Lots of graphs and data here so I recommend clicking the link.
There was, as Trump has noted, an uptick in firearm murders beginning in 2015, with an increased percentage of murders being committed with firearms. But in 2017, the most recent year for which data are available, the total number of firearm murders was 10,982, compared with 16,136 in 1994.
But remember, too, that the question asked about the murder rate — that is, the number of murders as a function of the population. In that regard, the drop is even steeper. In 1994, the FBI data suggest a rate of about 6.2 firearm murders per 100,000 people. In 2017, the rate was 3.38 murders, up from the 2014 low in which the rate was less than half of that in 1994.
In other words, gun homicides have dropped substantially over the past 25 years — but most Americans believe the opposite to be true. Why? Perhaps in part because of the media focus on multiple-victim shooting incidents in recent years. Perhaps, too, because of the number and deadliness of those incidents. We’ve noted before that the number of fatalities in major mass-shooting incidents has increased dramatically in recent years; it’s possible that people are conflating increases in frequency and deadliness of mass shootings with the United States getting more dangerous generally.
It’s hard not to assume that this influences the politics of the gun debate. Democrats are both much more likely to support new gun restrictions and to believe that the rate of gun murders is higher than it was in 1994, a year that was near the peak of violent crime in recorded U.S. history. Does the latter inform the former?
The good news is that gun homicides are down substantially both as a raw total and as a function of population since 1994. The bad news is that many Americans don’t seem to realize that.
