The next time someone complains about the “epidemic” of gun violence, point out this awkward fact:

The 10,945 firearm homicides in 2014 represented a 40-percent drop from the peak hit in 1993, when there were 18,253 firearm homicides in the country, according to CDC data.

Far from being an epidemic, lethal gun violence is far below its peak almost a quarter of a century ago.  This data comes from a report written by Terrence Jeffrey at CNSNews:

The 10,945 firearm homicides in the United States in 2014 equaled a rate of 3.43 per 100,000 people in the population. That was the lowest firearm homicide rate the United States experienced in any of the 34 years from 1981 through 2014, according to data posted by the CDC on its "Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System" (WISQARS).

The second lowest firearm homicide rate was the 3.54 recorded in 2013, when there were 11,208 gun homicides in the country.

So far from spiraling out of control, gun deaths are plummeting, despite the larger population base today.

Update: Mark Roth:

calculate[d] the population change during the period from 1993 (269.92 million) through 2014 (317.68 million).

In the time (21 years) since the peak of murders by firearms the population increased by approximately 22.2% or > one fifth. At the same time, as your point out, murders by firearm dropped by 40%