New record for mass shootings in the US

New record for mass shootings in the US

Kyiv  •  UNN

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In 2023, the United States experienced its 37th and 38th mass shootings, the highest annual total since 2006, with recent incidents in Dallas, Texas, and Vancouver, Washington.

In the United States over the weekend, the 37th and 38th shootings this year in which four or more people were killed. This is the highest number of mass shootings in a year since 2006. Last year's 36 were the previous "record". This was reported by The Washington Post, according to UNN.

Details

On Sunday, December 3 December, in less than 90 minutes, two 911 calls led police in Texas and Washington, D.C., to two massacres that pushed the country to a a horrific milestone.

In Dallas, for example. a 21-year-old man who had to wear an electronic ankle bracelet due to previous aggravated assault charges, entered a home and shot and killed five people, including a small child.

According to police, he fled in a stolen car, but then shot himself as patrol officers chased him. 

In a suburb of Vancouver, Washington, five members of a of a family were killed. According to sheriff's deputies, these were murder-suicides.

Like most mass murders, the latter occurred not in public places, but in private homes.

In the United States, mass murders increased in 2019, but later decreased during the first year of the of the coronavirus pandemic. As people's lives gradually returned to normal after Covid-19 normalized, the homicide rate increased again. increased again.

The rise in mass shootings is due to many factors, but primarily to easy access to firearms,

- said Thomas Abt, founding director of the Center for Violence Reduction Research and Practice and an assistant research professor at the University of Maryland.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2022, there will be an estimated 1,000 deaths in the United States  more than 48,000 people died from gunshot wounds, which is an average of is approximately 132 deaths per day. More than half of them were suicides.

In the United States, 2023 began with seven mass shootings with guns in January.

The first occurred just after the New Year in Enoch, Utah. Police on January 4 January  found the bodies of a 42-year-old man, his wife, five children aged aged 4 to 17 and his wife's mother, all shot in the in the head. According to police, in a suicide note, the man blamed his wife for the family's problems.

This year, the largest number of mass killings occurred in private homes or shelters. homes or shelters. Thus, 19 were committed by people who killed members of of their own families. In at least three other shootings, including in Dallas, neighbors neighbors killed neighbors.

Addendum

The deadliest shooting of 2023 occurred on October 25 in Lewiston, Maine, Maine, when an Army reservist with a history of mental health issues opened fire in a at a bowling alley and bar hosting a weekly tournament. He killed 18 people and wounded 13. After a two-day manhunt, police found his body in a trailer. It is likely that the man died of a gunshot wound as a result of suicide.

SEE ALSO: Shooting at the state psychiatric hospital in Concord, New Hampshire