Firearm Homicide Rates by Race, Ethnicity and Sex, United States, 2021

Firearm homicide rates in the United States differ by sex and by race and Hispanic origin. A QuickStats chart from CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, published in MMWR, shows the 2021 figures from national death certificate data.

Age-adjusted rates of firearm-related homicide by race, Hispanic origin and sex, 2021 (CDC/NCHS).

The 2021 numbers

Rates are deaths per 100,000 people, age-adjusted to the 2000 U.S. standard population.

• By sex: 11.1 for males and 2.1 for females.
• Among males: Black males had the highest rate, 52.9, and Asian males the lowest, 1.5.
• Among females: Black females had the highest rate, 7.5, and Asian females the lowest, 0.5.
• In every race and Hispanic origin group, males had higher rates than females.

About the data

• Firearm homicides are deaths whose underlying cause on the death certificate is coded U01.4 or X93–X95 in the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision.
• Race groups exclude Hispanic people; Hispanic people can be of any race. Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander people are not shown separately because their numbers are small, but they are included in the overall figures.
• Rates for Asian, American Indian or Alaska Native, and Hispanic people may be affected by misclassification of race and Hispanic origin on death certificates.

CDC's Vital Signs report on firearm deaths has more on this topic.

Sources

• Garnett MF, Spencer MR. "QuickStats: Age-Adjusted Rates of Firearm-Related Homicide, by Race, Hispanic Origin, and Sex — National Vital Statistics System, United States, 2021," MMWR Vol. 72, No. 26, CDC, using National Vital Statistics System mortality data; a work of the United States government in the public domain.