In 2023, there was a record number of mass shootings in the United States.

On the afternoon of December 3, in less than an hour and a half, 911 received two calls about mass shootings in Texas and Washington. These incidents set a new terrible record in the United States, reports Washington Post.

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These were the 37th and 38th mass shootings this year with four or more victims. This is the highest number of mass killings in any year since at least 2006. The previous scary record was 36 murders last year.

Mass shootings in Dallas and Vancouver

In Dallas, a 21-year-old man who was required to wear an ankle monitor due to a previous aggravated assault charge entered a home and shot and killed four people - a child and three adults.

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He fled in a stolen car and then shot himself while being pursued by traffic police. In suburban Vancouver, Washington, five family members died in what sheriff's deputies believe was a murder-suicide.

The latest incidents bring the total number of deaths in 2023 to 197, not including shooters, another record. 91 people were injured in the nightmare episodes. Like most massacres, the latest incidents took place not in public places, but in private homes.

Terrifying trend

Mass killings by guns rose in 2019 but fell in the first year of the coronavirus pandemic. As daily life gradually returned to normal, the frequency of the deadliest incidents increased.

The record is a "tragic and shameful milestone that should serve as a wake-up call" to lawmakers opposed to gun regulation, said Thomas Abt, founding director of the Center for the Study and Practice of Violence Reduction.

“The rise in mass shootings is due to many factors, but the main reason is the increasingly easy access to firearms,” he said.

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Mass shootings are not an epidemic but the tip of the gun violence iceberg, said James Alan Fox, a professor of criminology, law and public policy at Northeastern University. He manages a database of mass killings and has been studying such violence for more than 40 years. They account for a tiny percentage of gun deaths.

More than 2022 people died from gunshot wounds in 48, an average of about 000 deaths per day, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than half of them were suicides.

“Too many people are killed by their own hands or others,” Fox said. “Mass shootings tend to be the most visible.”

Massacres: where, how, who

This year began with seven mass shootings by guns in January, the most of any month in the database.

The first occurred just after New Year's in Enoch, Utah. On January 4, police discovered the bodies of a 42-year-old insurance agent, his ex-wife, five children ranging in age from 4 to 17, and his wife's mother. All with head shots. Police said a suicide note next to the man's body blamed his wife for marital problems.

This year, as every year since at least 2006, the largest number of mass shootings occurred in private homes or shelters—at least 26 of the 38.

Nineteen of them were committed by people who killed members of their own families, including current or former romantic partners and children. At least three other shootings, like the one in Dallas, involved the killing of neighbors.

The deadliest shooting of 2023 occurred on October 25 in Lewiston, Maine, when a reservist who was experiencing mental health problems opened fire at a bowling alley and bar. He killed 18 people and injured 13. After a two-day manhunt, police found his body in a trailer. The man apparently died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

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That number surpassed the death toll on Jan. 21, when a 72-year-old ballroom dance student shot and killed 11 people with a semi-automatic rifle during Lunar New Year celebrations at a dance studio. After the shooting, he drove away in his car and committed suicide as police approached.

Ten of the 38 mass shootings occurred in public places, including at a shopping mall in Texas, a bank in Kentucky, a mushroom farm in California and a birthday party in Alabama.

One of the incidents occurred at a Nashville elementary school when a former student killed three 27-year-old children and three adults on March 9.

Just three of the shootings involved robberies, gang conflicts or drug-related crimes. Most criminals attacked strangers or people they knew.

They did so despite knowing the result would likely be their own death or life in prison, said Adam Lankford, chair of the department of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Alabama. They had "no hope for the future."

In addition to the sheer number of mass shootings, Lankford finds this year's record particularly troubling.
“The American public has become more aware of the warning signs of mass shootings and threat assessment strategies,” he said.

And yet they continue to happen.

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