Those Damn Guns Again
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As Uvalde Stirs U.S. Gun-Control Debate, Canada Moves to Ban Handgun Sales
Newsweek
BY ALEX BACKUS
5/30/22
10:39 PM
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced new gun control legislation for his country Monday that would include a national freeze on handguns.
"It will no longer be possible to buy, sell, transfer, or import handguns anywhere in Canada once this bill becomes law," Trudeau said Monday.
The move comes less than one week after the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, that left 21 dead, including 19 students. The legislation also aims to fight gun smuggling and trafficking by increasing criminal penalties and strengthening border security measures.
Another component would remove firearms licenses from individuals involved in acts of domestic violence or criminal harassment.
"And we'll make sure that those who are considered a danger to themselves or others have to surrender their firearms to authorities," Trudeau added.
Canada banned more than 1,500 types of military-style assault firearms two years ago and has expanded background checks. Along with the new proposed legislation, the Canadian government would also require long-gun magazines to be "permanently altered," to never hold more than five rounds, and "ban the sale and transfer of large capacity magazines under the Criminal Code."
"One Canadian killed by gun violence is one too many," Trudeau said. "I've seen all too well the tragic cost that gun violence has in our communities across the country. Today, we're proposing some of the strongest measures in Canadian history to keep guns out of our communities and build a safer future for everyone."
The sweeping bill was rolled out six days after the mass shooting in Uvalde. The shooting sparked renewed calls for gun control across America.
U.S. President Joe Biden called for "common sense gun laws," during a speech hours after the shooting on May 24.
During a press briefing Monday morning, Biden was asked if he believes Republicans will now approach gun reform differently.
"Since I haven't spoken to them, I don't know," Biden told reporters. "But my guess is, if they have, if they, yes, I think they're going to have to take a hard look. I know that it makes no sense to be able to purchase something that can fire up to 300 rounds."
President Biden and first lady Jill Biden visited Uvalde on Sunday. As Biden was leaving a church, a large crowd chanted "do something." The president responded "we will," the Associated Press reported.
Biden said he "deliberately" did not engage in a debate with Republicans while in Uvalde regarding gun control measures as the Bidens were there "consoling" the families of the victims.
As Uvalde Stirs U.S. Gun-Control Debate, Canada Moves to Ban Handgun Sales (newsweek.com)
.
As Uvalde Stirs U.S. Gun-Control Debate, Canada Moves to Ban Handgun Sales
Newsweek
BY ALEX BACKUS
5/30/22
10:39 PM
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced new gun control legislation for his country Monday that would include a national freeze on handguns.
"It will no longer be possible to buy, sell, transfer, or import handguns anywhere in Canada once this bill becomes law," Trudeau said Monday.
The move comes less than one week after the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, that left 21 dead, including 19 students. The legislation also aims to fight gun smuggling and trafficking by increasing criminal penalties and strengthening border security measures.
Another component would remove firearms licenses from individuals involved in acts of domestic violence or criminal harassment.
"And we'll make sure that those who are considered a danger to themselves or others have to surrender their firearms to authorities," Trudeau added.
Canada banned more than 1,500 types of military-style assault firearms two years ago and has expanded background checks. Along with the new proposed legislation, the Canadian government would also require long-gun magazines to be "permanently altered," to never hold more than five rounds, and "ban the sale and transfer of large capacity magazines under the Criminal Code."
"One Canadian killed by gun violence is one too many," Trudeau said. "I've seen all too well the tragic cost that gun violence has in our communities across the country. Today, we're proposing some of the strongest measures in Canadian history to keep guns out of our communities and build a safer future for everyone."
The sweeping bill was rolled out six days after the mass shooting in Uvalde. The shooting sparked renewed calls for gun control across America.
U.S. President Joe Biden called for "common sense gun laws," during a speech hours after the shooting on May 24.
During a press briefing Monday morning, Biden was asked if he believes Republicans will now approach gun reform differently.
"Since I haven't spoken to them, I don't know," Biden told reporters. "But my guess is, if they have, if they, yes, I think they're going to have to take a hard look. I know that it makes no sense to be able to purchase something that can fire up to 300 rounds."
President Biden and first lady Jill Biden visited Uvalde on Sunday. As Biden was leaving a church, a large crowd chanted "do something." The president responded "we will," the Associated Press reported.
Biden said he "deliberately" did not engage in a debate with Republicans while in Uvalde regarding gun control measures as the Bidens were there "consoling" the families of the victims.
As Uvalde Stirs U.S. Gun-Control Debate, Canada Moves to Ban Handgun Sales (newsweek.com)
.
Oklahoma hospital shooting: Four killed and multiple injured
Police say the suspected gunman has also died following the attack in Tulsa.
www.bbc.co.uk
Oklahoma hospital shooting: Four killed and multiple injured
Police say a gunman killed four people in Tulsa
Four people have been killed in a shooting spree at a hospital in Tulsa, Oklahoma, police say.
Officers confirmed that the suspected shooter, who was armed with a rifle and a handgun, was also dead.
Police arrived at the scene on Wednesday afternoon at St Francis Hospital in three minutes - which they say ensured the death toll wasn't higher.
Multiple injuries had also been confirmed, officials added.
Speaking at a press conference on Wednesday, Deputy Police Chief Eric Dalgleish said: "Right now we have four civilians that are dead, and one shooter that is dead."
He said the shooter, who has not yet been identified, sustained fatal gunshot wounds which were believed to have been self-inflicted.
The suspect "had one long gun and one hand gun on the scene at the time", he said.
No information was available about a possible motivation for the attack.
Deputy Dalgleish said that police received a call about an active shooter at 16:52 local (20:52 GMT) and arrived at the scene within three minutes.
"The officers who did arrive did hear shots in the building and that's what directed them to the second floor," he said.
Officers are currently interviewing witnesses throughout the building, including those who were on the second floor - where the attack took place.
Speaking to ABC News, Captain Richard Meulenberg said that by the time police arrived at the medical campus they "found a few people have been shot" and some of them had already died.
It was a "catastrophic scene", he said.
US President Joe Biden has been briefed on the Tulsa shooting, White House officials also said in a statement.
Last Saturday, President Biden urged Americans to make their voices heard to prevent further gun violence, following the killing of 19 children and two teachers at a school in Texas.
Senate negotiators have 'framework' for gun legislation, source says
A bipartisan group of nine senators met Wednesday as they try to hammer out a bill in the wake of the Uvalde massacre.
www.nbcnews.com
"The bipartisan group of nine senators, who met in person at the Capitol shortly after the May 24 massacre, held a Zoom meeting Wednesday afternoon to discuss any progress that may have been made during the Memorial Day recess.
The senators are: Democrats Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and Republicans Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Susan Collins of Maine, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana."
Can the United States Curb the Epidemic of Gun Violence?
www.counterpunch.org
An epidemic is hitting the US and ordinary citizens are unable to stop it. The reason is simple: the laws protect the killers. And those responsible for making the laws have abdicated their responsibility. The Gun Violence Archive reports that mass shootings have increased from 269 in 2014 to 693 in 2021. They do so even when the victims could be their children or grandchildren, engulfed in a wave of violence and death that is increasingly targeting schools.
Lawmakers –mostly Republican—systematically refuse to enact legislation that will effectively control arms sales. This is frustrating to most Americans, who support stricter gun controls. In the meantime, kids go to school in constant fear that they will be the next victims of a mass shooting spree. According to Education Week, which has been tracking school shootings since 2018, there have been 27 school shootings from the beginning of this year until May 25.
A comparison with Japan is relevant. About 40,000 Americans die each year of gun homicides, suicides or accidental shootings. In contrast, in Japan, a country of 127 million people, authorities report approximately 10 gun-deaths a year. One reason is that Japan has more effective gun control laws. While buying guns in the US is as easy as buying chewing gum, in Japan applicants must pass a long list of tests. They comprise a background check that includes interviews with friends and family and a thorough mental health evaluation which takes place at a hospital.
In addition, while guns don’t play a role in Japan’s civilian society, gun ownership (and accompanying violence) has become ingrained in the US mental outlook. Proud of his popularity, Donald Trump, the former TV personality and former US president, declared in Iowa during his presidential campaign, “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.” He said this as he continuously advocates for less control on the sale of guns, and for arming teachers as a way to curb school violence. Such a proposal would only institutionalize violence.
One cannot disregard the role of gender on the issue of gun violence in the US, since practically all mass shootings are carried out by males. This should be urgently addressed, particularly by teachers in the schools. They should put renewed emphasis on the value of compassion, kindness and solidarity in interpersonal relations.
The young men who commit these acts of violence are suffering: sometimes from overt trauma including childhood neglect which can manifest as depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts and attempts; social isolation despite a desire to belong to a community of peers or others; and a feeling of powerlessness like suicide bombers – they have nothing to lose and these violent acts which are meant to be witnessed – in addition to being motivated by racism and hate – can be understood as manifestations of self-hate and a desire to appropriate power.
“Most young shooters have been the victims of ACE—Adverse Childhood Experiences. These are the result of situational issues, the main ones being parental abuse, violent community life, problems at school, poverty. While these issues may surface at schools, there are severe limitations on what school personnel can do. Parental consent is always needed for interventions. Self-referral is unusual and unlikely in cases with familial problems. Many schools do not have psychological or social work services at all,” says Dr. Barbara Kantz, a retired college professor who taught Human Services at the State University of New York (SUNY).
Local authorities often feel powerless at the lack of federal guidance to curb the universal accessibility of guns. Americans bought almost 20 million guns in 2021, the second busiest year on record. The Small Arms Survey of 2017 estimated that there were more guns than people in the US; in round figures 393 million firearms in a country of 326,474,000 inhabitants. Since not every person in the U.S. owns a gun, it means that many people own more than one.
President Biden has proposed several common-sense measures including a ban on assault weapons; expansion of background checks; obligatory safe storage of weapons; a “red-flag” law; and a repeal of the liability clause that shelters gun manufacturers from being sued. These are important measures.
They should be complemented, however, by enacting federal legislation aimed at stricter enforcement of gun registration; effective control of the manufacture, sale and import of firearms, and harsher penalties for violating these rules. In addition, severe penalties should be imposed on parents and other adults whose children have access to firearms owned legally and registered, or who give them as presents to their children.
Dr. Manuel Orlando García, a New York psychiatrist says about those legislators who are unwilling to pass any meaningful gun control legislation, “By defending freedom and life they get elected –noble aims– but for them the life of an embryo counts more than the life of a child and the unrestricted freedom to buy weapons counts more than the freedom to be safe in a park or a school. The same people who value the life of a mother less than that of a fertilized egg; the same that legalize state killings and blame the victims of inequality and homelessness, justify with their jargon the ongoing massacre of gun violence infecting the country, including increasing numbers of school children. They claim guns do not kill omitting to say that any person with a gun could become a killer when affected by intense emotions. No need to suffer a mental illness.”
Gun violence is also an economic problem, since lack of employment opportunities increases the risk of gun violence. As Rev. Gregory Boyle who works on this issue in East Los Angeles has said, “Nothing stops a bullet like a job.” One Summer Chicago Plus, a jobs program designed to prepare youth from some of the city’s most violent neighborhoods, saw a 43 percent drop in violent-crime arrets among its participants.
Japan has almost no deaths due to gun violence. Why cannot the US, the most powerful country in the world, do the same? Although recent measures to control gun ownership are useful, what is truly needed is an effective ban on all guns, and education efforts to change a culture of violence in the country. We need to move from a culture of violence to a culture of peace.
Continuous failure to act will lead to spiraling of violence of unforeseen but certainly nefarious consequences for people’s lives, and for our future as a civilized nation. By claiming that they are pro-life, lawmakers who are unwilling to control gun violence are, in effect, pro-death.
Can the United States Curb the Epidemic of Gun Violence?
An epidemic is hitting the US and ordinary citizens are unable to stop it. The reason is simple: the laws protect the killers. And those responsible for
www.counterpunch.org
An epidemic is hitting the US and ordinary citizens are unable to stop it. The reason is simple: the laws protect the killers. And those responsible for making the laws have abdicated their responsibility. The Gun Violence Archive reports that mass shootings have increased from 269 in 2014 to 693 in 2021. They do so even when the victims could be their children or grandchildren, engulfed in a wave of violence and death that is increasingly targeting schools.
Lawmakers –mostly Republican—systematically refuse to enact legislation that will effectively control arms sales. This is frustrating to most Americans, who support stricter gun controls. In the meantime, kids go to school in constant fear that they will be the next victims of a mass shooting spree. According to Education Week, which has been tracking school shootings since 2018, there have been 27 school shootings from the beginning of this year until May 25.
A comparison with Japan is relevant. About 40,000 Americans die each year of gun homicides, suicides or accidental shootings. In contrast, in Japan, a country of 127 million people, authorities report approximately 10 gun-deaths a year. One reason is that Japan has more effective gun control laws. While buying guns in the US is as easy as buying chewing gum, in Japan applicants must pass a long list of tests. They comprise a background check that includes interviews with friends and family and a thorough mental health evaluation which takes place at a hospital.
