1. Youth and children are more involved in gun violence as victims than as perpetrators.

The rate at which people under 18 experience gun violence as victims is persistently higher than the rate they are involved in gun violence as perpetrators. Since 2017, 1.7 times as many youth and children have been victimized by gun violence as involved as perpetrators. This figure excludes victimless incidents that involve only possession of a firearm. At the height of the recent spike in gun violence, children and youth were more than twice as likely to be victims of gun violence than perpetrators. The predominance of victimization over perpetration is the most persistent and striking pattern in the GVA data with respect to young people.

2. The pandemic-era spike in gun violence was real, but youth were primarily impacted as victims.

Around the time of the pandemic, the youth gun victimization rate doubled, from about 10 per 100k per year in February 2019 to more than 20 in June 2023 (measured by the rolling 12-month average). The rate at which youth were involved in gun violence as perpetrators also increased significantly during this time frame, but the magnitude was far smaller. Where youth victimization per 100,000 increased by 10 youth per year, perpetration rates increased by just 3 youth per 100,000 per year - nearly a 50% increase but a much smaller magnitude. According to the GVA data, the increase in youth victimization by firearms is the biggest story to tell about changing gun violence around the time of the pandemic. Yet this victimization story was often misconstrued, particularly in the news media, as a story about youth violence being out of control.

3. The pandemic-era surge is over.

The pandemic-era surge in victimization and perpetration is over. Youth and child involvement in gun violence has fallen substantially from its peak — for victims and perpetrators alike, in both age groups. Children’s involvement in gun violence is down approximately 40%. Youth involvement in gun violence as victims is down by nearly one-third, and youth involvement in perpetrating gun violence is down 19%.

Source: percent change from each series’ pandemic-era peak (12-month average, largest value between 2020 and 2024) to the most recent month. Perpetrator figures exclude possession-only offenses.

Whatever surge in youth gun violence the pandemic produced, it has substantially reversed — on both sides of the ledger, for both age groups.

4. Gun violence is overwhelmingly an adults-driven problem. That was true before, during, and after the pandemic-era surge in gun violence.

Of all the gun violence incidents recorded in the United States, the vast majority does not involve youth or children at all. Across the full 2017–2026 period, more than 85% of incidents involve only adults. Just 15% of incidents involve a child or youth. Gun violence is overwhelmingly an adult phenomenon.

This chart shows the total number of incidents involving adults alone versus incidents involving a child or youth as a victim or perpetrator. It shows that both adults-only and youth-involved incidents have fluctuated in recent years, but the upswings and downswings have occurred at different speeds and different times.

• In early 2020, the number of adult-only incidents rose much faster than youth-involved incidents, and then decreased steadily from 2022 to 2026.
• Youth-involved incidents increased more gradually from 2020 through 2023, before starting to decline.
• Since late 2023, youth-involved and adults-only incidents have fallen together, by more than 40%.

These timing differences did little to change the share of adults-only incidents in the GVA, which was around 85% before the COVID-19 pandemic, rose as high as around 87% in 2021, and hovered around 83% as of early 2026.

Gun violence in the United States is a significant public safety problem and one that became especially acute in the early part of this decade. But before, during, and after the recent increase, the shape of gun violence in the United States has overwhelmingly been defined by incidents that involved adults alone.

Want to see this broken down by state? Head to the dashboard. Curious where this data comes from? Read about the Gun Violence Archive.