Gun Country: Gun Sales and Crime Statistics in the U.S.

Key Statistics

• An estimated 15.5 million guns were sold in the U.S. in 2025, down from the peak of 22.7 million in 2020.
• Wyoming leads with 161 guns sold per 1,000 residents in 2024, while D.C. has just 7.5 per 1,000—a 21-fold difference driven by local regulations and cultural factors.
• High gun sales don’t correlate with high gun crime: Wyoming has the nation’s highest sales rate, but only 29% of assaults involve firearms. D.C. has the lowest sales rate, yet 80% of murders involve guns.
• 74% of murders nationwide involved guns in 2024, though state variation is dramatic, ranging from 33% in North Dakota to 85% in Virginia.
• Gun suicide rates closely track ownership in rural states: Western states with the highest sales—Wyoming (21.2 per 100,000), Alaska (18.3), and Montana (17.7)—reported the highest firearm suicide rates.

Five years ago, the U.S. saw an extraordinary surge in gun purchases. Pandemic anxiety, civil unrest, and political uncertainty converged in 2020, sending background checks to record highs. Since then, the firearm market has cooled. At the same time, violent crime fell 4.5 percent in 2024, including a nearly 15 percent drop in murders, according to the FBI’s most recent national crime statistics release. However, guns are still the primary weapons used in homicides and suicides across the country.

The latest Security.org “Gun Country” update utilizes annual sales estimates, state-level crime data, and firearm mortality rates to provide a state-by-state snapshot of the country’s current standing in 2025 and how that relates to your sense of security at home.

National Gun Sales from 2015 to 2025

The first step is to zoom out and look at the national pattern. Security.org’s estimates are based heavily on the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) data, adjusted using an equation to approximate annual gun purchases. Although it’s an estimate, this remains one of the best trend indicators we have.

Estimated U.S. gun sales by year

From 2015 to 2019, annual sales estimates fluctuated between approximately 13.7 million and 16.7 million. Then 2020 breaks the chart: estimated purchases jump to 22.68 million, followed by elevated but declining totals in 2021 and 2022, and a further slide in 2023 and 2024. The 2025 projection, at 15.5 million, is not far above 2015 levels.

Taken together, these figures indicate a market that has declined from its 2020 peak but has not yet reached a collapse. Even at 2025’s sales level, Americans are still adding more than 15 million firearms to an already enormous civilian stock. The Small Arms Survey estimates that civilians in the U.S. owned about 393 million firearms by the end of 2017—roughly 46 percent of all civilian-held guns worldwide. 

For everyday Americans, this means there is no shortage of firearms in circulation; for policymakers and public health professionals, it means that storage, theft prevention, and safe handling remain critical, even if annual sales continue to slow.

Where Americans Buy the Most Guns: State-Level Sales

At the state level, gun purchasing is far from uniform, and the differences can be dramatic. Rural and Mountain West states tend to have high per-capita sales, often tied to hunting traditions, ranching, and less restrictive local regulations. States like New York or New Jersey maintain significantly lower per-resident sales rates, despite having millions of residents.

The tables below display the highest and lowest 2024 per-capita sales, followed by a comprehensive state-by-state breakdown that includes the changes in those rates since 2015.

States with highest and lowest gun sales rates

In Wyoming, 2024 sales equated to about 161 guns per 1,000 residents—roughly one gun for every six people in a single year. Montana and Alaska were close behind, likely due to their less restrictive firearm laws and their rural geography, which is well-suited for ranching and hunting. On the other end of the spectrum, the District of Columbia had only 7.5 sales per 1,000 residents, with New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts also near the bottom of the list.

D.C.’s unusually low per-capita gun-sales rate is partly explained by the city’s long-standing, highly restrictive firearm regulations—rules that became even tighter in 2024. Unlike most states, D.C. requires registration for all firearms, bans assault weapons and large-capacity magazines, and imposes some of the strictest background-check procedures in the country. The Secure D.C. Omnibus Amendment Act of 2024 further increased penalties for illegal possession and discharge of firearms.

New York and Massachusetts also consistently have some of the lowest per-capita gun-sales rates—21.0 and 31.2 guns per 1,000 residents in 2024, respectively. Both states maintain some of the strictest firearm regulations in the U.S. Both require comprehensive background checks for all gun purchases, mandate permits or licensing for most firearms, and enforce strict safe-storage and transportation rules. New York’s SAFE Act, for example, imposes strong limits on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, while Massachusetts has a tiered licensing system that requires firearms safety courses and interviews.

Total gun sales by state and change over time

The District of Columbia still has the lowest per-capita sales rate, but that rate has increased by about 450 percent since 2015—by far the most significant decade swing. This could be because the gun sales rate is based on background checks, and D.C.’s background check requirements have become even more stringent over the past decade. North Carolina and Iowa have also seen their rates more than double. In Iowa, for example, the handgun purchase age dropped from 21 to 18, allowing more people to be able to purchase firearms.

Meanwhile, Connecticut, Washington, and South Dakota have seen substantial declines in per-resident purchasing. In these states, legislation changes in 2023 and 2024 made it more difficult for residents to buy and sell firearms.

States with the greatest changes in gun sales rates

Per 1,000 residents, 2015-2024

How Often Are Guns Used in Crimes?

Gun sales tell us about legal purchasing. Police reports and crime data reveal something different: when crimes occur, how often is a firearm involved?

