Gun murders decreased in most mid-to-large cities in 2023

It's easier to fall off the ceiling than the floor, but public safety actors and advocates deserve credit for turning the tide against the pandemic-era surge in homicides.

The FBI won’t release their 2023 stats until this fall. In the meantime, I’ve used Gun Violence Archive data to analyze firearm homicides in over 1000 cities. Here I describe trends among cities with populations > 100,000.

First, the good *in-context* news, with caveats: very few cities are still headed in the wrong direction, notably D.C., Memphis, and Dallas. Sharp year-over-year increases in firearm homicides in smaller cities like New Haven, Shreveport, and Wichita are also alarming despite their negligible impact on the national firearm homicide rate.

Next, the overwhelmingly good news: fewer people were murdered with a gun in most US cities in 2023 compared to 2022. People working in public safety, criminal justice, community-based programs, and as first responders and emergency medical providers deserve enormous credit for their efforts. Murders fall when shooters are apprehended, punished, and deterred. More gunshot victims survive when response times are fast and quality emergency medical care is available.

Still, it’s too soon to declare mission accomplished: roughly 1/2 of “positive trend” cities depicted above still aren’t back to pre-pandemic firearm homicide levels.

It’s easier to fall off the ceiling than the floor.

Finally: we must keep sounding the alarm about community gun violence, even when the numbers are improving.

The Chicago Sun Times published a compelling editorial about this last week in response to a mass shooting at a birthday party that took the life of a 9-year-old girl and injured ten others, including three additional children ages 1, 8, and 9. A graph showing that shootings fell in Chicago in 2023 won’t comfort these families, and it shouldn’t comfort us, either.

Drawing attention to the substantial human toll of firearm violence in too many American cities is not moral panic. It’s rational outrage.