In addition, while guns don’t play a role in Japan’s civilian society, gun ownership (and accompanying violence) has become ingrained in the US mental outlook. Proud of his popularity, Donald Trump, the former TV personality and former US president, declared in Iowa during his presidential campaign, “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.” He said this as he continuously advocates for less control on the sale of guns, and for arming teachers as a way to curb school violence. Such a proposal would only institutionalize violence.
One cannot disregard the role of gender on the issue of gun violence in the US, since practically all mass shootings are carried out by males. This should be urgently addressed, particularly by teachers in the schools. They should put renewed emphasis on the value of compassion, kindness and solidarity in interpersonal relations.
The young men who commit these acts of violence are suffering: sometimes from overt trauma including childhood neglect which can manifest as depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts and attempts; social isolation despite a desire to belong to a community of peers or others; and a feeling of powerlessness like suicide bombers – they have nothing to lose and these violent acts which are meant to be witnessed – in addition to being motivated by racism and hate – can be understood as manifestations of self-hate and a desire to appropriate power.
“Most young shooters have been the victims of ACE—Adverse Childhood Experiences. These are the result of situational issues, the main ones being parental abuse, violent community life, problems at school, poverty. While these issues may surface at schools, there are severe limitations on what school personnel can do. Parental consent is always needed for interventions. Self-referral is unusual and unlikely in cases with familial problems. Many schools do not have psychological or social work services at all,” says Dr. Barbara Kantz, a retired college professor who taught Human Services at the State University of New York (SUNY).
Local authorities often feel powerless at the lack of federal guidance to curb the universal accessibility of guns. Americans bought almost 20 million guns in 2021, the second busiest year on record. The Small Arms Survey of 2017 estimated that there were more guns than people in the US; in round figures 393 million firearms in a country of 326,474,000 inhabitants. Since not every person in the U.S. owns a gun, it means that many people own more than one.
President Biden has proposed several common-sense measures including a ban on assault weapons; expansion of background checks; obligatory safe storage of weapons; a “red-flag” law; and a repeal of the liability clause that shelters gun manufacturers from being sued. These are important measures.
They should be complemented, however, by enacting federal legislation aimed at stricter enforcement of gun registration; effective control of the manufacture, sale and import of firearms, and harsher penalties for violating these rules. In addition, severe penalties should be imposed on parents and other adults whose children have access to firearms owned legally and registered, or who give them as presents to their children.
Dr. Manuel Orlando García, a New York psychiatrist says about those legislators who are unwilling to pass any meaningful gun control legislation, “By defending freedom and life they get elected –noble aims– but for them the life of an embryo counts more than the life of a child and the unrestricted freedom to buy weapons counts more than the freedom to be safe in a park or a school. The same people who value the life of a mother less than that of a fertilized egg; the same that legalize state killings and blame the victims of inequality and homelessness, justify with their jargon the ongoing massacre of gun violence infecting the country, including increasing numbers of school children. They claim guns do not kill omitting to say that any person with a gun could become a killer when affected by intense emotions. No need to suffer a mental illness.”
Gun violence is also an economic problem, since lack of employment opportunities increases the risk of gun violence. As Rev. Gregory Boyle who works on this issue in East Los Angeles has said, “Nothing stops a bullet like a job.” One Summer Chicago Plus, a jobs program designed to prepare youth from some of the city’s most violent neighborhoods, saw a 43 percent drop in violent-crime arrets among its participants.
Japan has almost no deaths due to gun violence. Why cannot the US, the most powerful country in the world, do the same? Although recent measures to control gun ownership are useful, what is truly needed is an effective ban on all guns, and education efforts to change a culture of violence in the country. We need to move from a culture of violence to a culture of peace.
Continuous failure to act will lead to spiraling of violence of unforeseen but certainly nefarious consequences for people’s lives, and for our future as a civilized nation. By claiming that they are pro-life, lawmakers who are unwilling to control gun violence are, in effect, pro-death.
The Trace
Year in Review
Gun Violence in 2021, By the Numbers
The facts and figures that stuck with us.
By Chip Brownlee
Dec 27, 2021
Updated May 27, 2022
Share
Below, we’ve shared some of the facts and figures that stood out from the noise. They highlight the human cost of gun violence, they give us a better understanding of who owns firearms, and they help make sense of the remarkable increase in shootings our nation continues to endure.
20,726
The number of gun deaths, excluding suicides, so far in 2021.
The total includes murders, accidents, and homicides that were ruled justifiable. It’s a slight increase over the total in 2020 and a continuation of the trend of rising gun deaths that accelerated during the pandemic. The annual total is the highest recorded by the Gun Violence Archive since the nonprofit’s founding in 2014. [Gun Violence Archive]
693
The number of mass shooting incidents in the United States in 2021.
When defined as four or more people shot, 2021’s total is 13.4 percent higher than 2020. The shootings have claimed 702 lives and injured 2,844 people. Though mass public shootings like the Boulder, Colorado, supermarket shooting; the metro Atlanta spa shootings; and the San Jose transit shooting garnered intense media attention, most mass shootings disproportionately affect Black and brown communities and receive relatively little coverage. [Gun Violence Archive]
Two-thirds
The share of major cities that have seen more homicides this year than in 2020.
When gun violence began to surge during the pandemic, cities saw their homicide rates soar, and in many of the country’s most populous cities, that trend has continued into 2021. Though there are signs the rate of increase has slowed, at least nine of the country’s major cities have broken previous homicide records this year, according to a CNN analysis of 40 cities. [CNN]
18.8 million
The estimated number of guns sold in 2021.
The number includes 11.3 million handguns and 7.5 million long guns. Based on data from the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, gun purchases have declined in 2021 compared to 2020. Even still, this year remains on track to record the second-highest number of estimated guns purchased since 2000. [The Trace]
81.4 million
The estimated number of adult Americans who own a firearm.
Americans are the most heavily armed citizenry in the world, and this estimate from the 2021 National Firearms Survey shows that about one-third of U.S. adults own a gun. A study based on the survey’s data showed that an estimated 7.5 million U.S. adults became new gun owners between January 2019 and April 2021. During that time period, an estimated 17 million people found themselves in a home with a firearm where there wasn’t one before. [2021 National Firearms Survey]
1.6 percent
The share of gun dealers with violations whose licenses were revoked between 2010 and 2019.
In a sweeping investigation, The Trace showed that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives goes easy on wayward gun dealers. The agency routinely downgraded punishments for dealers who were found to be breaking the law, and revoked licenses in only the most egregious cases. [The Trace/USA Today]
22
The number of people killed in school shooting incidents in 2021.
At least 80 others have been injured. This year’s total amounts to the most casualties from school shootings since 2018, the year a gunman killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and another killed 10 at Sante Fe High School in Texas. [Gun Violence Archive]
~68,000
The number of guns recovered from crime scenes in 2020 that had been purchased less than seven months earlier.
Guns sold in 2020 were more likely to show up at crime scenes within a year than in any previous period, according to “time-to-crime” figures published by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. It’s some of the first evidence to suggest that the surge of gun purchases in 2020 is connected to rising gun violence. [The Trace]
At least 200
How many ghost guns the NYPD has recovered in New York City through November.
The number surpassed the 145 the Police Department recovered last year and far exceeded the 48 seized in 2019. Law enforcement agencies across the country are increasingly finding these unserialized, difficult-to-trace firearms at crime scenes, a trend The Trace has reported on for years. [Gothamist]
$5 billion
The amount of funding earmarked for community violence intervention in the Build Back Better bill.
The funding in the current version of President Joe Biden’s social spending bill, which is currently stuck in the Senate, would go to the Department of Justice and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to invest in community violence interventions. These evidence-based programs, like Cure Violence and Advance Peace, among others, have been shown to help reduce violent crime. According to a 2021 survey from Giffords Law Center, some 86 percent of community violence intervention workers worry frequently or occasionally about losing their jobs because of a funding lapse. Separately, the American Rescue Plan, the president’s COVID-19 relief bill, included more than $350 billion in state and local funding that could be used on CVI. [White House]
6
The number of states that have passed permitless concealed carry laws in 2021.
Iowa, Tennessee, Texas, Arkansas, Montana, and Utah all passed permitless carry laws this year, the most states in a single year to do so. In total, 21 states have laws allowing residents to carry concealed handguns without a license An estimated 20.7 million gun owners say they carry their firearms under concealed carry laws. [The Trace/2021 National Firearms Survey]
7.1 per 100,000
The rate of gun suicide in the United States.
The U.S. has the highest gun suicide rate of any country on earth. In terms of raw numbers, it works out to roughly 24,000 deaths per year — nearly 70 percent of all annual gun deaths. According to preliminary data released in November, the overall suicide rate declined slightly in 2020. [The Trace/Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation]
At least 51
The number of transgender and gender non-conforming people who have been killed in 2021.
Most of the homicides were committed with guns, and the majority of the victims were Black and Latinx women. The number is likely an undercount, but it is still the most on record, surpassing 2020’s record of 44. Transgender deaths often go unreported or misreported because the victims may be misgendered or deadnamed by law enforcement, media reports, or next of kin. [Human Rights Campaign]
Graphics by Champe Barton, Chip Brownlee, and Olga Pierce
Investigating America’s gun violence crisis
Reader donations help power our non-profit reporting.
Become a Member
The Trace
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Never miss a big story. Subscribe now.
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Chip Brownleetwitteremail
Chip Brownlee is a reporter at The Trace.
Up Next
The Most Memorable Gun Violence Journalism of 2021
Stories that inspired us, and improved our understanding of a uniquely American crisis.
Team Trace
The Most Memorable Gun Violence Journalism of 2021
The only newsroom dedicated to reporting on gun violence.
Your tax-deductible donation to Trace Media Inc. will directly support nonprofit journalism on gun violence and its effects on our communities.
Become a Member
The TraceInvestigating gun violence in America.
Gun Violence in 2021, By the Numbers (thetrace.org)
.
Year in Review
Gun Violence in 2021, By the Numbers
The facts and figures that stuck with us.
By Chip Brownlee
Dec 27, 2021
Updated May 27, 2022
Share
- Share on Twitter
- Share on Facebook
- Email a link to this page
Below, we’ve shared some of the facts and figures that stood out from the noise. They highlight the human cost of gun violence, they give us a better understanding of who owns firearms, and they help make sense of the remarkable increase in shootings our nation continues to endure.
20,726
The number of gun deaths, excluding suicides, so far in 2021.
The total includes murders, accidents, and homicides that were ruled justifiable. It’s a slight increase over the total in 2020 and a continuation of the trend of rising gun deaths that accelerated during the pandemic. The annual total is the highest recorded by the Gun Violence Archive since the nonprofit’s founding in 2014. [Gun Violence Archive]
693
The number of mass shooting incidents in the United States in 2021.
When defined as four or more people shot, 2021’s total is 13.4 percent higher than 2020. The shootings have claimed 702 lives and injured 2,844 people. Though mass public shootings like the Boulder, Colorado, supermarket shooting; the metro Atlanta spa shootings; and the San Jose transit shooting garnered intense media attention, most mass shootings disproportionately affect Black and brown communities and receive relatively little coverage. [Gun Violence Archive]
Two-thirds
The share of major cities that have seen more homicides this year than in 2020.
When gun violence began to surge during the pandemic, cities saw their homicide rates soar, and in many of the country’s most populous cities, that trend has continued into 2021. Though there are signs the rate of increase has slowed, at least nine of the country’s major cities have broken previous homicide records this year, according to a CNN analysis of 40 cities. [CNN]
18.8 million
The estimated number of guns sold in 2021.
The number includes 11.3 million handguns and 7.5 million long guns. Based on data from the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, gun purchases have declined in 2021 compared to 2020. Even still, this year remains on track to record the second-highest number of estimated guns purchased since 2000. [The Trace]
81.4 million
The estimated number of adult Americans who own a firearm.
Americans are the most heavily armed citizenry in the world, and this estimate from the 2021 National Firearms Survey shows that about one-third of U.S. adults own a gun. A study based on the survey’s data showed that an estimated 7.5 million U.S. adults became new gun owners between January 2019 and April 2021. During that time period, an estimated 17 million people found themselves in a home with a firearm where there wasn’t one before. [2021 National Firearms Survey]
1.6 percent
The share of gun dealers with violations whose licenses were revoked between 2010 and 2019.
In a sweeping investigation, The Trace showed that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives goes easy on wayward gun dealers. The agency routinely downgraded punishments for dealers who were found to be breaking the law, and revoked licenses in only the most egregious cases. [The Trace/USA Today]
22
The number of people killed in school shooting incidents in 2021.
At least 80 others have been injured. This year’s total amounts to the most casualties from school shootings since 2018, the year a gunman killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and another killed 10 at Sante Fe High School in Texas. [Gun Violence Archive]
~68,000
The number of guns recovered from crime scenes in 2020 that had been purchased less than seven months earlier.
Guns sold in 2020 were more likely to show up at crime scenes within a year than in any previous period, according to “time-to-crime” figures published by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. It’s some of the first evidence to suggest that the surge of gun purchases in 2020 is connected to rising gun violence. [The Trace]
At least 200
How many ghost guns the NYPD has recovered in New York City through November.
