By Larry Keane
As Gun Possession Surges, Homicide Charges Fall
Since COVID-era uncertainty started, hundreds of thousands of People purchased firearms, many for the primary time. Critics insisted that extra weapons in personal palms would inevitably imply extra violent crime and extra felony misuse of firearms — a nationwide slide into a contemporary “Wild West.” The newest nationwide and city-level knowledge don’t assist that declare. Whilst lawful gun possession expanded dramatically, violent crime, murder and a number of other firearm-involved crimes have trended downward lately.
This isn’t a declare that weapons “trigger” crime to fall. Crime is pushed by offender conduct, enforcement, prosecution and native situations. However it’s a direct rebuttal to the overly simplistic gun management speaking level that will increase in lawful gun possession will completely enhance homicide and firearm violence.
Document Enhance in Lawful Possession Since COVID
The USA added tens of hundreds of thousands of first-time gun homeowners since 2020. NSSF estimates about 26.2 million People purchased their first firearm between 2020 by way of the tip of 2024, together with an estimated 8.4 million first-time patrons in 2020 alone. NSSF-adjusted verification background checks tied to retail gross sales counsel People bought roughly 21.1 million firearms in 2020 and about 14.6 million in 2025.
NSSF reviews these adjusted checks remained above a million monthly for years, totaling roughly 86 million since July 2019. On the identical time, the FBI’s Nationwide Immediate Felony Background Verify System (NICS) operations reporting reveals 2020 produced 39,695,315 unadjusted NICS background checks, the very best 12 months within the historical past of the system.
If “extra weapons equals extra murders” have been a reliable rule, that is the interval when the development ought to be unmistakable and chronic. Besides it isn’t.
What the FBI Experiences for 2024
The FBI’s nationwide estimates present broad declines. In its 2024 abstract report, the FBI estimates violent crime fell 4.5 % from 2023 to 2024, and homicide and nonnegligent manslaughter fell 14.9 %.
For a debate typically framed round “gun violence,” the felony misuse of firearms traits matter. The FBI reviews aggravated assaults involving a firearm decreased 8.6 % from 2023 to 2024, dropping from 289,938 reported offenses to 264,988. The estimated homicide price proven within the FBI report fell to five.0 per 100,000 individuals in 2024, down from 5.9 in 2023 and under the pandemic-era peak.
The Pandemic Spike Was Actual — and It Didn’t Grow to be a ‘New Regular’
Homicides rose sharply throughout the early pandemic interval, and the information ought to be acknowledged actually. The FBI reported homicide and nonnegligent manslaughter elevated 29.4 % from 2019 to 2020. However the declare at concern isn’t whether or not violence spiked in 2020, it’s whether or not rising lawful gun possession essentially drives murders upward over time.
Latest firearm-homicide traits squash that assumption. Pew Analysis Heart’s evaluation of CDC mortality knowledge reviews gun murders fell from a file 20,958 in 2021 to 17,927 in 2023, and the gun homicide price declined from 6.7 per 100,000 individuals in 2021 to five.6 in 2023.
In plain phrases, the U.S. skilled an unlimited enhance in lawful gun possession after 2020, but firearm murder has moved down considerably from its pandemic peak.
Metropolis-Degree Knowledge Inform the Identical Story
Metropolis reporting additionally factors to a downward development in deadly violence. The Council on Felony Justice’s Yr-Finish 2024 replace discovered homicides in its research cities have been 16 % decrease in 2024 than in 2023, representing 631 fewer homicides. The identical report recorded 15 % fewer “gun assaults” in 2024 than in 2023, alongside declines in theft and different offenses.
Extra present, real-time indicators counsel 2025 continued that progress. Crime analyst Jeff Asher, utilizing Actual Time Crime Index knowledge, mentioned murders fell almost 20 % nationwide from 2024 to 2025, after a 13 % decline the earlier 12 months. The identical evaluation cited broad declines in robberies, property crime and aggravated assaults, and reported Chicago noticed about 30 % fewer homicides than in 2024.
When a number of unbiased sources present multi-year, double-digit murder declines throughout many jurisdictions, the concept lawful gun possession essentially drives the nation towards larger homicide charges turns into exhausting to defend.
Bruen and the Crime Wave That By no means Materialized
After the U.S. Supreme Courtroom’s 2022 Bruen choice, gun-control advocates and politicians warned that increasing lawful carry would set off extra shootings and murders. But, utilizing Actual Time Crime Index instruments, the 12-month working common of violent crime fell 14 % from June 2022 by way of October 2025, whereas murders fell 39 % over the identical interval. That evaluation additionally notes the index attracts from a pattern of 570 businesses and reviews its proportional combine tracks inside about 2 % of FBI UCR proportions. Though some states tried to bypass the imagined future results of the Bruen choice, a federal appellate court docket lately struck down California’s ban on brazenly carrying firearms in most elements of the state, ruling California’s restrictions on open carry in counties with greater than 200,000 residents—masking about 95 % of the state’s inhabitants—ran afoul of the Bruen choice. In response, Gov. Gavin Newsom predictably blasted the choice as “reckless” and warned it may “return California to the times of the Wild West.”
That’s to not say this single court docket choice “brought on” crime to fall, simply that the anticipated surge in murders didn’t happen, at the same time as lawful carry expanded. What was pitched as a return to “Wild West” justice in America turned out to be nothing greater than a peaceable prairie, full with homesteaders armed to defend themselves if mandatory.
What Policymakers Ought to Be taught
With specialists touting one of many largest one-year drops in homicides ever recorded in 2025, its clear: America can see will increase in lawful gun possession with out mechanically seeing will increase in violent crime or firearm murders. This reality ought to form the coverage debate greater than a untimely assumption of law-abiding gun homeowners’ future actions.
If the target is fewer felony shootings and fewer homicides, the simplest levers are those tied to felony conduct: figuring out repeat violent offenders, disrupting unlawful gun trafficking, prosecuting prohibited possessors and restoring the understanding that critical violence brings critical penalties.
The predictable “Wild West” blood-in-the-streets declare could also be rhetorically helpful for gun management advocates to advance their antigun political agenda, however it isn’t supported by the present crime knowledge.
Larry Keane is Senior Vice President of Authorities and Public Affairs and Normal Counsel for the Nationwide Capturing Sports activities Basis, the firearms business commerce affiliation.
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