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January Brings at Least 38 Mass Shootings So Far


There were mass shootings near a youth center in Allentown, Pa., and one at a Subway restaurant in Durham, NC. Another took place behind a brasserie in Oklahoma City, and another at a strip club outside of Columbus, Ohio. Two mass shootings ended parties in different Florida cities.

And that was only on New Year’s Day.

By the beginning of the fourth week of January, the number had grown to include at least 39 separate shootings in which four or more people were injured or killed, according to the Gun Violence Archive, outlines a startling explosion of violence across a series of locations in nearly every corner of the country that has killed at least 69 people.

The deadliest mass shooting to date took place over the weekend in Monterey Park, Calif., a city with a thriving Asian-American community. where a gunman killed 11 people and wounded nine others inside a popular dance hall. Authorities said the gunman, who may have targeted the victims and then killed himself, was a 72-year-old man.

Then, on Monday, there was another deadly mass shooting in California. A gunman, who authorities say is a 67-year-old man, killed seven people and seriously injured at least one more in Half Moon Bay, south of San Francisco.

“At a hospital meeting with victims of a mass shooting when I was dragged away to be informed of another shooting,” Governor Gavin Newsom of California tweeted in Monday. “Tragedy follows tragedy.”

Frequency of mass shootings and variety of locations where they are currently occurring — at offices and schools, nail salons and churches, grocery stores and restaurants — contributes to the widespread feeling across the United States that such violence could erupt at any time, in anywhere. It fuels calls for solid gun control as well as driving the purchase of more and more guns. Public shootings attract national attention, but can also have the effect of normalizing violence.

Criminologists say the prevalence of mass shootings is partly due to easy access to so many weapons — one Unique features of the United States – as well as by an imitation effect.

“Has someone like this committed a mass shooting at a disco in the past?” Adam Lankford, a criminologist at the University of Alabama, said, referring to the elderly man believed to be the gunman in Monterey Park. “Probably not. You can think of it as a snowball effect. The more incidents there are, the more this choice will stand out in the minds of angry people.

At the same time, a recurrence of such gun violence risks making the nation so sensitive to tragedy that warnings against mass shootings are a familiar part. of reaction.

San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said: “We cannot become paralyzed by these horrific acts of violence. after the shooting in Monterey Park, took place during the Lunar New Year last weekend. “The Year of the Rabbit represents hope.”

There is little formal consensus on what constitutes a mass shooting; Different organizations use different measures. But so far this year, the majority of the 39 mass shootings in which at least four people were shot – a measure used by the Gun Violence Archive, a research group – have attracted little or no attention. anything other than the areas where the incident occurred.

Anyone outside of Houston will know that two such shootings happened there this year — one driving shooting in which four people were beaten; another person killed someone outside a Houston club and relating to the AK-47 . assault-style rifle.

“It looks like more than 50 shots were fired here, it’s a very scary situation,” said local police chief Ed Gonzalez. told reporters.

Such shootings often make the evening news but fail to penetrate the wide consciousness of the cities where they take place, even if they leave victims and bystanders with wounds and wounds. long-term mental scarring.

Carl Leon, 25, from Miami, recounted the moment gunfire began outside a soul food restaurant in Miami Gardens this month: “I was so scared – people just ran.

Mr. Leon, who promotes musicians on his Instagram account, has just finished appearing as an extra during a video shoot for rapper French Montana, he said, and was rummaging through his pocket for his keys when he was hit. A bullet pierced his left arm and tore through his stomach.

“I thought I was going to die,” he said. “This is the first time I’ve been in a situation like this.”

But the Miami Gardens shooting is not the first mass shooting for his attorney, Josiah Graham, who represents one of the survivors of the Broward County bus shooting last year. . killed two people and injured two others.

This isn’t even the first mass shooting in the city of Miami Gardens this year. Nine people were injured in a shooting in Ho Chi Minh City. a party in the early hours of New Year’s Day.

Shanta Bonius, the mother of 23-year-old Carlos Wilkerson, one of 10 people shot and injured, including Mr Leon, said: “Back in the day, if you stayed away from certain things it was fine. restaurant in Miami Gardens. “Today, you can just mind your business, go to the grocery store and something happens. “

The number of mass shootings has increased, though not steadily, since 2014, according to data compiled by Gun Violence Archive, following public reports of shootings. There were 690 mass shootings with four or more victims in 2021, more than double the 2014 total. The number dropped slightly last year, to 647, but still significantly higher than in previous years. prior to.

And the number of such shootings appears to be increasing in the first few weeks of this year, compared with similar periods in recent years. On average, there was less than one daily shooting per day between January 1 and January 23 in each of the past five years, according to Gun Violence Archive data, but the past two years tended to increase to 28 last year. from 26 in 2021 and 16 in 2018.

“There is no place in America that is safe from gun violence,” said David Min, a California senator. in response to the shooting in Monterey Park. “This has to be stopped. Enough is enough.”

Jaclyn Schildkraut, executive director of the regional association for the study of gun violence at the Rockefeller Institute of Government, said that even as crime rates fall, gun violence is on the rise.

But Dr Schildkraut said it was important to distinguish between “public mass shootings” such as those in Monterey Park, which are known to be premeditated, and other categories, such as murder. harm to family members, retaliatory gang shootings, or shootings triggered by controversy.

Mass shootings in public places are the least common and the most deadly, she said. And the type of policy intervention most likely to prevent them varies.

“All the gun violence and the loss of any individual is too much,” Ms. Schildkraut said. “They are different groups that require us to think about their unique characteristics and add the appropriate layers of prevention and response.”

A 2015 study linked the country high rate of mass shooting to high rate of gun ownership. Research shows that Americans make up about 5% of the global population and own 42% of the world’s guns.

It is difficult to calculate the exact number of guns sold each year in the United States due to different state laws and sales situations. But FBI data about the number of guns background check can be used as a measure. Via that numberthe total has grown to 40 million background checks by 2021 from 10 million in 2005.

Lankford, the University of Alabama criminologist who wrote the 2015 study, said further work suggests the dominant factor may be the ease of access to guns, not the right to own them.

Nearly 40 percent of American men told the researchers that they owned a gun, so gun ownership alone is not a useful predictor of who is likely to carry out a mass shooting, Mr. Lankford said. In a study of the 14 deadliest mass shootings since Columbine, he and a co-author showed that half of perpetrators didn’t get their first gun until the last year before the attack. .

In many of the less widely reported mass shootings that occur in the United States, information about the gunman and the weapon used is not easily known. After 12 people were shot in Baton RougeLa., Over the weekend, three people with injuries described as life-threatening, police appealed to those with information to provide information about the gunman.

In Rockford, Ill., Northwest of Chicago, three people died and two others were injured a shooting this monthand a suspect has yet to be publicly identified.

The mayor of Rockford, Tom McNamara, said in an interview: “You wish there was the same amount of attention as these daily shootings.

“I don’t want to sound callous about Monterey Park, but at least those people will be remembered,” he added. “Last year I lost 15 lives in my community. There is no national story about it. It’s sad that we live in a country where violence is normalized.”

Kirsten Noyes Contributing research.

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