SOURCE FILE · GUN VIOLENCE
These are the gun violence numbers for January 1 through August 31, 2026, as counted by the Gun Violence Archive and the CDC. The letters are collected at Orange June; this is the arithmetic underneath them.
2026 So Far
Gun Violence Archive, which counts from police reports and media coverage in near-real time. These are dated snapshots of a live counter, so each line carries the day it was read.
8,577 gun deaths and 15,873 gun injuries, as of August 29.
At least 320 mass shootings, as of August 30 — four or more people shot, wounded or killed, not counting the shooter. The count was 271 on July 27, 280 on August 3, and 317 on August 29.
Gun Violence Archive — Mass Shootings in 2026 · USA TODAY, Aug 30, 2026
13 mass murders — four or more killed, not merely shot — as of August 3, unchanged from July 27.
371 children age 0–11 shot and 2,071 teenagers age 12–17 shot, as of August 3. On July 27 those figures were 356 and 2,012.
Nearly 700 of the dead were 17 or younger, as of August 17.
730 unintentional shootings and 481 defensive-use incidents, as of July 27.
Through the first six months of 2026: 6,458 shooting deaths and 11,781 shooting injuries. Shooting deaths and injuries are at historic lows in the Archive's records, and mass shootings have returned to pre-COVID levels.
What That Number Leaves Out
The single largest reason two people can quote different gun-death totals for the same year and both be reading real data.
The Gun Violence Archive's headline death count does not include suicides. Roughly 22,000 annual suicides are absent from its daily summary ledger.
Gun Violence Archive · Gun Violence Archive — Past Summary Ledgers
The Archive removed its CDC-based suicide extrapolations from the ledger, saying it would not restore them until it could produce a more accurate and timely figure.
Suicides were 62 percent of all firearm deaths in 2024. The category left off the running counter is the larger half of the problem.
2025, The Last Complete Year
CDC figures, published August 2026. The most recent full year for which certified federal data exists.
42,348 people died of gunshot wounds in 2025 — down about 5 percent from 2024, and the lowest total in six years.
More than 28,000 of them were suicides — the highest number on record, in data going back to 1968. The 2024 figure was nearly 27,600.
The overall decline was driven almost entirely by falling gun homicides. Deaths went down; suicides went up.
The South accounted for nearly half of all U.S. gun deaths in 2025. The Northeast had the fewest.
Gun suicide rose most among Black and Hispanic Americans.
Children And Schools
School-shooting counts differ between trackers because the definitions differ. Everytown counts every time a firearm discharges a live round on or into a school campus; other trackers require injury or death, or exclude colleges.
Firearms are the leading cause of death for children ages 1 to 17 in the United States.
In 2025, Everytown documented at least 159 incidents of gunfire on school grounds, resulting in 53 deaths and 148 injuries.
Everytown Research — Gunfire on School Grounds · Gunfire at K–12 Schools by Year
For 2026, the trackers do not agree, and the gap is definitional rather than factual. Everytown counted at least 18 incidents of gunfire on K–12 grounds through comparable May data; the K-12 School Shooting Database counted about 42 K–12 incidents through April 23; Education Week counted 18 shootings resulting in injury or death; CNN counted 24 incidents through April 28, of which 15 were K–12.
Everytown Research · Education Week — School Shootings This Year
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★ The Hole
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