The number surpassed the 145 the Police Department recovered last year and far exceeded the 48 seized in 2019. Law enforcement agencies across the country are increasingly finding these unserialized, difficult-to-trace firearms at crime scenes, a trend The Trace has reported on for years. [Gothamist]
$5 billion
The amount of funding earmarked for community violence intervention in the Build Back Better bill.
The funding in the current version of President Joe Biden’s social spending bill, which is currently stuck in the Senate, would go to the Department of Justice and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to invest in community violence interventions. These evidence-based programs, like Cure Violence and Advance Peace, among others, have been shown to help reduce violent crime. According to a 2021 survey from Giffords Law Center, some 86 percent of community violence intervention workers worry frequently or occasionally about losing their jobs because of a funding lapse. Separately, the American Rescue Plan, the president’s COVID-19 relief bill, included more than $350 billion in state and local funding that could be used on CVI. [White House]
6
The number of states that have passed permitless concealed carry laws in 2021.
Iowa, Tennessee, Texas, Arkansas, Montana, and Utah all passed permitless carry laws this year, the most states in a single year to do so. In total, 21 states have laws allowing residents to carry concealed handguns without a license An estimated 20.7 million gun owners say they carry their firearms under concealed carry laws. [The Trace/2021 National Firearms Survey]
7.1 per 100,000
The rate of gun suicide in the United States.
The U.S. has the highest gun suicide rate of any country on earth. In terms of raw numbers, it works out to roughly 24,000 deaths per year — nearly 70 percent of all annual gun deaths. According to preliminary data released in November, the overall suicide rate declined slightly in 2020. [The Trace/Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation]
At least 51
The number of transgender and gender non-conforming people who have been killed in 2021.
Most of the homicides were committed with guns, and the majority of the victims were Black and Latinx women. The number is likely an undercount, but it is still the most on record, surpassing 2020’s record of 44. Transgender deaths often go unreported or misreported because the victims may be misgendered or deadnamed by law enforcement, media reports, or next of kin. [Human Rights Campaign]
Graphics by Champe Barton, Chip Brownlee, and Olga Pierce
Investigating America’s gun violence crisis
Reader donations help power our non-profit reporting.
Become a Member
The Trace
Go beyond the headlines.
Never miss a big story. Subscribe now.
Email Address
Weekly Daily
Subscribe
Chip Brownleetwitteremail
Chip Brownlee is a reporter at The Trace.
Up Next
The Most Memorable Gun Violence Journalism of 2021
Stories that inspired us, and improved our understanding of a uniquely American crisis.
Team Trace
The Most Memorable Gun Violence Journalism of 2021
The only newsroom dedicated to reporting on gun violence.
Your tax-deductible donation to Trace Media Inc. will directly support nonprofit journalism on gun violence and its effects on our communities.
Become a Member
The TraceInvestigating gun violence in America.
Gun Violence in 2021, By the Numbers (thetrace.org)
.
St. Louis
School gunman had AR-15-style weapon, 600 rounds of ammo
By MICHAEL PHILLIS and JIM SALTER, 2 hrs ago
San Diego Union-Tribune
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The 19-year-old gunman who killed a teacher and a 15-year-old girl at a St. Louis high school was armed with an AR-15-style rifle and what appeared to be more than 600 rounds of ammunition, Police Commissioner Michael Sack said Tuesday.
Orlando Harris also left behind a hand-written note offering his explanation for the shooting Monday at Central Visual and Performing Arts High School. Tenth-grader Alexandria Bell and 61-year-old physical education teacher Jean Kuczka died and seven students were wounded.
Police killed Harris in an exchange of gunfire.
Sack read Harris' note in which the young man lamented that he had no friends, no family, no girlfriend and a life of isolation. In the note, he called it the “perfect storm for a mass shooter.”
Sack said Harris had some ammo strapped to his chest, some in a bag, and other magazines were found dumped in stairwells.
The attack forced students to barricade doors and huddle in classroom corners, jump from windows and run out of the building to seek safety. One terrorized girl said she was eye-to-eye with the shooter before his gun apparently jammed and she was able to run out. Several people inside the school said they heard Harris warn, “You are all going to die!”
Harris, 19, graduated from the school last year. The FBI was assisting police in the investigation. Sack, speaking at a news conference, urged people to come forward when someone who appears to suffer from mental illness or distress begins “speaking about purchasing firearms or causing harm to others.”
Relatives of those killed mourned their losses.
“Alexandria was my everything," her father, Andre Bell, told KSDK-TV . “She was joyful, wonderful and just a great person.”
Alexandria, a 10th grader, was outgoing, loved to dance and was a member of the school's junior varsity dance team.
“She was the girl I loved to see and loved to hear from. No matter how I felt, I could always talk to her and it was alright. That was my baby,” Andre Bell said.
Abby Kuczka said her mother was killed when the gunman burst into her classroom and she moved between him and her students.
“My mom loved kids,” Abbey Kuczka told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “She loved her students. I know her students looked at her like she was their mom.”
The seven injured students are all 15 or 16 years old. All were listed in stable condition. Sack said four suffered gunshot or graze wounds, two had bruises and one had a broken ankle — apparently from jumping out of the three-story building.
The school in south St. Louis was locked, with seven security guards near each door, St. Louis Schools Superintendent Kelvin Adams said. A security guard initially became alarmed when he saw the gunman trying to get in one of the doors. He was armed with a gun and “there was no mystery about what was going to happen. He had it out and entered in an aggressive, violent manner," Sack said.
That guard alerted school officials and made sure police were contacted.
Harris managed to get inside anyway — Sack declined to say how, saying he didn't want to “make it easy” for anyone else who wants to break into a school.
Sack offered this timeline of events: A 911 call came in at 9:11 a.m. alerting police of an active shooter. Officers — some off-duty wearing street clothes — arrived at 9:15 a.m. Police located Harris at 9:23 a.m. and began shooting at him. Harris was shot at 9:25 a.m. He was secured by police at 9:32 a.m.
Harris was armed with nearly a dozen 30-round high-capacity magazines, Sack said.
“This could have been much worse," Sack said.
Central Visual and Performing Arts shares a building with another magnet school, Collegiate School of Medicine and Bioscience. Central has 383 students, Collegiate 336.
Monday’s school shooting was the 40th this year resulting in injuries or death, according to a tally by Education Week — the most in any year since it began tracking shootings in 2018. The deadly attacks include the killings at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, in May, when 19 children and two teachers died. Monday’s St. Louis shooting came on the same day a Michigan teenager pleaded guilty to terrorism and first-degree murder in a school shooting that killed four students in December 2021.
Taniya Gholston said she was saved when the shooter’s gun jammed as he entered her classroom. “All I heard was two shots and he came in there with a gun,” the 16-year-old told the Post-Dispatch. “I was trying to run and I couldn’t run. Me and him made eye contact but I made it out because his gun got jammed.”
The gunman pointed his weapon at Raymond Parks, a dance teacher at the school, but did not shoot him, Parks said. The kids in his class escaped outside and Parks tried to stop traffic and get someone to call the police. They came quickly.
“You couldn’t have asked for better,” Parks said of the police response.
Ashley Rench said she was teaching advanced algebra to sophomores when she heard a loud bang. Then the school intercom announced, “Miles Davis is in the building.”
“That’s our code for intruder,” Rench said.
The gunman tried the door of the classroom but did not force his way in, she said. When the police started banging, she wasn’t sure at first if it really was law enforcement until she was able to glance out and see officers.
“Let's go!" she told the kids.
Kuczka, the slain teacher, taught health at Central for 14 years and recently began coaching cross-country at Collegiate, her daughter said. “She was definitely looking forward to retirement though. She was close,” Abbey Kuczka said.
Kuczka’s biography on the school website said she was the married mother of five and a grandmother of seven. She was an avid bike rider and was part of a 1979 national championship field hockey team at what is now Missouri State University.
“I cannot imagine myself in any other career but teaching,” Kuczka wrote on the website. “In high school, I taught swimming lessons at the YMCA. From that point on, I knew I wanted to be a teacher.”
___
AP reporter Margaret Stafford in Liberty, Missouri, contributed to this report. Salter reported from O'Fallon, Missouri.
___
This story has been corrected to show that Alexandria Bell was 15, not 16 as police had previously stated.
This story originally appeared in San Diego Union-Tribune .
School gunman had AR-15-style weapon, 600 rounds of ammo
By MICHAEL PHILLIS and JIM SALTER, 2 hrs ago
San Diego Union-Tribune
Follow
The 19-year-old gunman who killed a teacher and a 15-year-old girl at a St. Louis high school was armed with an AR-15-style rifle and what appeared to be more than 600 rounds of ammunition, Police Commissioner Michael Sack said Tuesday.
Orlando Harris also left behind a hand-written note offering his explanation for the shooting Monday at Central Visual and Performing Arts High School. Tenth-grader Alexandria Bell and 61-year-old physical education teacher Jean Kuczka died and seven students were wounded.
Police killed Harris in an exchange of gunfire.
Sack read Harris' note in which the young man lamented that he had no friends, no family, no girlfriend and a life of isolation. In the note, he called it the “perfect storm for a mass shooter.”
Sack said Harris had some ammo strapped to his chest, some in a bag, and other magazines were found dumped in stairwells.
The attack forced students to barricade doors and huddle in classroom corners, jump from windows and run out of the building to seek safety. One terrorized girl said she was eye-to-eye with the shooter before his gun apparently jammed and she was able to run out. Several people inside the school said they heard Harris warn, “You are all going to die!”
Harris, 19, graduated from the school last year. The FBI was assisting police in the investigation. Sack, speaking at a news conference, urged people to come forward when someone who appears to suffer from mental illness or distress begins “speaking about purchasing firearms or causing harm to others.”
Relatives of those killed mourned their losses.
“Alexandria was my everything," her father, Andre Bell, told KSDK-TV . “She was joyful, wonderful and just a great person.”
Alexandria, a 10th grader, was outgoing, loved to dance and was a member of the school's junior varsity dance team.
“She was the girl I loved to see and loved to hear from. No matter how I felt, I could always talk to her and it was alright. That was my baby,” Andre Bell said.
Abby Kuczka said her mother was killed when the gunman burst into her classroom and she moved between him and her students.
“My mom loved kids,” Abbey Kuczka told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “She loved her students. I know her students looked at her like she was their mom.”
The seven injured students are all 15 or 16 years old. All were listed in stable condition. Sack said four suffered gunshot or graze wounds, two had bruises and one had a broken ankle — apparently from jumping out of the three-story building.
The school in south St. Louis was locked, with seven security guards near each door, St. Louis Schools Superintendent Kelvin Adams said. A security guard initially became alarmed when he saw the gunman trying to get in one of the doors. He was armed with a gun and “there was no mystery about what was going to happen. He had it out and entered in an aggressive, violent manner," Sack said.
That guard alerted school officials and made sure police were contacted.
Harris managed to get inside anyway — Sack declined to say how, saying he didn't want to “make it easy” for anyone else who wants to break into a school.
Sack offered this timeline of events: A 911 call came in at 9:11 a.m. alerting police of an active shooter. Officers — some off-duty wearing street clothes — arrived at 9:15 a.m. Police located Harris at 9:23 a.m. and began shooting at him. Harris was shot at 9:25 a.m. He was secured by police at 9:32 a.m.
Harris was armed with nearly a dozen 30-round high-capacity magazines, Sack said.
“This could have been much worse," Sack said.
Central Visual and Performing Arts shares a building with another magnet school, Collegiate School of Medicine and Bioscience. Central has 383 students, Collegiate 336.
Monday’s school shooting was the 40th this year resulting in injuries or death, according to a tally by Education Week — the most in any year since it began tracking shootings in 2018. The deadly attacks include the killings at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, in May, when 19 children and two teachers died. Monday’s St. Louis shooting came on the same day a Michigan teenager pleaded guilty to terrorism and first-degree murder in a school shooting that killed four students in December 2021.
Taniya Gholston said she was saved when the shooter’s gun jammed as he entered her classroom. “All I heard was two shots and he came in there with a gun,” the 16-year-old told the Post-Dispatch. “I was trying to run and I couldn’t run. Me and him made eye contact but I made it out because his gun got jammed.”
The gunman pointed his weapon at Raymond Parks, a dance teacher at the school, but did not shoot him, Parks said. The kids in his class escaped outside and Parks tried to stop traffic and get someone to call the police. They came quickly.
“You couldn’t have asked for better,” Parks said of the police response.
Ashley Rench said she was teaching advanced algebra to sophomores when she heard a loud bang. Then the school intercom announced, “Miles Davis is in the building.”
“That’s our code for intruder,” Rench said.
The gunman tried the door of the classroom but did not force his way in, she said. When the police started banging, she wasn’t sure at first if it really was law enforcement until she was able to glance out and see officers.
“Let's go!" she told the kids.
Kuczka, the slain teacher, taught health at Central for 14 years and recently began coaching cross-country at Collegiate, her daughter said. “She was definitely looking forward to retirement though. She was close,” Abbey Kuczka said.
