U.S. on Track for Another Record-Low Homicide Rate

According to recently released FBI data, murders dropped by an astounding 18.1% last year. The statistics for 2025 are still preliminary, but if the final numbers are even close to what the agency has reported, then 2025 will have the lowest homicide rate since the FBI started keeping track in 1960. The 4.1 homicides per 100,000 people is a huge improvement over just a few years ago, when violent crime and homicides spiked amidst the COVID pandemic, closure of courts, police pullbacks, and civil unrest across the country. 

What goes down must go up eventually, but according to crime analyst Jeff Asher the nation is on pace to once again see a record-low homicide rate when this year comes to an end. 

We have lots of data showing a big drop in murder is happening in 2026. The Gun ViolenceArchive is showing a 10.3 percent drop in 2026 relative to 2025 as of mid-May, and the Real-Time Crime Index and Major Cities Chiefs Association reported 19.9 and 17.7 percent drops through March respectively.

The GVA is particularly useful for our analytic purposes because it shows a large drop in gun violence in 2026…

Another way to evaluate this year’s trend is by collectijg data in 30 big cities with available data through the end of April. Doing so confirms a large drop is likely occurring with murder down 19.1 percent in that sample. This 30 city sample also points to the murder decline gradually slowing down in a way that it didn’t in 2024 and 2025. Murder in this sample was down more than 30 percent through January, 22.3 percent through February, 20.8 percent through March, and 19.1 percent through April.

I’m not a huge fan of the GVA’s reporting on “mass shootings” and “school shootings,” since its definition of those crimes is so broad it’s almost meaningless. But in terms of the raw number of shootings, Asher’s right that the Gun Violence Archive shows a steep drop in incidents this year, which follows on the heels of a 15.5% reduction in 2025. 

I’m also not surprised that the murder decline appears to be gradually slowing down. Homicides typically tick up when warmer weather appears, so 2024 and 2025 were anomalous in that regard. Still, even a 19% decline in homicides on top of an 18% decrease the year before is wildly good news, at least if you’re not a gun control activist. 

The fundamental premise of the gun control movement is that more guns equals more crime, and groups like Everytown and Giffords predicted crime would soar after the Supreme Court struck down “may issue” carry laws in June, 2022. Instead, FBI statistics point to a decrease in violent crime starting in 2023 and continuing every year since, despite tens of millions of firearms being purchased over that same time period. 

Asher’s Real Time Crime Index shows homicides have increased in just four big cities this year: Chicago (+8.3%), Las Vegas (+6.7%), Charlotte (+28.6%), and Minneapolis, where homicides are up 45.5% compared to last year. 

Meanwhile, cities in permitless carry states have seen some of the biggest declines of the year. Murders are down more than 40% in Birmingham, Alabama, for instance, and have dropped even more in places like Houston (-39.2%), Memphis (-43%), and Fort Worth (-50%). 

The biggest decline reported by Asher is in Richmond, Virginia, where murders have decreased by 54.5% compared to the same point in 2025. It’s worth noting that the decrease happened before any of the Democrats’ gun control bills have become law, so at the end of the year when the left starts pointing to the wave of anti-gun legislation signed by Gov. Abigail Spanberger as the reason why the city is so much safer, please know that their argument is absolute garbage… just like the anti-civil rights policies they push.  

Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.

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