US sets record pace for mass killings in 2023 with frequent shootings

Los Angeles: The United States is setting a record pace for mass killings in 2023, reliving the agony on a weekly basis so far this year. Over the course of 111 days, the bloodshed claimed 88 lives in 17 mass murders. The murderers always used weapons. Only 2009 experienced as many of these disasters in the same time frame. Children at a Nashville elementary school were shot and killed on a regular Monday. Northern California farmworkers were shot over a workplace vendetta. Dancers were murdered while celebrating the Lunar New Year at a ballroom outside of Los Angeles. In the last week alone, shots poured down on a Sweet 16 celebration in Dadeville, Alabama, killing four partygoers and injuring 32 more. And in Bowdoin, Maine, a recently released prisoner shot and killed four people, including his parents, before turning the gun on drivers on a major motorway. “Nobody should be shocked,” 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. Outrage doesn’t begin to describe how I feel.” According to a database kept by The Associated Press and USA Today in collaboration with Northeastern University, the Parkland victims are among the 2,842 individuals who have died in mass shootings in the US since 2006. It uses the same criteria as the FBI for counting homicides that result in four or more fatalities, excluding the killer, and it keeps track of several factors for each. The bloodshed only makes up a small portion of the yearly deadly violence that takes place in the US. However, this year has seen a startling increase in the frequency of mass killings: An study of data from The AP/USA Today shows that this occurs once every 6.53 days on average. The 2023 numbers stand out even more when they are compared to the tally for full-year totals since data was collected. The US recorded 30 or fewer mass killings in more than half of the years in the database, so to be at 17 less than a third of the way through is remarkable. From coast to coast, the violence is sparked by a range of motives. Murder-suicides and domestic violence; gang retaliation; school shootings and workplace vendettas. All have taken the lives of four or more people at once since 1 January. Yet the violence continues and barriers to change remain. The likelihood of Congress reinstating a ban on semi-automatic rifles appears far off, and the US Supreme Court last year set new standards for reviewing the nation’s gun laws, calling into question firearms restrictions across the country. The pace of mass shootings so far this year doesn’t necessarily foretell a new annual record. In 2009, the bloodshed slowed and the year finished with a final count of 32 mass killings and 172 fatalities. Those figures just barely exceed the averages of 31.1 mass killings and 162 victims a year, according to an analysis of data dating back to 2006. Gruesome records have been set within the last decade. The data shows a high of 45 mass killings in 2019 and 230 people slain in such tragedies in 2017. That year, 60 people died when a gunman opened fire over an outdoor country music festival on the Las Vegas Strip. The massacre still accounts for the most fatalities from a mass shooting in modern America. “Here’s the reality: If somebody is determined to commit mass violence, they’re going to,” said Jaclyn Schildkraut, executive director of the Rockefeller Institute of Government’s Regional Gun Violence Research Consortium. “And it’s our role as society to try and put up obstacles and barriers to make that more difficult.” But there’s little indication at either the state or federal level — with a handful of exceptions — that many major policy changes are on the horizon. Some states have tried to impose more gun control within their own borders. Last week, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed a new law mandating criminal background checks to purchase rifles and shotguns, whereas the state previously required them only for people buying pistols. And on Wednesday, a ban on dozens of types of semi-automatic rifles cleared the Washington State Legislature and is headed to the governor’s desk. Other states are experiencing a new round of pressure. In conservative Tennessee, protesters descended on the state Capitol to demand more gun regulation after six people were killed at the Nashville private elementary school last month. At the federal level, President Joe Biden last year signed a milestone gun violence bill, toughening background checks for the youngest gun buyers, keeping firearms from more domestic violence offenders and helping states use red flag laws that enable police to ask courts to take guns from people who show signs they could turn violent. Despite the blaring headlines, mass killings are statistically rare, perpetrated by just a handful of people each year in a country of nearly 335 million. And there’s no way to predict whether this year’s events will continue at this rate. Sometimes mass killings happen back-to-back — like in January, when deadly events in northern and southern California occurred just two days apart — while other months pass without bloodshed. “We shouldn’t necessarily expect that this — one mass killing every less than seven days — will continue,” said Northeastern University criminologist James Alan Fox. “Hopefully it won’t.” Still, experts and advocates decry the proliferation of guns in the US in recent years, including record sales during the height of the pandemic. “We have to know that this isn’t the way to live,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety. “We don’t have to live this way. And we cannot live in a country with an agenda of guns everywhere, every place and every time.” The National Rifle Association did not respond to the AP’s request for comment. Jaime Guttenberg would be 19 years old now. Her father now spends his days as a gun control activist. “America shouldn’t be surprised by where we are today,” Guttenberg said. “It’s all in the numbers. The numbers don’t lie. But we need to do something immediately to fix it.” Read all the Latest News , Trending News ,  Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.