Kuczka’s biography on the school website said she was the married mother of five and a grandmother of seven. She was an avid bike rider and was part of a 1979 national championship field hockey team at what is now Missouri State University.
“I cannot imagine myself in any other career but teaching,” Kuczka wrote on the website. “In high school, I taught swimming lessons at the YMCA. From that point on, I knew I wanted to be a teacher.”
___
AP reporter Margaret Stafford in Liberty, Missouri, contributed to this report. Salter reported from O'Fallon, Missouri.
___
This story has been corrected to show that Alexandria Bell was 15, not 16 as police had previously stated.
This story originally appeared in San Diego Union-Tribune .
Ohio man fatally shoots neighbor ‘because he thought he was a Democrat’
Travis Gettys
A southwest Ohio man shot and killed his neighbor because he believed he was a Democrat, according to the victim's family.
Austin Gene Gibbs was taken into custody by Butler County sheriff's deputies just before noon Monday after the shooting was reported in Okeana, and investigators found Anthony Lee King dead from multiple gunshot wounds, reported the Journal-News.
“My neighbor just shot my dad,” the victim's son told dispatchers. "[He] has come over multiple times making statements. He’s insane.”
The caller's mother sobbed in the background and told dispatchers the 43-year-old King had been cutting grass and doing yardwork when she went inside to let their dog out, and that's when she heard gunshots.
“I look in the backyard and that man is walking away from my husband and my husband is on the ground,” the woman told dispatchers. “He has come over like four times confronting my husband because he thought he was a Democrat, Why, why … Please, I don’t understand.”
The 26-year-old Gibbs was arrested a short time later while driving away from the shooting scene with his father.
His bond was set at $950,000 on suspicion of murder.
Ohio man fatally shoots neighbor ‘because he thought he was a Democrat’ - Raw Story - Celebrating 18 Years of Independent Journalism
.
Travis Gettys
A southwest Ohio man shot and killed his neighbor because he believed he was a Democrat, according to the victim's family.
Austin Gene Gibbs was taken into custody by Butler County sheriff's deputies just before noon Monday after the shooting was reported in Okeana, and investigators found Anthony Lee King dead from multiple gunshot wounds, reported the Journal-News.
“My neighbor just shot my dad,” the victim's son told dispatchers. "[He] has come over multiple times making statements. He’s insane.”
The caller's mother sobbed in the background and told dispatchers the 43-year-old King had been cutting grass and doing yardwork when she went inside to let their dog out, and that's when she heard gunshots.
“I look in the backyard and that man is walking away from my husband and my husband is on the ground,” the woman told dispatchers. “He has come over like four times confronting my husband because he thought he was a Democrat, Why, why … Please, I don’t understand.”
The 26-year-old Gibbs was arrested a short time later while driving away from the shooting scene with his father.
His bond was set at $950,000 on suspicion of murder.
Ohio man fatally shoots neighbor ‘because he thought he was a Democrat’ - Raw Story - Celebrating 18 Years of Independent Journalism
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How many US mass shootings have there been in 2023?
Explaining some of the key statistics behind gun ownership and attacks linked to guns in the US.
www.bbc.co.uk
Mass shootings: America’s challenge for gun control explained in seven charts
Data suggests that gun ownership in the US has grown significantly over the last several years
Firearms deaths are a fixture in American life.
There were 1.5 million of them between 1968 and 2017 - that's higher than the number of soldiers killed in every US conflict since the American War for Independence in 1775.
In 2020 alone, more than 45,000 Americans died at the end of a barrel of a gun, whether by homicide or suicide, more than any other year on record. The figure represents a 25% increase from five years prior, and a 43% increase from 2010.
But the issue is a highly political one, pitting gun control advocates against sectors of the population fiercely protective of their constitutionally-enshrined right to bear arms.
How many guns are there in the US?
While calculating the number of guns in private hands around the world is difficult, figures from the Small Arms Survey - a Swiss-based leading research project - estimate that there were 390 million guns in circulation in 2018.
More recent data also suggests that gun ownership grew significantly over the last several years. One study, published by the Annals of Internal Medicine in February, found that 7.5 million US adults - just under 3% of the population - became first new gun owners between January 2019 and April 2021.
This, in turn, exposed 11 million people to firearms in their homes, including 5 million children. About half of new gun owners in that time period were women, while 40% were either black or Hispanic.
A separate study, published by the American Academy of Pediatrics in 2021, linked a rise in gun ownership during the pandemic to higher rates of gun injuries among - and inflicted by - children.
How do US gun deaths break down?
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, 54% - about 24,300 deaths - were suicides.
A 2016 study published in the American Journal of Public Health found there was a strong relationship between higher levels of gun ownership in a state and higher firearm suicide rates for both men and women.
Advocates for stricter gun laws in the United States often cite this statistic when pushing lawmakers to devote more resources to mental health and fewer to easing gun restrictions.
How do US gun killings compare with other countries?
In 2020, 43% of the deaths - amounting to 19,384 people - were homicides, according to data from the CDC. The figure represents a 34% increase from 2019, and a 75% increase over the course of the previous decade. Nearly 53 people are killed each day by a firearm in the US, according to the data. The data also shows that the vast majority of murders, 79%, were carried out with guns.
That's a significantly larger proportion of homicides than is the case in Canada, Australia, England and Wales, and many other countries.
Are mass shootings becoming deadlier?
Deaths from the "mass shootings" that attract international attention, however, are harder to track.
While the country does not have a single definition for "mass shootings", the FBI has for over a decade tracked "active shooter incidents" in which "an individual actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area".
According to the FBI, there were 345 "active shooter incidents" in the United States between 2000-2020, resulting in more than 1,024 deaths and 1,828 injuries.
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 30 people dead.
Who supports gun control?
Despite widespread and vocal public outrage - often in the wake of gun violence - American support for stricter gun laws in 2020 fell to the lowest level since 2014, according to polling by Gallup.
Only 52% of Americans surveyed said they wanted stricter gun laws, while 35% said they should remain the same.
Eleven percent surveyed said laws should be "made less strict".
The issue is also one that is hyper-partisan and extremely divisive, falling largely along party lines. "Democrats are nearly unanimous in their support for stricter gun laws," the same Gallup study noted, with nearly 91% in favour of stricter gun laws. Only 24% Republicans, on the other hand, agreed with the same statement, along with 45% of Independent voters.
Some states have taken steps to ban or strictly regulate ownership of assault weapons. Laws vary by state but California, for example, has banned ownership of assault weapons with limited exceptions.
Some controls are widely supported by people across the political divide - such as restrictions governing the sale of guns to people who are mentally ill or on "watch" lists.
Who opposes gun control?
Despite years of financial woes and internal strife, the National Rifle Association (NRA) remains the most powerful gun lobby in the United States, with a substantial budget to influence members of Congress on gun policy.
In January, the NRA filed for bankruptcy as part of a fraud case against some of its own senior staff. Even after the move, it vowed to continue "confronting anti-Second Amendment activities, promoting firearm safety and training, and advancing public programs across the United States".
Over the last several election cycles, it, and other organisations, have consistently spent more on pro-gun rights messaging than their rivals in the gun control lobby.
A number of states have also gone as far as to largely eliminate restrictions on who can carry a gun. In June 2021, for example, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed into law a "permitless carry bill" that allows the state's residents to carry handguns without a licence or training.
Similarly, on 12 April Georgia became the 25th in the nation to eliminate the need for a permit to conceal or openly carry a firearm. The law means any citizen of that state has the right to carry a firearm without a licence or a permit.
The law was backed by the NRA, and leaders within the organisation called the move "a monumental moment for the Second Amendment".
Most people have not survived assassination attempts, that gun control debate goes out the window. It is not a pleasant experience dealing with some retarded fool you might have to put in trash bag, beta obsessing about you.
Because of drugs or some other defect in their brain, they lack critical thinking skills, this is the only way.
Because of drugs or some other defect in their brain, they lack critical thinking skills, this is the only way.
Gun control fails quickly in Congress after each mass shooting, but states often act – including to loosen gun laws
After mass shootings, politicians in Washington have failed to pass new gun control legislation, despite public pressure. But laws are being passed at the state level, largely to loosen restrictions.
theconversation.com
Gun control fails quickly in Congress after each mass shooting, but states often act – including to loosen gun laws
Recent mass shootings at three spas in Atlanta, Georgia and a supermarket in Boulder, Colorado have renewed calls for new gun legislation.
The U.S. has been here before – after shootings in Tucson, Aurora, Newtown, Charleston, Roseburg, San Bernardino, Orlando, Las Vegas, Parkland, El Paso and other communities across the United States.
Congress has declined to pass significant new gun legislation after dozens of shootings, including shootings that occurred during periods like this one, with Democrats controlling the House of Representatives, Senate and presidency.
This response may seem puzzling given that national opinion polls reveal extensive support for several gun control policies, including expanding background checks and banning assault weapons.
But polls do not determine policy. Stricter gun laws are more popular among Democrats than Republicans, and major new legislation would likely need votes from at least 10 Republican senators. Many of these senators represent constituencies opposed to gun control. Despite national polls showing majority support for an assault weapons ban, not one of the 30 states with a Republican-controlled legislature has such a policy. The absence of strict control policies in Republican-controlled states shows that senators crossing party lines to support gun control would be out of step with the views of voters whose support they need to win elections.
But, a lack of action from Congress doesn’t mean gun laws are stagnant after mass shootings.
I am a professor of strategy at UCLA and have researched gun policy. With my co-authors at Harvard University, I’ve studied how gun laws change following mass shootings.
Our research on this topic finds there is legislative activity following these tragedies, but at the state level.
U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) speaks to the press as teachers, parents and residents from Newtown, Conn. – where the Sandy Hook school massacre happened – listen after a Capitol Hill hearing on Feb. 27, 2013, on ‘The Assault Weapons Ban of 2013.’
Restrictions loosened
To examine how policy changes, we assembled data on shootings and gun legislation in the 50 states between 1990 and 2014. Overall, we identified more than 20,000 firearm bills and nearly 3,200 enacted laws. Some of these loosened gun restrictions; others tightened them; and still others did neither or both – that is, tightened in some dimensions but loosened in others.
We then compared gun laws before and after mass shootings in states where mass shootings occurred, relative to all other states.
Contrary to the view that nothing changes, state legislatures consider 15% more firearm bills the year after a mass shooting. Deadlier shootings – which receive more media attention – have larger effects.
In fact, mass shootings have a greater influence on lawmakers than other homicides even though they account for less than 1% of gun deaths in the United States.
As impressive as this 15% increase in gun bills may sound, gun legislation can reduce gun violence only if it becomes law. And when it comes to enacting these bills into law, our research found that mass shootings do not regularly cause lawmakers to tighten gun restrictions.
In fact, we found the opposite; Republican state legislatures pass significantly more gun laws that loosen restrictions on firearms after mass shootings.
That’s not to say Democrats never tighten gun laws – there are prominent examples of Democratic-controlled states passing new legislation following mass shootings.
California, for example, enacted several new gun laws following a 2015 mass shooting in San Bernardino. Our research shows, however, that Democrats don’t tighten gun laws more than usual following mass shootings.
In August 2018, Moms Demand Action hosted a rally at New York City’s Foley Square to call upon Congress to pass gun safety laws.
Ideology governs response
The contrasting response from Democrats and Republicans is indicative of different philosophies regarding the causes of gun violence and the best ways to reduce deaths.
While Democrats tend to view environmental factors as contributing to violence, Republicans are more likely to blame the individual shooters. Politicians favoring looser restrictions on guns following mass shootings frequently argue that more people carrying guns would allow law-abiding citizens to stop perpetrators.
In fact, gun sales often surge after mass shootings, in part because people fear being victimized.
Democrats, in contrast, typically focus more on trying to solve policy and societal problems that contribute to gun violence.
For both sides, mass shootings are an opportunity to propose bills consistent with their ideology.
Since we wrote our study of gun legislation following mass shootings, which covered the period through 2014, several additional tragedies have energized the gun control movement that emerged following the December 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. Student activism following the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, did not result in congressional action but led several states to pass new gun control laws.
With more funding and better organization, this new movement is better positioned than prior gun control movements to advocate for stricter gun policies following mass shootings. But with states historically more active than Congress on the issue of guns, both advocates and opponents of new restrictions should look beyond Washington, D.C., for action on gun policy.
Mass Shootings in 2024 | Gun Violence Archive
Gun Violence Archive (GVA) is a not for profit corporation formed in 2013 to provide free online public access to accurate information about gun-related violence in the United States. GVA will collect and check for accuracy, comprehensive information about gun-related violence in the U.S. and...
www.gunviolencearchive.org
Newport News: Boy aged six detained after shooting teacher in US
The teacher is left with life-threatening injuries after the shooting in the state of Virginia.
www.bbc.co.uk
A six-year-old boy has been detained by police after shooting a teacher in the US state of Virginia, officers say.
The shooting happened shortly after 14:00 local time (19:00 GMT) at Richneck Elementary School in the city of Newport News, Chief Steve Drew said.
It is unclear how the child obtained the gun, but Mr Drew said the incident was not "an accidental shooting".
