FBI: US Homicide Rate at 51-Year Low

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FBI: US Homicide Rate at 51-Year Low

21 HOURS AGO Ryan McMaken

 

The US homicide rate in 2014, the most recent year available, was 4.5 per 100,000. The 2014 total follows a long downward trend and is the lowest homicide rate recorded since 1963 when the rate was 4.6 per 100,000. To find a lower homicide rate, we must travel back to 1957 when the total homicide rate hit 4.0 per 100,000.

 

Homicide rates were considerably higher in the United States during the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, but over the past 25 years, have fallen nearly continuously:

 

Ask the average American if crime is falling in the United States, however, and you're unlikely to hear about how homicide is at a 50-year low.

 

Public Unaware that Homicide Rates Have Fallen

As Pew has reported in recent years, in fact, the American public is "unaware" that the homicide rate in the United States has fallen by 49 percent over the past twenty years. And while Pew doesn't report on it, it's also a safe bet that the public is also unaware that homicide rates have collapsed as total gun ownership in the United States has increased significantly.

 

Over a recent 20 year period, the number of new guns in the US that were either manufactured in the US or imported into the US increased 141 percent from 6.6 million new guns in 1994 to 16 million in 2013. That means a gross total of 132 million new guns were added into the US population over that time period.