The mass shooting that left eight people dead and seven injured at a suburban Texas outlet mall over the weekend is the most recent in an acceleration of mass killings in the U.S., data shows.
In a given year, the U.S. typically sees six mass shootings in a public place, and the most the country has ever witnessed was 10 in a year, according to James Alan Fox, a professor at Northeastern University who has studied mass killings for 40 years.
The massacre at Premium Outlets in Allen, Texas, on Saturday already marks the sixth public mass killing of 2023 — about one third of the way through the calendar year. That’s not a good sign, Fox said.
“Those are the kinds of events that make headlines, scare people and make them look around when they go into a supermarket or retail store,” Fox said.
Texas is one of two states in the U.S. that has seen 17 mass shootings so far this year. The other is California.
How many mass killings in 2023?
There have been 22 mass killings in 2023, defined as four or more people killed, not including the perpetrator, according to the USA TODAY/Northeastern University/Associated Press Mass Killings Database.
Mass killing database:Revealing trends, details and anguish of every US event since 2006
All of the mass killings this year have been shootings, and twelve were among families, said Fox, who oversees the database.
If the crash in Brownsville, Texas, on Sunday that left eight people dead is ruled intentional, it would be the 23rd mass killing, Fox said. A man has been charged with multiple counts of manslaughter in that incident, though authorities as of Monday have not publicly stated a motive.
The number of annual mass killings in the U.S. remained largely steady from 2006 to 2018 but started to increase in 2019, he said. Now 2023 has already seen more mass killings at this point in the year than in any other year previously, Fox said.
“We have seen a surge in the number of guns being purchased, and then you combine that with the impact that COVID had on people’s emotional state and economic wellbeing. And of course, there’s the political divisions that we have in our country,” he said.
How many mass shootings in 2023?
Beyond the mass killings that often make headlines, there have been scores of other shootings happening daily across the country.
There have been at least 202 mass shootings in the U.S. this year, leaving 792 victims injured and 276 dead, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit publicly sourced database. The archive defines a mass shooting as at least four victims struck by gunfire.
The archive also indicates an acceleration of mass shootings: The U.S. has not seen so many mass shootings at this point in the year since at least 2016, according to the data.
“Will things go back to a more average level we saw a decade ago? Maybe,” Fox said. “But given the condition of America and the weaponry that’s available, I wouldn’t bet on it.”
Texas, California see most mass shootings in 2023
Texas and California have seen the most mass shootings this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive. The shootings in California have left 40 people dead and 56 injured. In Texas, 29 victims have been killed and 61 injured. The shootings include four mass killings in California and three in Texas.
In California, the nation’s most populous state, six people were killed in a home in the small community of Goshen in January. That same month, a gunman killed 11 people and injured nine others at a Lunar New Year Festival in Monterey Park. Days later, a gunman killed seven people at two farms in Half Moon Bay. Last month, four people were killed in a home in Mojave.
In Texas, which has the second-largest population in the country, four people were killed in a Dallas apartment building in March. The next month, a gunman killed five of his neighbors in their home in Cleveland. Then, on Saturday, a gunman parked at the crowded suburban Dallas mall and began shooting people as they walked along sidewalks nearby.
Texas has previously seen several mass killings with high numbers of fatalities, Fox said. Of the nine mass killings in U.S. history with at least 20 people killed, four were in Texas, he said, citing the mass shootings in Killeen, Sutherland Springs, El Paso and Uvalde.
“We are just weeks away from the one year mark of the horrific mass shooting in Uvalde, and Texas leaders have failed to do anything to make their state safer,” former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, founder of the gun violence prevention organization GIFFORDS, said in a statement Sunday.
Nashville school, Louisville bank among other mass killings of 2023
Mass shootings in Nashville, Tennessee, and Louisville, Kentucky, earlier this year also spurred nationwide outrage. In March, a shooter killed three children and three school staff members at a small private Christian school in Nashville. In April, a gunman killed five people and wounded at least eight others at a bank in Louisville.
In the wake of the shootings, President Joe Biden called on Congress to act. In a statement Sunday, he urged lawmakers to reinstate the nation’s ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, which expired in 2004.
“States are banning assault weapons, expanding red flag laws and more — but it’s not enough,” he said.
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