The teacher - who has not been named and is said to be in her 30s - was left with life-threatening injuries.
She was taken to a local hospital and is being closely monitored by doctors. The incident took place in a first grade (ages six to seven) classroom after an altercation between the pair.
But Mr Drew emphasised that the shooting had been an isolated incident and stressed that officers "did not have a situation where someone was going around the school shooting".
Officials said that while the school - which has around 550 students - had metal detection facilities, students were checked at random and not every child was inspected.
Police declined to name the weapon used in the incident, but said the boy had used a handgun.
School District Head Dr George Parker said officials would "be looking at any instance that may have occurred that may have caused this incident".
"This is terrible, something like this should never occur," Dr Parker added. "We want to ensure nothing like this happens again."
He said the school would be closed on Monday, and pledged that students and parents would be offered support to help them deal with the traumatic event.
Mayor Phillip Jones - who took office just three days ago - said the shooting marked "a dark day for Newport News".
"We're going to learn from this and we're going to come back stronger," he told reporters.
Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin said he had offered assistance to local officials, adding that his administration was "ready to help in any way we can".
"I am continuing to monitor the situation and am praying for the continued safety of all students and the community," he wrote on Twitter.
Newport News is a city of around 180,000 people and sits about 70 miles (112km) to the south of the state capital Richmond.
Sandy Hook 10 years on: How many have died in school shootings?
By Robin Levinson-King
BBC News
It has been a decade since a gunman opened fire at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut, killing 20 children and six school staff.
In a written statement declaring Wednesday, the anniversary, a day of remembrance, US President Joe Biden said the tragedy forced everyone to re-examine their "core values and whether this can be a country that protects the most innocent."
In the wake of the massacre, many demanded tighter gun restrictions.
Yet the death toll from school shootings keeps climbing as debates over gun control continue ten years on.
According to research compiled by the independent K-12 School Shooting Database research group, there have been 189 shootings at schools around the US since Sandy Hook that have resulted in at least one fatality.
The shootings counted include everything from suicides and domestic violence.
Seventeen were "active shooter situations" - defined as "when the shooter killed and/or wounded victims, either targeted or random, within the school campus during a continuous episode of violence".
While those events count for a small portion of total shooting incidents, they account for more than a third of all casualties.
In total, 279 have died from being shot on a school property during, before or after school hours, including weekends.
In November, a memorial for the victims of Sandy Hook was opened to the public, not far from the school grounds.
Victims' names were carved into a wall that circled a sycamore tree.
Nelba Marquez-Greene's six-year old daughter, Ana Grace Marquez-Greene, was among the victims.
"Ten years. A lifetime and a blink," she wrote on Twitter. "Ana Grace, we used to wait for you to come home. Now you wait for us. Hold on, little one. Hold on."
"We're not in a place to have polite discourse in this country on that issue," she said.
But he left office without being able to pass his hoped-for laws.
Ten years on, Mr Biden has renewed a promise to pass a ban on semi-automatic rifles.
In June, he signed a landmark gun bill into law, but if fell short of reinstating the so-called assault-weapons ban that had been in effect before 2004.
However, a debate over this and other gun control measures that have been proposed continues, with evidence being put forward on both sides over their effectiveness at stopping school shootings.
Gun control advocates argue that tighter restrictions to access is key, while others argue that failures of the mental health system and better security on school campuses are more pressing concerns.
Nicole Hockley, the co-founder of Sandy Hook Promise Foundation, a charity, lost her son Dylan in the massacre.
"All shootings reopen wounds," she told the BBC earlier this year.
Her other son, who survived, graduated from high school this year and will be able to vote. It is his generation, she said, who will enact change.
By Robin Levinson-King
BBC News
It has been a decade since a gunman opened fire at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut, killing 20 children and six school staff.
In a written statement declaring Wednesday, the anniversary, a day of remembrance, US President Joe Biden said the tragedy forced everyone to re-examine their "core values and whether this can be a country that protects the most innocent."
In the wake of the massacre, many demanded tighter gun restrictions.
Yet the death toll from school shootings keeps climbing as debates over gun control continue ten years on.
According to research compiled by the independent K-12 School Shooting Database research group, there have been 189 shootings at schools around the US since Sandy Hook that have resulted in at least one fatality.
The shootings counted include everything from suicides and domestic violence.
Seventeen were "active shooter situations" - defined as "when the shooter killed and/or wounded victims, either targeted or random, within the school campus during a continuous episode of violence".
While those events count for a small portion of total shooting incidents, they account for more than a third of all casualties.
In total, 279 have died from being shot on a school property during, before or after school hours, including weekends.
In November, a memorial for the victims of Sandy Hook was opened to the public, not far from the school grounds.
Victims' names were carved into a wall that circled a sycamore tree.
Nelba Marquez-Greene's six-year old daughter, Ana Grace Marquez-Greene, was among the victims.
"Ten years. A lifetime and a blink," she wrote on Twitter. "Ana Grace, we used to wait for you to come home. Now you wait for us. Hold on, little one. Hold on."
"We're not in a place to have polite discourse in this country on that issue," she said.
- Uvalde tragedy opens painful memories for Sandy Hook parents
- Sandy Hook survivor: 'I'm so sorry this happened to you'
But he left office without being able to pass his hoped-for laws.
Ten years on, Mr Biden has renewed a promise to pass a ban on semi-automatic rifles.
In June, he signed a landmark gun bill into law, but if fell short of reinstating the so-called assault-weapons ban that had been in effect before 2004.
However, a debate over this and other gun control measures that have been proposed continues, with evidence being put forward on both sides over their effectiveness at stopping school shootings.
Gun control advocates argue that tighter restrictions to access is key, while others argue that failures of the mental health system and better security on school campuses are more pressing concerns.
Nicole Hockley, the co-founder of Sandy Hook Promise Foundation, a charity, lost her son Dylan in the massacre.
"All shootings reopen wounds," she told the BBC earlier this year.
Her other son, who survived, graduated from high school this year and will be able to vote. It is his generation, she said, who will enact change.
Crime
1 person killed and 4 others injured in overnight shooting in Texas after more than 50 shots were fired
By Michelle Watson, Alaa Elassar, 4 hrs ago
CNN
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Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez speaks at a news conference about a shooting that happened outside a Houston club on Sunday. HSCOTexas Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez speaks at a news conference about a shooting that happened outside a Houston club on Sunday. HSCOTexas
At least one person died and four others were injured in a shooting outside a Houston club early Sunday, authorities said.
“Over 50 shots were fired” in the parking lot of “some type of club/bar,” Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said during a news conference.
Police responded to the shooting around 2 a.m. and learned that five people had been shot, said Gonzalez. All of the victims were hospitalized.
One person died and police were still trying to determine the extent of the injuries sustained by the four victims, he added. Two men and three women were believed to have been shot, according to Gonzalez.
“It looks like over 50 shots were fired here, which is a very scary situation considering there’s a mobile food truck and … the number of patrons that were outside,” he said.
The information officials had was “preliminary,” but the gunfire appears to have been a drive-by shooting, said Gonzalez.
“We believe there may have been a vehicle that pulled up right around the 2 a.m. time frame,” he said. “There were multiple people inside the vehicle, exited the vehicle, and began opening fire upon the patrons that were outside of the club at the time.”
Homicide investigators are looking into the shooting and trying to find witnesses, authorities said.
For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com
1 person killed and 4 others injured in overnight shooting in Texas after more than 50 shots were fired
By Michelle Watson, Alaa Elassar, 4 hrs ago
CNN
Follow
Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez speaks at a news conference about a shooting that happened outside a Houston club on Sunday. HSCOTexas Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez speaks at a news conference about a shooting that happened outside a Houston club on Sunday. HSCOTexas
At least one person died and four others were injured in a shooting outside a Houston club early Sunday, authorities said.
“Over 50 shots were fired” in the parking lot of “some type of club/bar,” Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said during a news conference.
Police responded to the shooting around 2 a.m. and learned that five people had been shot, said Gonzalez. All of the victims were hospitalized.
One person died and police were still trying to determine the extent of the injuries sustained by the four victims, he added. Two men and three women were believed to have been shot, according to Gonzalez.
“It looks like over 50 shots were fired here, which is a very scary situation considering there’s a mobile food truck and … the number of patrons that were outside,” he said.
The information officials had was “preliminary,” but the gunfire appears to have been a drive-by shooting, said Gonzalez.
“We believe there may have been a vehicle that pulled up right around the 2 a.m. time frame,” he said. “There were multiple people inside the vehicle, exited the vehicle, and began opening fire upon the patrons that were outside of the club at the time.”
Homicide investigators are looking into the shooting and trying to find witnesses, authorities said.
For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com
Baby among six killed in possible cartel attack in California
California police say six people, including a grandmother and 10-month old child, were shot dead.
www.bbc.co.uk
Baby among six killed in possible cartel attack in California
Four generations of one family were killed in what is described as a "cartel-like execution" at a California residence known to police for drug-related activity.
A 16-year-old mother, her 10-month old son and the baby's grandmother and great-grandmother were among the victims, police and family say.
The home in Goshen, population 3,000, had been raided by police last week.
Police say they are seeking two known suspects in the "targeted massacre".
In a news conference on Tuesday, Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux did not provide the names of the suspects, saying that it was due to the possibility that the killers were watching in order to avoid capture, but revealed that much was already known to authorities about the tragedy.
Police had searched the residence just last week and found stashes of marijuana and methamphetamines.
Six people died in the shooting on Monday. Three people survived.
"None of this was by accident," Mr Boudreaux said. "It was deliberate, intentional and horrific."
The victims have been identified by investigators as:
Rosa Parraz, 72
Eladio Parraz Jr, 52
Jennifer Analla, 50
Marcos Parraz, 19
Elyssa Parraz, 16
Nycholas Parraz, 10 months old
According to Mr Boudreaux, one survivor lay flat on the floor, with their feet against the door in order to prevent the attackers from entering the room.
"He was in such a state of fear that all he could do was hold the door, hoping he was not the last victim," the sheriff said. The other two hid themselves in a nearby trailer when shots broke out.
Police were called to the property by a survivor at about 03:30 (11:30 GMT) on Monday. They found two bodies on the street and others inside the home.
Sheriff Boudreaux said the child and mother appeared to have been fleeing the scene, and that forensic evidence shows that the killer stood over the victims and fired at their heads from above.
The FBI's San Francisco office is assisting in the investigation, and a $10,000 (£8,100) reward is being offered for information leading to an arrest.
Police are monitoring the Mexico and Canada border for the suspects, the sheriff said, adding that the "very insecure border" has allowed Mexican drug cartel activity to grow in the central California area in recent years.
"Let me make this very clear, not all these people in this home were gang members," said Mr Boudreaux, adding that the mother and child were innocent victims.
He said that the killings appear "similar to high-ranking gang executions, and the style of execution they commit", because the victims were "shot in places where a shooter knew that quick death would occur".
Hundreds of items of evidence have been collected so far, the sheriff said, and results of post-mortem examinations of the victims are expected by Friday.
He also appealed to members of the public to check CCTV cameras on their property for video of suspicious vehicles in the area between 03:00 to 05:00 on Monday.
Elyssa Parraz's grandfather told the Associated Press news agency that she had been living with the child's father's family in Goshen, central California. Samuel Pina said that the baby's uncle, grandmother and great-grandmother were also killed.
"I can't wrap my head around what kind of monster would do this," he said.
How US gun culture stacks up with the world
By Kara Fox, Krystina Shveda,
Natalie Croker and Marco Chacon,
CNN
January 23, 2023
CNN — Monterey Park. Atlanta. Orlando. Las Vegas. Newtown. Parkland. San Bernardino. Uvalde.
Ubiquitous gun violence in the United States has left few places unscathed over the decades. Still, many Americans hold their right to bear arms, enshrined in the US Constitution, as sacrosanct. But critics of the Second Amendment say that right threatens another: The right to life.
America’s relationship to gun ownership is unique, and its gun culture is a global outlier.
As the tally of gun-related deaths continue to grow daily, here’s a look at how gun culture in the US compares to the rest of the world.
How firearm ownership compares globally
The United States is the only nation in the world where civilian guns outnumber people.
Select a country or territory to see
Source: Small Arms Survey (Civilian Firearm Holdings 2017)
By Kara Fox, Krystina Shveda,
Natalie Croker and Marco Chacon,
CNN
January 23, 2023
CNN — Monterey Park. Atlanta. Orlando. Las Vegas. Newtown. Parkland. San Bernardino. Uvalde.
Ubiquitous gun violence in the United States has left few places unscathed over the decades. Still, many Americans hold their right to bear arms, enshrined in the US Constitution, as sacrosanct. But critics of the Second Amendment say that right threatens another: The right to life.
America’s relationship to gun ownership is unique, and its gun culture is a global outlier.
As the tally of gun-related deaths continue to grow daily, here’s a look at how gun culture in the US compares to the rest of the world.
How firearm ownership compares globally
The United States is the only nation in the world where civilian guns outnumber people.
