Research Guides: Gun Violence and Gun Control : Statistics & Public Opinions

Statistics

Tips:
For quick, up-to-date, at-a-glance stats on gun violence, check the RAND, Gun Violence in America Report, GVA, or Mass Shooter Database. To drill down the datasets, check the sources from ATF, BJS, CDC or FBI.

RAND > Gun Policy in America > Tools & Data
Data includes inpatient hospitalizations for firearm injury, state-level estimates of household firearm ownership, and state firearm law database
GVA (Gun Violence Archive) - Florida Stats
From the Gun Violence Archive.
Gun Violence in America report (from Everytown Research & Policy)
Everytown for Gun Safety focuses on awareness and educational work related to gun violence prevention. The Report (2022) presents statistics from their original research and various other sources.
GVA (Gun Violence Archive)
At-a-glance, up-to-date data and maps on gun violence since 2013.
Mass Shooter Database, 1966-2022 (from The Violence Project)
An up-to-date database to find data on the shooters, their backgrounds, guns & motivations, and locations.
ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives) Data & Statistics
A comprehensive collection of ATF-related data from national surveys, state-based surveys, other collected license statistics, and other data sources documents trends in firearms, commerce, and use of federal services in the United States. Includes Annual Firearms Manufacturers and Export Report, Federal Firearms Licensee Theft/Loss Report, and Firearms Trace Data
National Firearms Commerce and Trafficking Assessment (NFCTA): Crime Guns - Volume Two * (New, Feb. 2023)
From AP News:"The most expansive federal report in over two decades on guns and crime shows a shrinking turnaround between the time a gun was purchased and when it was recovered from a crime scene, indicating firearms bought legally are more quickly being used in crimes around the country.
It also documents a spike in the use of conversion devices that make a semiautomatic gunfire like a machine gun, along with the growing seizure of so-called ghost guns, privately made firearms that are hard to trace."
BJS (Bureau of Justice Statistics)
From the U.S. Department of Justice. Topics include firearm violence, gun control, and victims of crime.
BJS > Arrest-Related Deaths (ARD)
From the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Includes 2003-2012 data on extrajudicial killings or police use of excessive force. More general FBI Use of Force data is included in their Crime Data Explorer.
BJS > National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS)
From the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Include stats on the use of weapons in non-fatal crimes
CDC > Firearm Mortality by State
Shows the number of deaths per 100,000 total population at the state level. Source: https://wonder.cdc.gov
CDC > WISQARS (Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System)
An interactive, online database that provides fatal and nonfatal injury, leading causes of death and injury, violent death, and cost of injury data
CDC > WONDER (Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiological Research)
Similar to CDC's WISQARS, but has different characteristics. WONDER online databases provide data dissemination, online data query capabilities, analysis, visualization and reporting for public health data collections, using a variety of data sources, unlike WISQARS.
FBI > Crime Data Explorer
Derived from Summary Reporting System (SRS) and National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) reports voluntarily submitted to the FBI. Digital front door for FBI's UCR (Uniform Crime Report) data. Search by state and year.
FBI > Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted (LEOKA)
Includes 1996-2019 data on law enforcement officers who were feloniously killed, accidentally killed, and assaulted in the line of duty. Summaries of such incidents are available in the documents.

Public Opinions: Polls & Surveys

iPoll Databank (database)
IPOLL, from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, is a full-text database of 500,000 questions from national public opinion surveys since 1935 and is updated daily. iPOLL includes survey results data from academic, commercial, and media survey organizations such as Gallup, Harris Interactive, Pew Research Associates, ABC, CBS, Wall Street Journal, and many more. Many data sets are available for download in ASCII or SPSS format.
PollingReport.com
An independent, nonpartisan resource on trends in American public opinion. Shows a report of polls from different sources. E.g., Guns- related polls at https://www.pollingreport.com/guns.htm
ICPSR (Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research)
Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research maintains and provides access to a vast archive of social science data for research and instruction. The collection includes CBS News/New York Times Poll Series, National Poll on Healthy Aging, and over 3,000 polls on various topics.
World Public Opinion
An international collaborative project, a source for public opinion around the world on international issues

For more sources on polls and public opinion data, click here.

Tips:
Search the survey or polling agency websites using gun as a keyword. For example, GSS has about 20 variables related to guns over the years including public opinion questions (favor/oppose restrictions), gun ownership, and even if respondents have ever been threatened with a gun.

General Social Survey (GSS)
A nationally representative survey of adults in the United States conducted since 1972. The GSS collects data on contemporary American society in order to monitor and explain trends in opinions, attitudes and behaviors. From the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago.
Pew Research Center
A nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. A source for public opinion polling, demographic research, content analysis and other data-driven social science research. Search the site with poll subject
Gallup
Around for over 80 years with nonpartisan analysis of global issues. Some contents are freely available on the website. Search the site with poll subject.
Harris Poll
One of the longest-running surveys in the U.S. tracking public opinion, motivations, and social sentiment since 1963
KFF Polling
From Kaiser Family Foundation, a good source in health policy analysis, polling, and health journalism
Quinnipiac / Poll
From the Department of Public Affairs at Quinnipiac University
Rasmussen Reports
A nonpartisan analysis of political, economic and lifestyle issues.
Zogby Analytics
Since 1984. Search the site with poll subject
Eurobarometer
Public opinion in the European Union