The shooting death of a police officer in Tacoma, Wash. Wednesday was the 200th time people have shot at members of law enforcement in 2016, and more than a quarter of those incidents have resulted in deaths.
All told, 56 officers in those shootings, according to data cited by The Huffington Post.
Looking deeper, the data shows that 75 percent of the firearms used in the 200 shootings were handguns. Sixty-nine of the incidents occurred in states that require background checks for handgun purchases.
Huff Post crunched some numbers and found that in the 21 of the 25 states with the highest number of shootings per officer, background checks are not performed for all handgun purchases.
"Day and night, police officers run toward danger to keep the rest of us safe, and this tragic milestone is a sobering reminder of the risks they face," said Everytown for Gun Safety president John Feinblatt.
The group provided the data on police shootings to Huff Post.
"We have to reduce those risks, and data shows that we can — by making it harder for criminals to get guns. It's long past time to close the dangerous loophole in our laws that lets criminals buy guns with no background check and no questions asked."
Statistics show the total number of officer deaths, including shootings, traffic incidents, and other categories, are up in 2016 from both 2014 and 2015.
A Chattanooga police officer was wounded after being shot by a suspect Thursday morning.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.