The Trace2%
By the Numbers: Shootings Decrease, But Gun Sales Are Up 14%
By Aaron Mendelson15%
7/15/2026, 12:00:00 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 22 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Authority, Negativity Bias, and Anecdotal, with Post Hoc (False Cause) as the most egregious example at 11.4% saturation with 140 hits. Analysis detected 933 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,223 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 25.1% and a BS Rank of 14% (22,218 of 25,564 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 86.90% of the article peer group.
Gun violence is down, significantly, as gun sales are ticking up for the first time in years.
Meanwhile, data on ghost guns, medical care for gunshot wounds, and attitudes toward firearms among LGBTQ+ Americans rounds out this second quarter edition of 92 Days In Gun Violence.
In these dispatches, we seek to track trends in gun violence in real time (or as close as the data allows), and to keep tabs on reporting and research.
Here’s what The Trace’s Gun Violence Data Hub is monitoring through the first six months of 2026.
A Sharp Drop In Shootings
Shooting deaths and injuries remain at historic lows in the United States, continuing the trend seen in Q1 and in recent years.
Data from the Gun Violence Archive shows 6,458 shooting deaths, and 11,781 shooting injuries in the first six months of the year.
Both represent the lowest number since 2015.
The per-capita figure of 1.9 shooting deaths per 100,000 Americans is also the lowest in that span.
Still, a few states have seen increases in shooting deaths, including New Hampshire, Connecticut, Iowa, and Massachusetts.
These are smaller population states, so a few incidents can have a big impact; a June mass shooting in Iowa helps explain that state’s increase this year.
The numbers beg an obvious question: Why is the country seeing huge declines in shootings?
As crime data analyst Jeff Asher told The Trace in May, there are several dimensions to consider:
One, it’s happening everywhere, so it’s probably not local factors.
Two, it happened at a time of decreased police presence.
We have fewer officers everywhere.
Three, it happened at a time when we haven’t solved the root causes of crime.
It’s not like we fixed poverty and education.
Those are still obviously major issues.
Four, the country is still awash in guns.
Gun sales are still at elevated levels.
Five, there hasn’t been some major breakthrough in policing efficiency.
Clearance rates plunged in 2020.
Now they’re rising again, but that probably has more to do with the fact that murder is falling than anything else.
Federal spending and violence interruption programs have also likely influenced trends in shootings, Asher said.
Despite the positive trendline, gun violence remains widespread.
Thousands of families lost loved ones in the last three months alone.
There are important caveats here — GVA does not capture every shooting.
It can enter or update data on shootings weeks or months after they happen.
(These numbers were pulled from GVA on July 6.)
It also does not track gun suicides, which represent over half of all shooting deaths.
Still, GVA represents the most complete, timely information available.
Users can explore trends in shootings — including quarterly breakdowns by state — on our Atlas of American Gun Violence .
An estimated 7.3 million firearms have been sold in the United States — about 4.5 million handguns and another 2.8 million long guns.
That would be enough to arm every single resident of Tennessee.
The numbers represent a 2.7 percent increase in gun sales through six months compared to 2025.
This marks the first time in six years that we’ve seen an increase in sales.
While the uptick is notable, the raw total is still lower than any year from 2020 to 2024.
A handful of states are posting huge increases compared to the first six months of last year.
These include three states where legislation to restrict gun buying advanced or took effect:
Virginia, where a suite of gun safety laws, including a currently paused ban on assault-style weapons, were signed by Governor Abigail Spanberger.
The state’s gun sales soared 73 percent this year.
The state’s 117,802 sales in June 2026 were the highest of any state, despite Virginia ranking 12th in population.
Connecticut, where dealers say a proposed “Glock ban” propelled an increase of 25 percent.
Rhode Island, where a ban on assault-style weapons took effect on July 1, 2026.
In the first six months of the year, gun sales climbed 86 percent higher than in 2025.
The numbers are estimates calculated by The Trace using FBI data.
You can read more about the process and explore national and state trends here .
The U.S. recorded a slight increase in mass shootings through two quarters, with 206 mass shootings, according to GVA.
That’s an increase from last year, when the number was 193, though it’s down from the post-pandemic years when the number exceeded 300 multiple times.
GVA’s definition of mass shootings is wider than some: “a minimum of four victims shot, either injured or killed, not including any shooter who may also have been killed or injured in the incident.”
While mass shootings attract significant media attention, the data shows the daily toll of gun violence is a far bigger killer.
Mass shootings accounted for just 3.2 percent of shooting deaths tracked by GVA in 2026.
One New Thing: Do Hospitals Discharge Gunshot Wound Patients Faster When They’re Uninsured?
That’s the question posed by a new Trace story , titled “Florida Hospitals Act Fast To Discharge Gun Victims — Especially If They’re Not Insured.”
The reporting effort, a collaboration with KFF Health News, reviewed insurance data from Florida hospitals.
Uninsured gunshot victims had hospital stays of about six days on average, the analysis showed, only three-quarters of the time spent by patients with private insurance and less than half the average stay for patients on traditional Medicaid.
The journalists also share the story of Alea Bates, a Tallahassee-based Uber Eats driver who was shot seven times in December 2019, in a seemingly random act of violence.
Bates had lost her job and her insurance just two months before being shot.
Partnership Spotlight: Ghost Guns in Northern California
An in-depth look at ghost guns in Sonoma County, California, ran on A1 of the Sunday Santa Rosa Press Democrat in mid-May.
Investigative reporter Phil Barber drew on numbers obtained by the Gun Violence Data Hub to explore the persistence of ghost guns in the Northern California county.
He wrote:
As numbers have fallen elsewhere, ghost guns have remained stubbornly prevalent in Sonoma County.
“We haven’t seen a decline,” [Sonoma County Sheriff Eddie] Engram said flatly.
“I would say that we’ve probably seen a steady increase year over year.
Just because they’re relatively easy to come by, and to produce on your own.”
We’re working on updating the data that the Press Democrat used with newly released figures.
Academic Spotlight: Attitudes Toward Guns in LGBTQ+ Communities
The second Trump administration has seen a flurry of media coverage of LGBTQ+ gun owners, but data on the group remains scarce.
A new survey of firearm attitudes among LGBTQ+ communities polled 1,170 people and offered some relevant findings (though it’s worth noting, the survey was performed in late 2023, and remains a preprint).
The survey found that most respondents didn’t own a gun, but that about half reported having a family member who does.
Those with family access to a firearm, but who didn’t own one, “were twice as likely as firearm owners to report recent suicidal ideation,” the report states, underscoring the importance of mental health care and safe storage practices.
It also found that, for 25 percent of the respondents, the passage of anti-LBGTQ+ laws had increased their interest in buying a firearm.
Analysis
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