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January 29, 2026

AUTHOR
Regional Gun Violence Research Consortium

Introduction

Preliminary evidence suggests gun violence continued its downward trend in 2025. Four years after nearly 49,000 people were killed by firearms in the US, estimates suggest that number has fallen nearly 20 percent. But the approximately 39,000 people killed by firearms in 2025 is still 25 percent more than the number of people killed in 2000, highlighting the extensive work that remains to address this public health and policy problem.

The 2025 Annual Report from the Rockefeller Institute’s Regional Gun Violence Research Consortium (RGVRC) presents the significant progress and ongoing contributions of Consortium experts and scholars toward understanding and mitigating the gun violence epidemic.

Through support from New York State government, the Consortium continued to advance its mission of disrupting the cycle of firearm-involved violence through data-driven policy recommendations despite a dramatic decline in the availability of federal research funding. In 2025, the Consortium:

• grew its network to include 157 experts across 30 states and the District of Columbia, as well as Australia, Belgium, Canada, and England;
• published more than two dozen policy blogs, in-depth podcast episodes, and spotlights of member research, and Consortium members and scholars published more than 150 books, book chapters, and peer-reviewed journal articles on a range of firearm-related topics; and
• offered critical expert commentary in more than 100 interviews with the media, including in the Associated Press, The Boston Globe, TIME Magazine, The Washington Post, NPR, The Trace, and others.

The 2025 Annual Report details the Consortium’s research and grant funding, scholarly publications, public and policy outreach, media and conference appearances, and other important news from the research network in 2025.

View the full annual report.