These numbers come from the CDC WISQARS Fatal Injury Report and Nonfatal Injury Report, cross-referenced with the FBI Uniform Crime Report. All data is for calendar year 2015. Hover over each slice of the pie to see the data.
This data is also incomplete as I need to cross-reference the population numbers provided by the CDC with the murder offender and victim numbers provided by the FBI to get an “offenders per 100,000” and “murder victims per 100,000”, so this article will be amended at a later date to represent that.
Suicide
Homicide
Murder victims (all weapons)
- “SO/SV” = single offender, single victim — i.e. “one on one”
- Other includes
- multiple offender, single victim
- multiple offender, multiple victims
- single offender, multiple victims
Non-fatal assaults involving a firearm
Unintentional injuries by firearm
Murder offenders (all weapons)
Summaries
Suicide by firearm:
- More white males overall killing themselves by firearm than all other race and gender demographics, combined.
- On an uninterrupted upward trend since 2007.
Homicide by firearm:
- National homicide by firearm rate for 2015: 4.04 per 100,000
- Black males are the majority of firearm homicide victims (53.2%)
- Black males outnumber other demographics in age categories from age 10 through age 49, with peak numbers observed in the age 20-24 demographic
- In rate per 100,000, blacks outpace all other racial groups in all age categories except 75-79 years and 85+.
- Homicide by firearm rate for blacks peaks in the 20-24 age group at 49.41, over 12.2x the national homicide by firearm rate
- Asian/Pacific Islander demographic consistently has the lowest firearm homicide rate across all age groups
Murder victims, all weapons (as opposed to homicide):
- Males outnumber females in overall numbers of murder victims, and across all age groups except 75+.
- Black males represent the plurality of murder victims (45.5%) and majority of male murder victims (57.6%)
- Blacks outnumber other races for murder victims from age groups 13 to 39.
- Over 3 in 5 black murder victims was killed in circumstances wherein there were multiple perpetrators, multiple victims, or both
- Handguns and knives are the weapons of choice for committing murder, with handguns making up the majority of murder weapons
- Almost 2.5x as many people are murdered by “personal weapons” (hands, fists, feet, etc.) than rifles
- Over 6x as many are murdered by knives than rifles
- Slightly more are murdered by shotguns than rifles
Assault with a firearm:
- Where race of the victim is known:
- Black males outnumber white males almost 3 to 1
- Black females outnumber white females by over 2 to 1
- Black males outnumber everyone else in all age groups except 55-64
- Number of black male victims peaks in the 20-24 demographic with 7,215
Murder offenders (all weapons):
- Where race is known, blacks account for almost 3 in 8 murder offenders, despite making up just 1 in 8 of the general population in the United States
- In single offender, single victim circumstances, blacks slightly outnumber whites in overall numbers, accounting for 47.8% of offenders
- Blacks outnumber whites as murder offenders in age groups from 13 to 29
