Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Date of Degree

9-2026

Document Type

Master's Capstone Project

Degree Name

Master of Science

Program

Data Analysis & Visualization

Advisor

Howard T. Everson

Keywords

Gun, Policies, Firearm, Crude, Death

Abstract

This report analyzed firearm-related deaths rates in the United States at the state level over a two decade period between 2000 to 2019. The study used a state-by-year analytical framework created from the U.S. Gun Deaths by County, 1999–2019 dataset (Eltom, 2019) in order to examine national trends, state-level differences, changes over time, geographic concentration, and regional variation. The analysis focused on firearm-related deaths by adjusting for population size differences (i.e., the crude firearm-related death rate) across U.S. states from 2000 to 2019. These analyses indicated that firearm-related deaths increased nationally during the study period. Total firearm-related deaths rose from 21,563 in 2000 to 32,739 in 2019, while the crude firearm-related death rates documented an increase from 10.421 to 12.057 adjusted for population increases (i.e. rates per 100,000 people in the population). When firearm-related deaths were measured simply as total counts rather than population-adjusted rates, California, Texas, and Florida recorded the largest numbers of deaths during the study period. When adjusted for population differences, the analyses further showed that states in the southern region of the U.S. had, on average, the highest regional related deaths level, while, in contrast, states in the Northeast remained had significantly lower adjusted rates of gun related deaths. By presenting a long-term descriptive state-level analyses, this paper identifies where gun-related death rates were highest, lowest, increasing, or declining. In doing so, these analyses provide a clearer basis for considering whether stricter, less permissive firearm state level policy frameworks may be associated with fewer firearm-related deaths.

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