensive data on intimate partner homicide from the CDC.

In some states, there is insufficient data on gun deaths that resulted from undetermined intents, unintentional intents, and shootings by law enforcement. In these states, these three intent categories have been combined and are displayed as “Other.”

Yes. In cases where death data is suppressed at the county-level for privacy or reliability reasons, it is still included in state totals.