An Atlas of American Gun Violence

ACROSS COLORADO – By Daniel Nass for The Colorado Independent

About the Data

This map was built with data collected by Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit organization that gathers and verifies information about incidents of gun violence in the United States from media, law enforcement, and other sources. Its site launched in January 2014, and is now coming up on its fifth year in operation, allowing for a view of what a half-decade of gun violence in America looks like. The more than 150,000 incidents collected in this map cover the time period January 1, 2014 through December 13, 2018.

The map offers an incomplete picture of gun violence in the United States. Gun suicides, which make up the majority of firearm deaths, are not included because GVA only tracks them in aggregate. (Murder-suicides are included.) Incidents of gun violence for which GVA lacks precise location information have also been excluded.

While GVA frequently updates its records, it is possible that information in the map could be out of date or contain errors. If you spot an issue, please contact GVA.

Each incident is tagged based on several characteristics:

Mass shooting: A shooting in which four or more people, not including the shooter, were killed or injured.

Accidental: An unintentional shooting.

Officer involved: An incident in which a police officer was involved.

Child involved: A shooting in which the shooter and/or the victim were children.

More information on Gun Violence Archive’s data can be found at its methodology page.
A previous version of this project, created by The Trace and Slate, was published on December 8, 2015.

Image from Colorado Independent