Select a country or territory to see
Source: Small Arms Survey (Civilian Firearm Holdings 2017)
New Jersey councilmember shot and killed outside her home
‘She just wanted to make a better community for all our children’: colleagues mourn Eunice Dwumfour, 30, who was elected in 2021
A New Jersey borough councilmember was found shot to death
in an SUV outside of her home, authorities said.
Eunice Dwumfour, 30, was found at around 7.20pm on Wednesday, according to the Middlesex County prosecutor’s office. She had been shot multiple times and was pronounced dead at the scene.
Dwumfour, a Republican, was elected to her first three-year term in 2021, when she ousted a Democratic incumbent. Colleagues recalled her as a soft-spoken devout Christian who could maintain her composure in contentious situations.
“She was a 30-year-old woman. To have this happen in such a tragic way, I mean, our hearts are just broken and everybody wants an answer,” said Karen Bailey Bebert, the local GOP chairwoman who served as her campaign manager. “So we’re waiting with bated breath.”
Authorities have not made any arrests or said whether they believe the motive for the killing might be personal or political or a random act.
In a 2021 campaign interview, Dwumfour described herself as a proud graduate of Newark public schools who earned a degree in women’s studies at William Paterson University while working part-time as an EMT.
She said she moved to Parlin, a section of Sayreville, after graduating “because of the tremendous public safety work the community does”. That interest fueled her run for council, where she served as a liaison to the police department now helping to investigate her death.
“She just wanted to make a better community for all our children,” said Bebert.
Dwumfour, who had a school-age child, announced at a fall council meeting that she had recently gotten married, Bebert said. She was active in her church in Newark, she said.
Dwumfour worked in information technology, according to her LinkedIn page, where she posted last month that she was looking for a new opportunity. Her résumé also said that she worked for six years with a religious nonprofit group.
Her nextdoor neighbor Chyann Brown said she arrived home on Wednesday evening just as police were “flying in the complex”. She had no idea that Dwumfour, whom she described as kind and respectful, had been shot.
“When I came to park my car, there were shell cases everywhere … I [saw] the car was still rolling down the street,” she said of Dwumfour’s vehicle.
New Jersey councilmember shot and killed outside her home | US news | The Guardian
.
‘She just wanted to make a better community for all our children’: colleagues mourn Eunice Dwumfour, 30, who was elected in 2021
A New Jersey borough councilmember was found shot to death
in an SUV outside of her home, authorities said.
Eunice Dwumfour, 30, was found at around 7.20pm on Wednesday, according to the Middlesex County prosecutor’s office. She had been shot multiple times and was pronounced dead at the scene.
Dwumfour, a Republican, was elected to her first three-year term in 2021, when she ousted a Democratic incumbent. Colleagues recalled her as a soft-spoken devout Christian who could maintain her composure in contentious situations.
“She was a 30-year-old woman. To have this happen in such a tragic way, I mean, our hearts are just broken and everybody wants an answer,” said Karen Bailey Bebert, the local GOP chairwoman who served as her campaign manager. “So we’re waiting with bated breath.”
Authorities have not made any arrests or said whether they believe the motive for the killing might be personal or political or a random act.
In a 2021 campaign interview, Dwumfour described herself as a proud graduate of Newark public schools who earned a degree in women’s studies at William Paterson University while working part-time as an EMT.
She said she moved to Parlin, a section of Sayreville, after graduating “because of the tremendous public safety work the community does”. That interest fueled her run for council, where she served as a liaison to the police department now helping to investigate her death.
“She just wanted to make a better community for all our children,” said Bebert.
Dwumfour, who had a school-age child, announced at a fall council meeting that she had recently gotten married, Bebert said. She was active in her church in Newark, she said.
Dwumfour worked in information technology, according to her LinkedIn page, where she posted last month that she was looking for a new opportunity. Her résumé also said that she worked for six years with a religious nonprofit group.
Her nextdoor neighbor Chyann Brown said she arrived home on Wednesday evening just as police were “flying in the complex”. She had no idea that Dwumfour, whom she described as kind and respectful, had been shot.
“When I came to park my car, there were shell cases everywhere … I [saw] the car was still rolling down the street,” she said of Dwumfour’s vehicle.
New Jersey councilmember shot and killed outside her home | US news | The Guardian
.
9 kids, teens injured in shooting
at Georgia gas station
The Hill
BY NICK ROBERTSON -
02/18/23 12:20 PM ET
Nine children, ranging in age from 5 to 17 years old, were shot at a gas station Friday night in Columbus, Georgia.
All the victims are being treated for non-life threatening injuries, according to police.
“The rash of gun violence involving our youth is impacting communities across the country. While Columbus is not immune to these incidents, I want to assure citizens that the men and women of CPD are tirelessly working to get violent offenders off our streets. It is going to take a community effort to combat gun violence in our city. The entire village has a responsibility because incidents like this impacts all of us,” Columbus Police Chief Freddie Blackmon said in a statement.
The shooting occurred at about 10 p.m. at a Shell gas station in Columbus, Georgia, near the border with Alabama. The youngest victim is a 5-year-old boy, with the rest of the victims being teenagers — including two 13-year-old girls.
No arrests have been made, police said.
The Hill has reached out to the police department for comment.
There have been over 85 mass shootings in the U.S. so far this year.
Also on Friday, a gunman in rural Mississippi killed six people in a string of shootings.
TAGS CRIME GEORGIA MASS SHOOTING SHOOTING
SHARETWEET
thehill.com
at Georgia gas station
The Hill
BY NICK ROBERTSON -
02/18/23 12:20 PM ET
Nine children, ranging in age from 5 to 17 years old, were shot at a gas station Friday night in Columbus, Georgia.
All the victims are being treated for non-life threatening injuries, according to police.
“The rash of gun violence involving our youth is impacting communities across the country. While Columbus is not immune to these incidents, I want to assure citizens that the men and women of CPD are tirelessly working to get violent offenders off our streets. It is going to take a community effort to combat gun violence in our city. The entire village has a responsibility because incidents like this impacts all of us,” Columbus Police Chief Freddie Blackmon said in a statement.
The shooting occurred at about 10 p.m. at a Shell gas station in Columbus, Georgia, near the border with Alabama. The youngest victim is a 5-year-old boy, with the rest of the victims being teenagers — including two 13-year-old girls.
No arrests have been made, police said.
The Hill has reached out to the police department for comment.
There have been over 85 mass shootings in the U.S. so far this year.
Also on Friday, a gunman in rural Mississippi killed six people in a string of shootings.
TAGS CRIME GEORGIA MASS SHOOTING SHOOTING
SHARETWEET
9 kids, teens injured in shooting at Georgia gas station
Nine children, ranging in age from 5 to 17 years old, were shot at a gas station Friday night in Columbus, Georgia. All the victims are being treated for non-life threatening injuries, according to…
thehill.com
Last edited:
Rifle-Toting Teen Girl Kills 6 in
Nashville Christian School Shooting
Three children and three adults were killed in the shooting at a private, church-based school for pre-school to sixth-grade students, officials said.
Justin Rohrlich
Reporter
Noah Kirsch
Wealth And Power Reporter
Updated Mar. 27, 2023 1:49PM ET / Published Mar. 27, 2023 12:04PM ET
Metro Nashville Police
https://policies.google.com/privacy
Listen to article2 minutes
Three children and three adults were killed by a female gunman in a shooting at a private Christian school in Nashville on Monday morning, authorities said.
The shooter, who was killed by police as they arrived at the scene, was a female who appeared to be in her teens, Metro Nashville Police Department spokesman Don Aaron said at a press conference on Monday afternoon, adding that investigators are still working to identify her.
Cops received a call at 10:13 a.m. Monday about an active shooter at the Covenant School, a private, church-based, Christian school of about 200 students from pre-school through sixth grade.
As officers entered the building, they heard shots coming from the second floor, according to Aaron.
When police got to the second level, they encountered a young woman armed with “at least two assault-type rifles and a handgun,” and opened fire, killing her, Aaron said.
The entire incident was over by 10:27 a.m., some 14 minutes after the first call to cops, he said.
Following the news, worried parents descended upon the school, but yellow school buses were there to take students to a nearby reunification center. An anchor on WSMV, Nashville’s local NBC affiliate, fought back tears as she announced her own children’s schools had gone into lockdown as a precaution.
John Wilkinson, a construction company owner who was in the area on Monday for a chiropractor appointment, told The Daily Beast he saw a massive law enforcement response with what he estimated to be some 50 police vehicles arrive on the scene, followed immediately by ambulances and fire trucks.
A few minutes later, the ambulances, escorted by police motorcycles and squad cars, departed for the hospital, according to Wilkinson.
“When I left, parents were massing in the parking lot of adjoining commercial buildings,” Wilkinson said. “There was a lot of hugging, there was crying, there were parents distraught.”
Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ (ATF) Nashville field office were also on the scene, the agency said.
This story is developing.
Rifle-Toting Teen Girl Kills 6 in Active Shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville (thedailybeast.com)
.
Nashville Christian School Shooting
Three children and three adults were killed in the shooting at a private, church-based school for pre-school to sixth-grade students, officials said.
Justin Rohrlich
Reporter
Noah Kirsch
Wealth And Power Reporter
Updated Mar. 27, 2023 1:49PM ET / Published Mar. 27, 2023 12:04PM ET
Metro Nashville Police
https://policies.google.com/privacy
Listen to article2 minutes
Three children and three adults were killed by a female gunman in a shooting at a private Christian school in Nashville on Monday morning, authorities said.
The shooter, who was killed by police as they arrived at the scene, was a female who appeared to be in her teens, Metro Nashville Police Department spokesman Don Aaron said at a press conference on Monday afternoon, adding that investigators are still working to identify her.
Cops received a call at 10:13 a.m. Monday about an active shooter at the Covenant School, a private, church-based, Christian school of about 200 students from pre-school through sixth grade.
As officers entered the building, they heard shots coming from the second floor, according to Aaron.
When police got to the second level, they encountered a young woman armed with “at least two assault-type rifles and a handgun,” and opened fire, killing her, Aaron said.
The entire incident was over by 10:27 a.m., some 14 minutes after the first call to cops, he said.
Following the news, worried parents descended upon the school, but yellow school buses were there to take students to a nearby reunification center. An anchor on WSMV, Nashville’s local NBC affiliate, fought back tears as she announced her own children’s schools had gone into lockdown as a precaution.
John Wilkinson, a construction company owner who was in the area on Monday for a chiropractor appointment, told The Daily Beast he saw a massive law enforcement response with what he estimated to be some 50 police vehicles arrive on the scene, followed immediately by ambulances and fire trucks.
A few minutes later, the ambulances, escorted by police motorcycles and squad cars, departed for the hospital, according to Wilkinson.
“When I left, parents were massing in the parking lot of adjoining commercial buildings,” Wilkinson said. “There was a lot of hugging, there was crying, there were parents distraught.”
Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ (ATF) Nashville field office were also on the scene, the agency said.
This story is developing.
Rifle-Toting Teen Girl Kills 6 in Active Shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville (thedailybeast.com)
.
Gunman livestreamed mass shooting at Louisville bank that left 4 dead and 9 injured, police say
By Eric Levenson, Kristina Sgueglia, Celina Tebor and John Miller, CNN
Updated 7:26 PM EDT, Mon April 10, 2023
.
By Eric Levenson, Kristina Sgueglia, Celina Tebor and John Miller, CNN
Updated 7:26 PM EDT, Mon April 10, 2023
.
Popular handgun fires without anyone pulling the trigger, victims say
At least 80 people, including police officers, allege they were shot by their SIG Sauer P320 pistols. Some have lost work, live in pain after serious injuries.
One warm afternoon in May, Dwight Jackson was getting dressed for a visit to his favorite cigar lounge. He slipped his holstered SIG Sauer P320 pistol onto his belt, put on a button-down shirt and leaned across his bed for his wallet. Suddenly, he said, the gun fired, sending a bullet tearing through his right buttock and into his left ankle.
“I heard ‘bang!’” said Jackson, 47, a locomotive engineer who lives in Locust Grove, Ga. “I looked down and saw blood.”
His wife heard the shot from down the hall and screamed. She called an ambulance while Jackson hobbled toward the front door, painting a trail of blood over the hardwood floors.
At no point, Jackson later told police, had he touched the gun’s trigger.
The P320 is one of the nation’s most popular handguns. A variant of the weapon is the standard-issue sidearm for every branch of the U.S. military. Since the gun’s introduction to the commercial market in 2014, manufacturer SIG Sauer has sold the P320 to hundreds of thousands of civilians, and it has been used by officers at more than a thousand law enforcement agencies across the nation, court records show.
It has also gruesomely injured scores of people who say the gun has a potentially deadly defect.
More than 100 people allege that their P320 pistols discharged when they did not pull the trigger, an eight-month investigation by The Washington Post and The Trace has found. At least 80 people were wounded in the shootings, which date to 2016.
About this partnership: This report is a joint investigation by The Washington Post and The Trace, a nonprofit newsroom that covers gun violence.
“The number and frequency of injuries are strongly suggestive of a design flaw versus a human performance error,” said Bill Lewinski, a behavioral scientist, executive director of the Force Science Institute and one of the nation’s leading experts on accidental shootings. “What we’re seeing is highly unusual.”
