Newly released data from Statistics Canada shows the number of violent crimes involving a firearm in 2024 dropped compared with 2023 in the largest yearly decrease since 2014.
However, the agency also says that despite that year-over-year drop, “the overall trend has been an upward one, both for total violent crime and firearm-related violent crime” since the mid-2010s.
There were 36 firearm-related violent crimes per 100,000 population in 2024, which was down 4.2 per cent from 2023 (37.6 incidents per 100,000 population).
But the rate of firearm-related violent crime in 2024 was still 44 per cent higher than 10 years earlier, when it stood at 25 incidents per 100,000 population.
In addition, 29 per cent of firearm-related violent crimes “attributable to gangs or organized crime involved a firearm” in 2024.