New York, Europe Brief News – Gun violence is a fixture in American life. At least 70 people have been killed in mass shooting attacks so far this year across the country.
The latest shooting attack occurred on Monday, leaving at least seven people killed and one critically injured.
The shooting came less than 48 hours after a gunman killed 11 people at a Lunar New Year celebration near Los Angeles, California, on Saturday night.
Figures from the Gun Violence Archive – a non-profit research database – shows that the number of mass shootings has gone up significantly in recent years.
In the last three years there have been more than 600 mass shootings – almost two a day on average.
While the US does not have a single definition for “mass shootings”, the Gun Violence Archive defines a mass shooting as an incident in which four or more people are injured or killed. Their figure includes shootings that happen both in homes and in public places.
The deadliest such attack, in Las Vegas in 2017, killed more than 50 people and left 500 wounded. The vast majority of mass shootings, however, leave fewer than 10 people dead.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a total of 45,222 people died from gun-related injuries of all causes during 2020, the last year for which complete data is available.
And while mass shooting and gun murders generally garner more media attention, of the total, more than half were suicides.
