First half of year sets new record in US mass killings since 2006

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
15 Jul 2023 11:40

As the death toll increased just about every week, some are looking for solutions to prevent guns from being handed to people prone to becoming violent.

Mourners pause at a memorial vigil honoring the victims of a shooting at the Star Ballroom Dance on Monday 23, 2023. (AP)

A database maintained by the Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University revealed that the first six months of this year have set a new record in mass killings in the US, with 28 mass killings and 140 victims to date -- the deadliest record since 2006.

As the death toll increased just about every week, some are looking for solutions to prevent guns from being handed to people prone to becoming violent.

The conventional definition of a mass killing involves an occurrence when four or more people are killed within a 24-hour period. It excludes the assailant from being included in the death toll.

The database showed that the last record of 27 mass killings was previously set in the second half of 2022.

"We used to say there were two to three dozen a year," said James Alan Fox, a criminology professor at Northeastern University. "The fact that there’s 28 in half a year is a staggering statistic."

The state of affairs is so grim that it has prompted US President Joe Biden to issue a statement about the situation. On the occasion of the Fourth of July, he decried the "wave of tragic and senseless shootings in communities across America," while calling for "meaningful, commonsense" gun control reforms.

Amy Barnhorst, a psychiatrist who is the associate director of the violence prevention research program at the University of California, Davis, told AFP, "Hopefully it was just a blip," adding, "There could be fewer killings later in 2023, or this could be part of a trend. But we won’t know for sometime."

Experts say that such an occurrence is owed to the fact that the population is growing while the number of guns in the US is increasing.

Attempts to address the issue of mass killings have been channeled into reforming gun laws, which haven't brought any substantial change.

Of the 28 mass killings, 27 involved guns. The remaining one was caused by a fire in a home in Louisiana.