The Year in Gun Violence Solutions

The US federal government hasn’t made it easier to prevent shootings. Cities and states are picking up the slack. Since 2022, when the COVID-19 spike began to slow, we’ve been documenting one of the sharpest drops in violence in American history. Early on, there was a plausible case that the “great decline” was just a function of how bad the COVID spike was. That is, because violence spiked so much during the pandemic, there was more room for it to fall back down.

But 2025 is showing that the declines are not simply a reversion to the mean. Take crime data from the nation’s police departments, for example. It’s early, but it shows that the United States may finish 2025 with one of the lowest — if not the lowest — rates of homicide ever recorded, according to preliminary data from the Real-Time Crime Index. The declines aren’t limited to a few lucky places. Every region, most states, and a majority of cities are experiencing declines. And because gun homicides make up the vast majority of homicides in the United States, the overall decline in homicides is dependent on a similarly significant decline in shootings.

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