US Counties With the Highest Share of Suicides by Firearm
2,220 US counties ranked by share of suicides by firearm, from highest to lowest. First are Custer County, ID (100%), Harrison County, MO (100%) and Teton County, MT (100%). The middle one of the 2,220 has 62%.
What this measures
The percentage of suicides that were by gun, 2018-2023. Where more households own guns, more suicides are by gun. So researchers use this as the standard stand-in for gun ownership, which nobody counts directly. Source: CDC WONDER mortality; RAND firearm ownership database.
For most measures, a national ranking mostly sorts places by income and by how urban they are. Each county’s own page compares it with the 50 counties most like it instead, which is often the fairer view.
The 100 highest counties
Every state, highest first
Each state’s own published figure, not an average of its counties.
| Rank | State | % |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mississippi | 70.8% |
| 2 | Wyoming | 70.6% |
| 3 | Alabama | 70.5% |
| 4 | Louisiana | 65.6% |
| 5 | South Carolina | 64.7% |
| 6 | Montana | 64.4% |
| 7 | Tennessee | 64.4% |
| 8 | Idaho | 64.2% |
| 9 | Georgia | 64.1% |
| 10 | Kentucky | 63.9% |
| 11 | West Virginia | 63.4% |
| 12 | Missouri | 62.7% |
| 13 | Arkansas | 62.6% |
| 14 | Oklahoma | 61.5% |
| 15 | North Carolina | 60.8% |
| 16 | Alaska | 59.9% |
| 17 | Indiana | 59.8% |
| 18 | Arizona | 59.7% |
| 19 | Texas | 59.4% |
| 20 | North Dakota | 59% |
| 21 | Nevada | 58.9% |
| 22 | Virginia | 58.1% |
| 23 | Kansas | 57.3% |
| 24 | New Mexico | 56.7% |
| 25 | Maine | 56% |
| 26 | Ohio | 55.6% |
| 27 | Florida | 55.5% |
| 28 | Vermont | 54.8% |
| 29 | Oregon | 53.7% |
| 30 | Utah | 53.7% |
| 31 | Nebraska | 53.6% |
| 32 | Michigan | 53.4% |
| 33 | Pennsylvania | 52.9% |
| 34 | Wisconsin | 52.4% |
| 35 | Colorado | 52.3% |
| 36 | New Hampshire | 51.5% |
| 37 | Washington | 51.2% |
| 38 | Delaware | 51% |
| 39 | South Dakota | 50.7% |
| 40 | Iowa | 48.9% |
| 41 | Minnesota | 46.5% |
| 42 | Maryland | 44.3% |
| 43 | Illinois | 41.6% |
| 44 | California | 37.6% |
| 45 | Connecticut | 30.3% |
| 46 | New York | 27.3% |
| 47 | New Jersey | 27% |
| 48 | Rhode Island | 27% |
| 49 | District of Columbia | 24% |
| 50 | Massachusetts | 22% |
| 51 | Hawaii | 19% |
More on share of suicides by firearm
- US Counties With the Lowest Share of Suicides by Firearm
- Share of suicides by firearm by US county: map by year and what it goes with
A ranking describes places, not the people in them, and a high or low place does not by itself say why. All US rankings.