Third-quarter 2026 shooting deaths hit 3,301, lowest in over a decade of Gun Violence Archive tracking, with 9,790 deaths and 18,199 injuries through October 13 nationwide. Firearm sales rose about 2 percent to an estimated 10.6 million in the first three quarters, jumping over one-third in Virginia, Rhode Island and Connecticut after new restriction laws. A crime-scholar summit found no single cause and credited no new federal gun statutes, which were not passed; the archive omits suicides.