The Eagle, February 2025
The Gun Violence Archive is a nonprofit digital database that houses detailed information on gun injuries and deaths. It began tracking shootings through media and police reports in 2014. By the end of 2023, a decade of data had been amassed, and The Trace looked for patterns. As reported in its series “A Decade of American Gun Violence,” The Trace found the hidden toll of shootings in rural areas, near schools, and on the road. Here are some of the biggest takeaways.
You’re more likely to be shot in the rural South than in big cities like Chicago. Gun violence is often associated with urban areas, but The Trace’s review found that half of all shootings occurred outside large cities, in communities of fewer than 1 million people. Thirteen of the 20 towns and cities with the highest rates of shootings were located in the South. Clarksdale, Mississippi; Selma, Alabama; and Laurinburg, North Carolina—each with a metro population of less than 100,000 people—were among the places that saw more people shot per capita in 2023 than Chicago, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C.
