In the first 200 days of 2014, for instance, the Archive's team of researchers tallied 6,206 gun deaths, not counting suicides. Three years later that figure has jumped by well over one-third, to 8,539 fatalities.

Since 2014, total firearm injuries are up 50 percent. Shootings of children are up by nearly 30 percent. Reports of defensive gun use have doubled.

Trump's rhetoric aside, there's little a president can do in his first six months in office to influence violent crime trends in any direction. The Archive also doesn't offer any speculation about what's driving these numbers. "We provide very little analysis, and that’s intentional,” the group's founder Mark Bryant recently told the Lexington Herald-Leader. "We want people to be able to draw their own conclusions."

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Other research has found that the nationwide homicide increase of recent years masks considerable regional variation. In many major cities, like Baltimore, Chicago and Cleveland, homicides are rising sharply. In others, like New York, homicides are actually falling.

The Gun Violence Archive's numbers suggest that in 2017, gun homicides are rising faster in some cities than they're falling in others. A small portion of this rise may be attributable to more media attention and better measurement techniques. But in the past few years the Gun Violence Archive's fatality numbers have tracked closely with the slower, more deliberative data from official sources like the CDC and the FBI.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has made reducing violent crime a priority for the Department of Justice. He created a special task force on the topic, charged with delivering recommendations to the Attorney General's office by this week.

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None of these interventions are likely to have a significant effect on gun violence. Research has shown mandatory minimum sentences have little deterrent effect on violent crime. On asset forfeiture, one recent study found that expanding the practice reduced property crimes somewhat but had no effect on violent crime. Cracking down on "sanctuary cities" may even turn out to be counterproductive, as research has shown they tend to be less violent than cities without such policies in place.