This Wednesday, a reserve soldier killed at least 16 people in two mass shootings in Maine and is on the run. In May, a young neo-Nazi shot and killed eight people with an AR-15 rifle and seven other weapons before being killed in a Texas shopping center. In March, a gunman with assault weapons killed six people, including three children, at an elementary school in Nashville. On January 17, all members of a family were murdered—including a 6-month-old baby, his 17-year-old mother, and a 72-year-old woman—in Goshen, California. Five days later, at the celebration of the Chinese New Year, another man, 72, killed 12 people in Monterrey Park, also in California. There are only five headlines of five mass shootings that the US has suffered since the beginning of the bloodiest year to date in the last 10 years.
As data from the Gun Violence Archive shows, from January to October, 601 people have died in mass shootings and nearly 2,400 people have been injured. There are 20 more deaths than in the same period in 2021, so far the deadliest year in the country’s history.
The data is devastating. Since 2014, nearly 5,000 people have died in these types of attacks and almost 20,000 have been injured. The number has also been growing unstoppably in recent years: of the total number of deaths, 50% have occurred since 2020; while of the injured, 54% of them have been registered since the beginning of the pandemic until today.
Of the ten months of 2023, four of them—January (with 89), February (46), April (64) and May (80)—recorded the highest number of deaths in mass shootings in the last decade. In total, 601 massacres that place the 10 months of this year as those with the most episodes recorded. And, with two months left, the third counting from January to December.
This is demonstrated by data from the Gun Violence Archive, an independent research and data collection group that monitors incidents involving firearms. This entity compiles figures daily from more than 7,500 police sources, media, government and commercial sources.
The trend is alarming. Before the pandemic, from 2014 to 2019, the average number of shootings was around 400 per year, which left an average of around 340 deaths annually. In the last three years – and with two months left until the end of 2023 – the number has skyrocketed to around 650, with almost 600 deaths annually. The death toll is already double that recorded from January to October five years ago.
Of the 52 states that make up the US, only seven – Alaska, Montana, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia and Wisconsin – have not experienced a shooting. As the disastrous leader of the ranking is Texas, with 64 deaths in massive episodes, followed by California, with 60, and Illinois, with 45.
In mass shootings alone, this year 2023 registers 2,981 victims, including deaths and injuries. This means almost ten victims a day, a little more than four every ten hours. If you look at the victims of incidents in which firearms are involved – injured or killed in homicides, murders, involuntary accidents or due to unknown causes – the figure is horrifying: 65,910 cases (35,278 dead and 30,632 injured). Or, what is the same, 220 victims daily. More than 9 every hour. 15 victims every 100 minutes.
The debate over firearms control is an open wound in the United States that seems to have no cure. The United States Congress has not even been able to prohibit the civilian sale of the AR-15 assault rifle, the one most frequently used in these massacres. It doesn’t matter that the majority of the population, despite its broad and strong attachment to firearms, defends such a ban.
