For Release: Thursday, February 26, 2026
Mississippi, New Mexico, Alaska, Alabama, and Wyoming Have Highest Gun Death Rates in the Nation
Hawaii, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island Have Lowest Gun Death Rates in the Nation
Washington, DC — Just-released data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that states with the highest rates of overall gun death in the nation are those with weaker gun violence prevention laws and higher rates of gun ownership according to a new Violence Policy Center (VPC) analysis.
In contrast, the five states with the lowest overall gun death rates have stronger gun violence prevention laws and lower rates of gun ownership.
The VPC analysis uses just-published 2024 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) WONDER data and presents overall gun death rates state by state for 2024, which is the most recent year for which data are available. The deaths include gun homicides, suicides, and unintentional shootings. Tables of the states with the five highest overall gun death rates and the five lowest overall gun death rates are below. For a list of overall gun death rates in all 50 states, see https://www.vpc.org/state-firearm-death-rates-ranked-by-rate-2024/.
The state with the highest gun death rate in 2024 was Mississippi, followed by New Mexico, Alaska, Alabama, and Wyoming. The state with the lowest gun death rate in the nation was Hawaii, followed by Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island.
The total number of Americans killed by gunfire in 2024 was 44,447, a five percent decrease from 46,728 in 2023. The nationwide overall gun death rate decreased from 13.7 per 100,000 in 2023 to 12.8 per 100,000 in 2024.
While the number of firearm homicides decreased by 14 percent from 17,927 in 2023 to 15,364 in 2024, firearm suicides increased by one percent — from 27,300 in 2023 to 27,593 in 2024.
VPC Government Affairs Director Kristen Rand states, “The evidence could not be more compelling that states with more guns and weaker gun laws have far higher rates of gun death. The inescapable conclusion is that reducing exposure to firearms and implementing stronger gun laws saves lives.”
States with stronger gun violence prevention laws were defined as those that add significant state regulation that is absent from federal law, such as restricting access to particularly hazardous and deadly types of firearms (for example, assault weapons), setting minimum safety standards for firearms and/or requiring a permit to purchase a firearm, and restrictions on the open and concealed carrying of firearms in public. States with weaker gun violence prevention laws were defined as those that add little or nothing to federal law and have permissive laws governing the open or concealed carrying of firearms in public.
State gun ownership rates were obtained from the April 2020 RAND article by Terry L. Schell, et al., “State-Level Estimates of Household Firearm Ownership,” which is the most recent comprehensive published data available on state gun ownership. This publication can be viewed here: https://www.rand.org/pubs/tools/TL354.html.
***
The Violence Policy Center is a national educational organization working to stop gun death and injury. Follow the VPC on X/Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and BlueSky.