The injured included both casual and expert firearm owners whose guns fired in their homes and offices and in busy public places such as casinos and parking lots. In two cases, the guns went off on school grounds.
Interviews with more than a dozen victims, video recordings, and a review of thousands of pages of court documents and internal police records reveal a pattern of discharges that were alleged to have occurred during routine movements. These have included the holstering or unholstering of the P320, climbing out of vehicles and walking down stairs. In several cases, records and videos show, the gun fired when a victim’s hand was nowhere near it.
Navy veteran and former gunner’s mate Dionicio Delgado said his P320 fired a bullet through his thigh and into his calf after he holstered it during a training session at a gun range in Ruther Glen, Va. Michael Parker, a welder, said his holstered P320 fired a bullet into his thigh as he removed the holster from his pocket while in his car in St. Petersburg, Fla. Police officer Brittany Hilton said her holstered P320 fired while inside her purse as she walked to her car in Bridge City, Tex. The bullet entered her groin and exited her back just inches from the base of her spine.
In a written response to questions, SIG Sauer, based in Newington, N.H., denied that the P320 was capable of firing without a trigger pull and cited accounts of unintentional discharges with other firearms as evidence that such issues with the P320 are neither uncommon nor suggestive of a defect with the gun.
“These reports, among others, support three conclusions,” the response reads. “(1) unintentional discharges are not uncommon amongst both law enforcement and civilians, (2) improper or unsafe handling is one of the most common causes of unintentional discharges, and (3) unintentional discharges occur with several types of firearms and are not unique to the P320.”
The response further noted that “despite years of litigation and extensive discovery, no one, including plaintiffs’ ‘experts’, have ever been able to replicate a P320 discharging without a trigger pull,” and that the P320 conforms to applicable U.S. standards for safety. “The SIG Sauer P320 model pistol is among the most tested, proven, and successful handguns in small arms history,” the company wrote.
Experts said the risk of unintentional discharges tends to be greater for law enforcement officers because they are frequently trained to keep a round chambered in their duty weapon, which they often wear on their hip throughout the day.
At least 33 officers at 18 law enforcement agencies have been injured by P320 discharges, according to court records and interviews. At least six agencies removed the P320 from service over concerns about the model’s safety, records show.
“I’ve been running a gun store for over 10 years at this point, and you always hear anecdotal statements about some gun going off,” said Jeff Webb, a certified master gunsmith who operates Grey Wolf Armory, a gun store in a Tampa Bay suburb. “But dozens of injuries of local and federal police agents over the last five years — that’s not an anecdote, that’s a problem.”
Webb has for years publicly criticized the P320 as unsafe and was recently retained as an expert witness in a case against the gunmaker.
Most of the incidents occurred after SIG Sauer changed the internal design of the P320 following reports that the pistol could fire when dropped and launched a voluntary upgrade program allowing gun owners to send their pistols to the company’s New Hampshire factory for modification.
At least 35 shootings — including Jackson’s, Delgado’s and Hilton’s — involved guns with the new design or older guns that were sent back to SIG Sauer for upgrades, according to court filings and a review of the firearms used in the shootings.
Webb and other critics of the P320 say the versions used most often by civilians and police are essentially cocked at all times, with no external safeties to prevent the guns from firing in cases of malfunctions. These design features make them especially vulnerable to unintentional discharges, critics say.
Firearms are one of the few products that are exempt from federal consumer product safety regulations. No regulatory body has the power to investigate alleged defects or impose a mandatory recall of guns. As thousands of P320s circulate in the civilian market, waiting for buyers, SIG Sauer faces lawsuits from at least 70 people who allege the company is selling a defective product.
Jackson, a former track athlete and football player with two children, can no longer run as a result of his injuries and struggles to use stairs. He’s grateful to be alive after the bullet nearly hit his femoral artery, which could have caused massive blood loss and possibly death.
But he’s worried that if SIG Sauer doesn’t implement changes, the next victim won’t be so lucky.
“If somebody is telling you that something is not right, that they see smoke, there must be fire somewhere, right?” Jackson said. “You expect a company to address that. But SIG is not addressing it.”
Exempt from product safety regulations
The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has required recalls of candles whose flames burn too tall, fleece pajamas shown to cut infants and classroom chairs with loose welding.
But it has never ordered a recall of a gun because it does not have the authority to do so, even if it explodes in someone’s hand or spontaneously fires a bullet.
The omission is the result of an amendment written by Rep. John D. Dingell in 1972, when the agency was created by Congress. Dingell, a Democrat from Michigan who was also a gun rights supporter and who sat on the National Rifle Association’s board of directors, would later describe efforts to allow the CPSC to regulate firearms as “outrageous” and “harassing the firearms manufacturers.”
Critics said the result of this political deal has endangered gun owners.
“These are products that pose a greater safety risk if they malfunction than a bike or a toaster,” said Teresa Murray, director of the consumer watchdog office at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, a consumer advocacy nonprofit. “The consumer is paying the price.”
Without federal oversight, gunmakers are left to investigate reported defects and inform consumers of potential issues with their products. On multiple occasions, manufacturers have opted to ignore long-standing problems, taking action only when facing pressure from lawsuits or bad publicity.
Gunmakers Remington Arms and Taurus have both faced class-action lawsuits over weapons with alleged defects that have cumulatively injured and killed dozens of people.
SIG Sauer has faced claims that the P320 malfunctions since at least 2017, when accounts surfaced that the gun could fire when dropped. A video released in August that year by a Texas gun store showed the gun firing consistently when dropped at certain angles. The impact caused the trigger to depress, the video showed.
A day after the video was released, SIG Sauer announced it would modify the pistol’s design and launched a voluntary upgrade program in which customers could return their guns to have redesigned components installed. Reporting by CNN later showed SIG Sauer had been notified twice about instances in which the gun fired when dropped, roughly a year before warning the public of the problem. One of those notices was from the U.S. Army.
In a response to questions, SIG Sauer wrote that “it is important to note that the [Voluntary Upgrade Program] was not prompted by any particular claim and is entirely unrelated to any allegation that the P320 can discharge without a trigger pull, or other claims of unintentional discharges.”
SIG Sauer did not replace the guns sitting on gun store shelves across the country or require retailers to inform customers of the gun’s potential risks.
“If I had known about this gun’s problems, it would not have been the gun I carried,” said George Abrahams, 55, an Army veteran in Philadelphia whose P320 sent a round into his thigh in 2020. He had purchased the gun in 2018 — a year after the upgrade program went into effect — but it had not been upgraded and he was not warned at the gun shop of the firearm’s potential issues.
Harvey Winingham, 74, a retired Air Force veteran living in Maricopa County, Ariz., sought to avoid this risk when he acquired his P320 in a private sale in early 2018. When he learned of SIG Sauer’s design change, he shipped the weapon back to the gunmaker for an upgrade. But two years later, as he inspected the weapon for a chambered round, it fired a bullet through his hand, Winningham said.
“I got the gun upgraded as soon as I could because I didn’t want this to happen to me,” he said. “But here we are now. It happened anyway.”
In court documents, SIG Sauer denied that either Abrahams’s or Winingham’s guns could have fired without their triggers being depressed by a finger or foreign object.
Democrats in Congress have repeatedly tried to establish a regulatory authority with the power to investigate reports of defective firearms and require recalls. The charge has been led by Rep. Debbie Dingell, a Democrat from Michigan and widow of John D. Dingell, whose amendment created the exemption five decades ago. Her proposed legislation has never made it to the floor for a vote.
"People are dying,” she said, “and no one’s got oversight.”
A ‘uniquely dangerous’ model
The P320 is what’s known as a striker-fired handgun. With each pull of the trigger, an internal spring-loaded pin called a striker rushes forward to detonate a bullet’s primer and send a round hurtling out the barrel.
But the P320 is different from many striker-fired guns in that it is effectively fully cocked at rest. The pull of its trigger does not draw the striker backward any meaningful distance. It simply releases it.
opular handgun fires without anyone pulling the trigger, victims say
At least 80 people, including police officers, allege they were shot by their SIG Sauer P320 pistols. Some have lost work, live in pain after serious injuries.
One warm afternoon in May, Dwight Jackson was getting dressed for a visit to his favorite cigar lounge. He slipped his holstered SIG Sauer P320 pistol onto his belt, put on a button-down shirt and leaned across his bed for his wallet. Suddenly, he said, the gun fired, sending a bullet tearing through his right buttock and into his left ankle.
“I heard ‘bang!’” said Jackson, 47, a locomotive engineer who lives in Locust Grove, Ga. “I looked down and saw blood.”
His wife heard the shot from down the hall and screamed. She called an ambulance while Jackson hobbled toward the front door, painting a trail of blood over the hardwood floors.
At no point, Jackson later told police, had he touched the gun’s trigger.
The P320 is one of the nation’s most popular handguns. A variant of the weapon is the standard-issue sidearm for every branch of the U.S. military. Since the gun’s introduction to the commercial market in 2014, manufacturer SIG Sauer has sold the P320 to hundreds of thousands of civilians, and it has been used by officers at more than a thousand law enforcement agencies across the nation, court records show.
It has also gruesomely injured scores of people who say the gun has a potentially deadly defect.
More than 100 people allege that their P320 pistols discharged when they did not pull the trigger, an eight-month investigation by The Washington Post and The Trace has found. At least 80 people were wounded in the shootings, which date to 2016.
About this partnership: This report is a joint investigation by The Washington Post and The Trace, a nonprofit newsroom that covers gun violence.
“The number and frequency of injuries are strongly suggestive of a design flaw versus a human performance error,” said Bill Lewinski, a behavioral scientist, executive director of the Force Science Institute and one of the nation’s leading experts on accidental shootings. “What we’re seeing is highly unusual.”
The injured included both casual and expert firearm owners whose guns fired in their homes and offices and in busy public places such as casinos and parking lots. In two cases, the guns went off on school grounds.
Interviews with more than a dozen victims, video recordings, and a review of thousands of pages of court documents and internal police records reveal a pattern of discharges that were alleged to have occurred during routine movements. These have included the holstering or unholstering of the P320, climbing out of vehicles and walking down stairs. In several cases, records and videos show, the gun fired when a victim’s hand was nowhere near it.
Navy veteran and former gunner’s mate Dionicio Delgado said his P320 fired a bullet through his thigh and into his calf after he holstered it during a training session at a gun range in Ruther Glen, Va. Michael Parker, a welder, said his holstered P320 fired a bullet into his thigh as he removed the holster from his pocket while in his car in St. Petersburg, Fla. Police officer Brittany Hilton said her holstered P320 fired while inside her purse as she walked to her car in Bridge City, Tex. The bullet entered her groin and exited her back just inches from the base of her spine.
In a written response to questions, SIG Sauer, based in Newington, N.H., denied that the P320 was capable of firing without a trigger pull and cited accounts of unintentional discharges with other firearms as evidence that such issues with the P320 are neither uncommon nor suggestive of a defect with the gun.
“These reports, among others, support three conclusions,” the response reads. “(1) unintentional discharges are not uncommon amongst both law enforcement and civilians, (2) improper or unsafe handling is one of the most common causes of unintentional discharges, and (3) unintentional discharges occur with several types of firearms and are not unique to the P320.”
The response further noted that “despite years of litigation and extensive discovery, no one, including plaintiffs’ ‘experts’, have ever been able to replicate a P320 discharging without a trigger pull,” and that the P320 conforms to applicable U.S. standards for safety. “The SIG Sauer P320 model pistol is among the most tested, proven, and successful handguns in small arms history,” the company wrote.
Experts said the risk of unintentional discharges tends to be greater for law enforcement officers because they are frequently trained to keep a round chambered in their duty weapon, which they often wear on their hip throughout the day.
At least 33 officers at 18 law enforcement agencies have been injured by P320 discharges, according to court records and interviews. At least six agencies removed the P320 from service over concerns about the model’s safety, records show.
“I’ve been running a gun store for over 10 years at this point, and you always hear anecdotal statements about some gun going off,” said Jeff Webb, a certified master gunsmith who operates Grey Wolf Armory, a gun store in a Tampa Bay suburb. “But dozens of injuries of local and federal police agents over the last five years — that’s not an anecdote, that’s a problem.”
Webb has for years publicly criticized the P320 as unsafe and was recently retained as an expert witness in a case against the gunmaker.
Most of the incidents occurred after SIG Sauer changed the internal design of the P320 following reports that the pistol could fire when dropped and launched a voluntary upgrade program allowing gun owners to send their pistols to the company’s New Hampshire factory for modification.
At least 35 shootings — including Jackson’s, Delgado’s and Hilton’s — involved guns with the new design or older guns that were sent back to SIG Sauer for upgrades, according to court filings and a review of the firearms used in the shootings.
Webb and other critics of the P320 say the versions used most often by civilians and police are essentially cocked at all times, with no external safeties to prevent the guns from firing in cases of malfunctions. These design features make them especially vulnerable to unintentional discharges, critics say.
Firearms are one of the few products that are exempt from federal consumer product safety regulations. No regulatory body has the power to investigate alleged defects or impose a mandatory recall of guns. As thousands of P320s circulate in the civilian market, waiting for buyers, SIG Sauer faces lawsuits from at least 70 people who allege the company is selling a defective product.
