Methodology

To identify the states where the most murders are committed with a gun, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed data from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program. States are ranked by the share of homicides that were committed with a firearm in 2020.

In many states, not all reported homicides have an associated weapon type, and only states for which at least 75% of murders had an associated weapon were considered. As a result, five states – Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, and Pennsylvania – were excluded from analysis.

We also considered the homicide rate – or the total number of homicides committed in 2020 for every 100,000 people in a given state – as reported by the FBI.