The following table looks at 2024 murders, robberies, and assaults, and shows the percentage of each offense type that involved a gun in every state. The latest FBI crime data reveal that violent crime and murders both declined in 2024, even as firearms still play a dominant role in the most serious violent crimes.

It’s worth noting what these percentages represent: the proportion of crimes that involved guns. They don’t measure total crime rates, which vary independently. A state might have low gun involvement percentages but high overall crime rates, or vice versa.

Percentage of crimes involving guns by state, 2024

Nationally, 74 percent of murders in 2024 involved a gun, consistent with long-term trends showing firearms as the primary weapon in homicides. However, state-level data reveal dramatic variation, from just 33 percent of murders involving guns in North Dakota to 85 percent in Virginia. This variation tells us something important: gun involvement in crime isn’t just about availability: it reflects regional culture, urban density, and enforcement patterns.

While gun involvement in murder remains high nationwide, robbery and assault show more variation. Tennessee leads the nation in gun-involved assaults: 56 percent of assaults in 2024 involved firearms. When it came to robberies, Missouri led with 59 percent of robberies involving guns.

The data also reveals an interesting disconnect: some states with high gun ownership rates don’t necessarily have high gun involvement in assault or robbery. This suggests that legal gun ownership and criminal gun use operate in different spheres. States with concentrated urban poverty and weak gun purchasing requirements tend to show elevated rates of gun involvement across crime categories.

Gun-Involved Homicides and Suicides, by State

Even as violent crime fell in 2024, firearm deaths remain stubbornly high. Here, we’ll explore mortality data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The following table shows state gun-death rates per 100,000 people, broken out by suicide, homicide, and totals, for the 12 months ending in April 2025.

Gun homicide and suicide fatality rates by state

12-month period ending April 2025

According to the data, overall gun deaths are highest in New Mexico and Mississippi, where homicide and suicide rates are both above-average. Second, in many Western states—Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, Idaho—the overall firearm death rate is driven predominantly by suicide, while the homicide rate is comparatively low. By contrast, places like the District of Columbia show relatively low firearm suicide rates but very high homicide rates.

Unlike the weak relationship between gun sales and crime involvement, gun-involved suicides show a clearer pattern. The Western states with the nation’s highest gun sales rates also report the highest suicide rates. Wyoming has a firearm suicide rate of 21.2 per 100,000. Montana records 17.7 firearm suicides per 100,000. Alaska reported 18.3 gun-involved suicides per 100,000. This pattern aligns with extensive public-health research showing that access to a firearm increases the lethality of suicide attempts.

By contrast, states with the lowest gun sales report dramatically lower suicide rates, though there were some exceptions. Massachusetts had just 2.3 firearm suicides per 100,000. New York reported 2.6 suicides per 100,000. New Jersey reports 2.3 suicides per 100,000.

Firearm homicides, however, tell a different story. They show little correlation with gun sales rates. For example, the District of Columbia has the nation’s lowest gun sales rate, yet the highest firearm homicide rate (18.6 per 100,000). Meanwhile, Wyoming has the highest sales rate but one of the lowest homicide rates (2.4 per 100,000). The data reveal that gun deaths are not a monolithic problem and can’t be solved through legislation alone.

What Comes Next

Gun sales are stabilizing after the 2020 surge, violent crime declined in 2024, and yet firearm deaths remain persistently high—driven by suicide in rural areas and homicide in urban centers.

For homeowners and families making security decisions, national trends matter less than local realities on their own streets. The challenges facing a rural Montana community are fundamentally different from those in urban St. Louis or suburban Massachusetts. Crime patterns, gun prevalence, and risk factors vary dramatically by location.

That’s why understanding your specific area is essential. Review your state and local crime statistics. If you own firearms, prioritize safe storage: research consistently shows this reduces both theft and suicide risk. If you’re concerned about break-ins or violent crime, focus on proven home security measures, including quality locks, adequate lighting, alarm systems, and maintaining a sense of neighborhood awareness.

At Security.org, our mission is to help you make informed decisions about protecting your home and family. The path forward isn’t one-size-fits-all, but high-quality data on sales, crime, and mortality give you a foundation for choices that reflect your community’s actual risks—not national headlines or assumptions.

Methodology and data

Gun sales: To calculate the number of gun sales per year and the rate of gun sales per 1,000 adults, we used information from the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which reports the number and type of gun background checks for each year since 1998. As mentioned earlier, we utilized a formula established by the Small Arms Survey, a global firearms research project, to analyze this dataset and estimate the number of gun sales in a given year.

That formula requires combining the number of background checks for handguns and long guns with double the number of multiple background checks (which involves checking for at least one handgun and one long gun) and then multiplying that number by 1.05. This gives us a total estimated number of guns purchased through federally licensed firearms dealers. We then compared those figures to the number of adults in each state to create a population-adjusted rate. Our data includes all 50 states and the District of Columbia, but excludes U.S. territories.

Gun crimes: Our data are based on the FBI’s annual Crime in the United States report for 2024. We consulted national tables covering weapons used in crimes and similar tables for the states.

Gun deaths: We consulted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Mapping Injury, Overdose, and Violence Dashboard (version date: September 5, 2025), which lists underlying causes of death and population-adjusted rates for Americans going back to 1999. Our report includes population-adjusted state rates for deaths from firearm homicide, deaths from firearm suicide, as well as all firearm-related deaths, which include suicide, homicide, unintentional injury, legal intervention, and undetermined intent. The rates in this report were based on the most recent set available at the time of publication, covering the period from May 2024 to April 2025.