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There is no great source on the details across the nation, but there are a hodgepodge of municipal-level studies that shed a light.

There were roughly 20k gun homicides in the US in 2021[0]. It's been fluctuating between 10k and 20k over the past five decades or so, with the last few years seeing a quick increase and seeing a (hopefully) local peak in rates.

In one study in San Francisco, ~70% of gun homicide victims had a criminal record, and three quarters of that figure knew the suspect[1]. A similar study in Milwaukee found that ~90% of both victims and suspects of gun homicides had a criminal record[2], and the top two reasons identified of the circumstances behind the homicide were arguments/fights and robberies. There are other studies done at local levels in many other places with similar results.

A DOJ study notes that three quarters of all gun homicides were during the commission of a (different) felony[3]. And you can query the CDC WONDER mortality database[4] yourself to see that gun homicide rates in "large central metro" areas are twice as high as those in medium, small, or non-metro areas, and that men 15-34 years of age comprise the majority of gun homicide victims.

So, perhaps my "gang-on-gang" statement wasn't really accurate (since a "gang-related" incident is loosely defined), and I'll leave the "vast majority" determination to you; but the point is that most gun homicides occur among the "criminal element" in "bad parts of town", and is not really relevant to life as a software engineer.

[0]: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/26/what-the-...

[1]: https://www.sfdph.org/dph/files/reports/StudiesData/Firearms...

[2]: https://www.mcw.edu/-/media/MCW/Departments/Epidemiology/MHR...

[3]: https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf

[4]: https://wonder.cdc.gov/mcd.html




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