United States: annual homicides1910-1970, by method

In the early and mid-20^th century, firearms and explosives (although mainly firearms) were responsible for the majority of homicides in the United States. In all years between 1910 and 1970, at least 50 percent of all homicides were due to firearms and explosives, and this figure was over 70 percent during Prohibition in the 1920s, and stayed over 60 percent until the middle of the Great Depression. Homicide figures then fell during the recovery from the Great Depression, and remained relatively low through the post-WWII economic boom, before rising once more during the mid-1960s at the beginning of the violent crime wave that swept across most Western countries in the late-20^th century.