Social violence has claimed 88 lives in 17 mass murders over 111 days. Most murders are committed with firearms. Only 2009 was marked by so many such tragedies in the same period of time.
Mass shootings have various settings: a primary school in Nashville, farm workers in Northern California, a dance hall outside Los Angeles, massacred while celebrating Lunar New Year, among others.
In the past week alone, four partygoers have been killed and 32 others injured in Dadeville, Alabama, when bullets rained down at a Sweet 16 celebration.
“No one should be surprised,” said Fred Guttenberg, whose 14-year-old daughter, Jaime, was one of 17 people killed at a Parkland, Florida, high school in 2018. “I visit my daughter in a cemetery. The outrage doesn’t start to describe how I feel.
The Parkland victims are among the 2,842 people who have died in mass murders in the United States since 2006, according to a USA Today database, in partnership with Northeastern University.
It counts murders involving four or more deaths, not including the perpetrator, the same standard as the FBI, and tracks a number of variables for each.
Bloodshed accounts for only a fraction of the violence in the United States annually.
Yet mass murders are occurring with astonishing frequency this year: an average of once every 6.53 days, according to an analysis of The AP/USA Today data.
Only 2009 was marked by so many such tragedies in the same period of time.
From coast to coast, violence is unleashed for a number of reasons. Suicide murders and domestic violence; gang retaliation; school shootings and workplace vendettas. All have claimed the lives of four or more people at once since January 1.
Last year, the Supreme Court set new rules to review the nation’s gun laws, challenging nationwide firearms restrictions.
Source: Ambito
