40,000 People Have Been Killed by Firearms in the United States For a Year

More people died from firearm injuries in the United States last year than in any other year since at least 1968, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

There were 39,773 gun deaths in 2017, up by more than 1,000 from the year before. Nearly two-thirds were suicides. It was the largest yearly total on record in the C.D.C.'s electronic database, which goes back 50 years, and reflects the sheer number of lives lost.

When adjusted for population size, the rate of gun deaths in 2017 also increased slightly to 12 deaths for every 100,000 people, up from 11.8 per 100,000 in 2016. By this measure, last year had the highest rate of firearm deaths since the mid-1990s, the data showed.

It was the third consecutive year that the rate of firearm deaths rose in the United States, after remaining relatively steady throughout the 2000s and the first part of this decade.

"It is significant that after a period of relative stability, now the rates are rising again," Bob Anderson, chief of the mortality statistics branch at the C.D.C.'s National Center for Health Statistics, said in a phone interview.

While there are signs that the movement to prevent gun violence gained momentum this year — state legislatures passed a surge of new gun control laws, gun control groups outspent the National Rifle Association in the midterm election cycle and the medical community recently took on the N.R.A. over an assertion that doctors should "stay in their lane" on gun policy — the findings underscore that even after such efforts ramped up after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Conn., in 2012, gun violence continued its dizzying assault on America.

Suicides have historically made up most deaths by firearm...