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Gun violence decreased in 2024. Here’s how.

Gun violence decreased in 2024. Here’s how.

If you follow the news about gun violence in America, you know there’s a lot to be pessimistic about.

Guns were already a major public health issue when the pandemic hit and the crime rate skyrocketed. Increase in homicides in 2020 and 2021, research shows was best understood as an increase in gun violence, with deaths caused by firearms accounting for most of the increase. Not all communities suffered equally: In 2020, 61% of gun homicide victims were black, with the biggest increases among boys and men aged 10 to 44. In the following year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, the number of mass shootings — shootings in which four or more people, not including the shooter, are shot and injured or killed — reached 689up more than 50% from the number of mass shootings in 2018.

And then the Supreme Court issued a ruling that effectively allowed all Americans to carry guns in public. Experts have warned that it comes on the heels of an alarming rise in gun violence that it would almost certainly get worse.

But that didn’t really happen. Some of the worst-case scenarios, based on recent trends in gun violence, have yet to come true. To be clear, the United States still has an exceptionally high level of gun violence. The country has more guns per capita than any other nation on Earth and a messy mosaic of laws that make regulation extremely difficult. For these reasons, the country is still incredibly vulnerable to seeing more gun-related deaths in the future.

But we’re so used to bad news about gun violence and Republicans refusing to pass better gun regulations, it’s easy to feel like the problem is hopeless and not know. So it’s important to recognize that in some key ways this year was better than last – and that 2024 was an important step in the right direction.

US has fewer gun deaths in 2024

Homicides fell at perhaps the fastest rate on record this year, according to the report crime data analyst Jeff Asher — which is especially impressive when you consider that crime fell at the fastest rate on record last year as well. These figures will almost certainly be revised somewhat, but the big picture is unlikely to change. Because the vast majority of homicides in the United States are related to firearms, it is safe to attribute the decline to a reduction in gun deaths. And it manifests itself as great, double-digit reductions in crime in cities that have long suffered from the epidemic of gun violence, including Baltimore, New Orleans, Philadelphia and Washington, DC.

It’s hard to overstate how significant that is. Like Asher NOTES“the rapid decline in crime has resulted in more than 5,000 fewer victims this year compared to 2020-2022.”

In other words, the pandemic-era crime peak appears to be over. What happened? Experts are careful not to attribute the rise and fall of crime to a single cause. But the one returning to work and school after pandemic disruptions and closuresand a renewed effort to reduce gun violence in many US cities, supported by federal funding, has almost certainly helped. Whatever the reason, the result is thousands of lives saved.

The outbreak of political violence that was not

One of the key concerns gun and political violence researchers had in 2024 was whether we would see an outbreak of unrest following the presidential election. The concern was not unfounded. Recent studies have shown that a small but worrying number of Americans increasingly believe that a more violent era of American life is approaching. A smaller percentage of these people say that violence is justified for political reasons and that they are willing to participate in political violence.

Then, in July, a gunman shot President-elect Donald Trump during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and came very close to hitting him in the head (instead, according to investigators, the bullet he got Trump’s ear.) Two months later, another man tried again, although then, the Secret Service was able to respond before opening fire.

“The set of circumstances most likely to produce political violence in this country in the next few months is a closely contested election with Democratic momentum and high-profile cases of political violence that have already occurred,” researcher Garen J. a Wintemute told Vox after the first assassination attempt.

The polls showed a close election, all the way down. trump card repeatedly attacked the legitimacy of the electoral process. And the memory of January 6, 2021, when the then-president incited a crowd to a violent and armed insurrection at the US Capitol to protest his election loss, was fresh in everyone’s mind.

But it didn’t happen — maybe because the election wasn’t a long, drawn-out fight, and maybe because Trump won. Whatever the reason, the US has bounced back from what appeared to be the brink of a dangerous moment. That doesn’t mean the country couldn’t find itself there soon, too. The recent shooting of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson and the lionization of his alleged killer, Luigi Mangione, revealed that there may be more openness to political violence in the American public than previously thought. And research on mass shooters shows that when a shooter gets a lot of public attention, tends to inspire imitators.

In 2024, however, the worst fears about electoral violence did not materialize.

And it’s not just political violence. Although a student in Wisconsin he killed a classmate and a teacher in December, mass shootings in general appear to have declined in 2024 as well, from 656 incidents in 2023 to 491 in 2024. No one knows exactly why – but it’s undeniably a good thing.

the scourge of the phantom weapons subsides

Thompson’s killing in December was newsworthy for a number of reasons, one of which was that it appeared to be the first high-profile killing using a phantom gun — in this case, one the alleged shooter had imprinted on himself in 3D.

Ghost guns they have no serial numbersmaking it difficult for law enforcement to trace where they came from. For this reason, they are particularly attractive to people who want to commit crimes and not get caught.

They have become a huge problem in recent years, with the number of such weapons recovered from crime scenes increasing a staggering 1,083 percent between 2017 and 2021. Many of these guns were not printed at home, as Mangione’s apparently was, but were sold online as easy-to-assemble kits. Just a phantom weapons maker was responsible for 88% of the weapons recovered during that time.

The government acted quickly to solve the problem. In 2022, the Biden administration said that phantom gun kits and their receivers (or frames) they were subject to the same federal regulations as regular guns — meaning they needed a serial number. The rule has been challenged in the courts, but the Supreme Court appears likely to uphold the law, which the government says is necessary to crack down on untraceable guns. Meanwhile, the gun manufacturer responsible for most of the guns that turn up at crime scenes was hit with lawsuits. Appear they have since closed. According to an analysis by Followthe number of ghost guns recovered from crime scenes is now decreasing in several cities.

Of course, the United States still has too many guns—and a regulatory system that resembles Swiss cheese. As long as this is the case, the country will likely face high levels of gun deaths. But this year’s developments show that the situation is not hopeless. Meaningful attempts to address gun violence and regulate firearms are working and can save lives.