Jackson, a former track athlete and football player with two children, can no longer run as a result of his injuries and struggles to use stairs. He’s grateful to be alive after the bullet nearly hit his femoral artery, which could have caused massive blood loss and possibly death.
But he’s worried that if SIG Sauer doesn’t implement changes, the next victim won’t be so lucky.
“If somebody is telling you that something is not right, that they see smoke, there must be fire somewhere, right?” Jackson said. “You expect a company to address that. But SIG is not addressing it.”
Exempt from product safety regulations
The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has required recalls of candles whose flames burn too tall, fleece pajamas shown to cut infants and classroom chairs with loose welding.
But it has never ordered a recall of a gun because it does not have the authority to do so, even if it explodes in someone’s hand or spontaneously fires a bullet.
The omission is the result of an amendment written by Rep. John D. Dingell in 1972, when the agency was created by Congress. Dingell, a Democrat from Michigan who was also a gun rights supporter and who sat on the National Rifle Association’s board of directors, would later describe efforts to allow the CPSC to regulate firearms as “outrageous” and “harassing the firearms manufacturers.”
Critics said the result of this political deal has endangered gun owners.
“These are products that pose a greater safety risk if they malfunction than a bike or a toaster,” said Teresa Murray, director of the consumer watchdog office at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, a consumer advocacy nonprofit. “The consumer is paying the price.”
Without federal oversight, gunmakers are left to investigate reported defects and inform consumers of potential issues with their products. On multiple occasions, manufacturers have opted to ignore long-standing problems, taking action only when facing pressure from lawsuits or bad publicity.
Gunmakers Remington Arms and Taurus have both faced class-action lawsuits over weapons with alleged defects that have cumulatively injured and killed dozens of people.
SIG Sauer has faced claims that the P320 malfunctions since at least 2017, when accounts surfaced that the gun could fire when dropped. A video released in August that year by a Texas gun store showed the gun firing consistently when dropped at certain angles. The impact caused the trigger to depress, the video showed.
A day after the video was released, SIG Sauer announced it would modify the pistol’s design and launched a voluntary upgrade program in which customers could return their guns to have redesigned components installed. Reporting by CNN later showed SIG Sauer had been notified twice about instances in which the gun fired when dropped, roughly a year before warning the public of the problem. One of those notices was from the U.S. Army.
In a response to questions, SIG Sauer wrote that “it is important to note that the [Voluntary Upgrade Program] was not prompted by any particular claim and is entirely unrelated to any allegation that the P320 can discharge without a trigger pull, or other claims of unintentional discharges.”
SIG Sauer did not replace the guns sitting on gun store shelves across the country or require retailers to inform customers of the gun’s potential risks.
“If I had known about this gun’s problems, it would not have been the gun I carried,” said George Abrahams, 55, an Army veteran in Philadelphia whose P320 sent a round into his thigh in 2020. He had purchased the gun in 2018 — a year after the upgrade program went into effect — but it had not been upgraded and he was not warned at the gun shop of the firearm’s potential issues.
Harvey Winingham, 74, a retired Air Force veteran living in Maricopa County, Ariz., sought to avoid this risk when he acquired his P320 in a private sale in early 2018. When he learned of SIG Sauer’s design change, he shipped the weapon back to the gunmaker for an upgrade. But two years later, as he inspected the weapon for a chambered round, it fired a bullet through his hand, Winningham said.
“I got the gun upgraded as soon as I could because I didn’t want this to happen to me,” he said. “But here we are now. It happened anyway.”
In court documents, SIG Sauer denied that either Abrahams’s or Winingham’s guns could have fired without their triggers being depressed by a finger or foreign object.
Democrats in Congress have repeatedly tried to establish a regulatory authority with the power to investigate reports of defective firearms and require recalls. The charge has been led by Rep. Debbie Dingell, a Democrat from Michigan and widow of John D. Dingell, whose amendment created the exemption five decades ago. Her proposed legislation has never made it to the floor for a vote.
"People are dying,” she said, “and no one’s got oversight.”
A ‘uniquely dangerous’ model
The P320 is what’s known as a striker-fired handgun. With each pull of the trigger, an internal spring-loaded pin called a striker rushes forward to detonate a bullet’s primer and send a round hurtling out the barrel.
But the P320 is different from many striker-fired guns in that it is effectively fully cocked at rest. The pull of its trigger does not draw the striker backward any meaningful distance. It simply releases it.
,
At least 80 people, including police officers, allege they were shot by their SIG Sauer P320 pistols. Some have lost work, live in pain after serious injuries.
One warm afternoon in May, Dwight Jackson was getting dressed for a visit to his favorite cigar lounge. He slipped his holstered SIG Sauer P320 pistol onto his belt, put on a button-down shirt and leaned across his bed for his wallet. Suddenly, he said, the gun fired, sending a bullet tearing through his right buttock and into his left ankle.
“I heard ‘bang!’” said Jackson, 47, a locomotive engineer who lives in Locust Grove, Ga. “I looked down and saw blood.”
His wife heard the shot from down the hall and screamed. She called an ambulance while Jackson hobbled toward the front door, painting a trail of blood over the hardwood floors.
At no point, Jackson later told police, had he touched the gun’s trigger.
The P320 is one of the nation’s most popular handguns. A variant of the weapon is the standard-issue sidearm for every branch of the U.S. military. Since the gun’s introduction to the commercial market in 2014, manufacturer SIG Sauer has sold the P320 to hundreds of thousands of civilians, and it has been used by officers at more than a thousand law enforcement agencies across the nation, court records show.
It has also gruesomely injured scores of people who say the gun has a potentially deadly defect.
More than 100 people allege that their P320 pistols discharged when they did not pull the trigger, an eight-month investigation by The Washington Post and The Trace has found. At least 80 people were wounded in the shootings, which date to 2016.
About this partnership: This report is a joint investigation by The Washington Post and The Trace, a nonprofit newsroom that covers gun violence.
“The number and frequency of injuries are strongly suggestive of a design flaw versus a human performance error,” said Bill Lewinski, a behavioral scientist, executive director of the Force Science Institute and one of the nation’s leading experts on accidental shootings. “What we’re seeing is highly unusual.”
The injured included both casual and expert firearm owners whose guns fired in their homes and offices and in busy public places such as casinos and parking lots. In two cases, the guns went off on school grounds.
Interviews with more than a dozen victims, video recordings, and a review of thousands of pages of court documents and internal police records reveal a pattern of discharges that were alleged to have occurred during routine movements. These have included the holstering or unholstering of the P320, climbing out of vehicles and walking down stairs. In several cases, records and videos show, the gun fired when a victim’s hand was nowhere near it.
Navy veteran and former gunner’s mate Dionicio Delgado said his P320 fired a bullet through his thigh and into his calf after he holstered it during a training session at a gun range in Ruther Glen, Va. Michael Parker, a welder, said his holstered P320 fired a bullet into his thigh as he removed the holster from his pocket while in his car in St. Petersburg, Fla. Police officer Brittany Hilton said her holstered P320 fired while inside her purse as she walked to her car in Bridge City, Tex. The bullet entered her groin and exited her back just inches from the base of her spine.
In a written response to questions, SIG Sauer, based in Newington, N.H., denied that the P320 was capable of firing without a trigger pull and cited accounts of unintentional discharges with other firearms as evidence that such issues with the P320 are neither uncommon nor suggestive of a defect with the gun.
“These reports, among others, support three conclusions,” the response reads. “(1) unintentional discharges are not uncommon amongst both law enforcement and civilians, (2) improper or unsafe handling is one of the most common causes of unintentional discharges, and (3) unintentional discharges occur with several types of firearms and are not unique to the P320.”
The response further noted that “despite years of litigation and extensive discovery, no one, including plaintiffs’ ‘experts’, have ever been able to replicate a P320 discharging without a trigger pull,” and that the P320 conforms to applicable U.S. standards for safety. “The SIG Sauer P320 model pistol is among the most tested, proven, and successful handguns in small arms history,” the company wrote.
Experts said the risk of unintentional discharges tends to be greater for law enforcement officers because they are frequently trained to keep a round chambered in their duty weapon, which they often wear on their hip throughout the day.
At least 33 officers at 18 law enforcement agencies have been injured by P320 discharges, according to court records and interviews. At least six agencies removed the P320 from service over concerns about the model’s safety, records show.
“I’ve been running a gun store for over 10 years at this point, and you always hear anecdotal statements about some gun going off,” said Jeff Webb, a certified master gunsmith who operates Grey Wolf Armory, a gun store in a Tampa Bay suburb. “But dozens of injuries of local and federal police agents over the last five years — that’s not an anecdote, that’s a problem.”
Webb has for years publicly criticized the P320 as unsafe and was recently retained as an expert witness in a case against the gunmaker.
Most of the incidents occurred after SIG Sauer changed the internal design of the P320 following reports that the pistol could fire when dropped and launched a voluntary upgrade program allowing gun owners to send their pistols to the company’s New Hampshire factory for modification.
At least 35 shootings — including Jackson’s, Delgado’s and Hilton’s — involved guns with the new design or older guns that were sent back to SIG Sauer for upgrades, according to court filings and a review of the firearms used in the shootings.
Webb and other critics of the P320 say the versions used most often by civilians and police are essentially cocked at all times, with no external safeties to prevent the guns from firing in cases of malfunctions. These design features make them especially vulnerable to unintentional discharges, critics say.
Firearms are one of the few products that are exempt from federal consumer product safety regulations. No regulatory body has the power to investigate alleged defects or impose a mandatory recall of guns. As thousands of P320s circulate in the civilian market, waiting for buyers, SIG Sauer faces lawsuits from at least 70 people who allege the company is selling a defective product.
Jackson, a former track athlete and football player with two children, can no longer run as a result of his injuries and struggles to use stairs. He’s grateful to be alive after the bullet nearly hit his femoral artery, which could have caused massive blood loss and possibly death.
But he’s worried that if SIG Sauer doesn’t implement changes, the next victim won’t be so lucky.
“If somebody is telling you that something is not right, that they see smoke, there must be fire somewhere, right?” Jackson said. “You expect a company to address that. But SIG is not addressing it.”
Exempt from product safety regulations
The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has required recalls of candles whose flames burn too tall, fleece pajamas shown to cut infants and classroom chairs with loose welding.
But it has never ordered a recall of a gun because it does not have the authority to do so, even if it explodes in someone’s hand or spontaneously fires a bullet.
The omission is the result of an amendment written by Rep. John D. Dingell in 1972, when the agency was created by Congress. Dingell, a Democrat from Michigan who was also a gun rights supporter and who sat on the National Rifle Association’s board of directors, would later describe efforts to allow the CPSC to regulate firearms as “outrageous” and “harassing the firearms manufacturers.”
Critics said the result of this political deal has endangered gun owners.
“These are products that pose a greater safety risk if they malfunction than a bike or a toaster,” said Teresa Murray, director of the consumer watchdog office at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, a consumer advocacy nonprofit. “The consumer is paying the price.”
Without federal oversight, gunmakers are left to investigate reported defects and inform consumers of potential issues with their products. On multiple occasions, manufacturers have opted to ignore long-standing problems, taking action only when facing pressure from lawsuits or bad publicity.
Gunmakers Remington Arms and Taurus have both faced class-action lawsuits over weapons with alleged defects that have cumulatively injured and killed dozens of people.
SIG Sauer has faced claims that the P320 malfunctions since at least 2017, when accounts surfaced that the gun could fire when dropped. A video released in August that year by a Texas gun store showed the gun firing consistently when dropped at certain angles. The impact caused the trigger to depress, the video showed.
A day after the video was released, SIG Sauer announced it would modify the pistol’s design and launched a voluntary upgrade program in which customers could return their guns to have redesigned components installed. Reporting by CNN later showed SIG Sauer had been notified twice about instances in which the gun fired when dropped, roughly a year before warning the public of the problem. One of those notices was from the U.S. Army.
In a response to questions, SIG Sauer wrote that “it is important to note that the [Voluntary Upgrade Program] was not prompted by any particular claim and is entirely unrelated to any allegation that the P320 can discharge without a trigger pull, or other claims of unintentional discharges.”
SIG Sauer did not replace the guns sitting on gun store shelves across the country or require retailers to inform customers of the gun’s potential risks.
“If I had known about this gun’s problems, it would not have been the gun I carried,” said George Abrahams, 55, an Army veteran in Philadelphia whose P320 sent a round into his thigh in 2020. He had purchased the gun in 2018 — a year after the upgrade program went into effect — but it had not been upgraded and he was not warned at the gun shop of the firearm’s potential issues.
Harvey Winingham, 74, a retired Air Force veteran living in Maricopa County, Ariz., sought to avoid this risk when he acquired his P320 in a private sale in early 2018. When he learned of SIG Sauer’s design change, he shipped the weapon back to the gunmaker for an upgrade. But two years later, as he inspected the weapon for a chambered round, it fired a bullet through his hand, Winningham said.
“I got the gun upgraded as soon as I could because I didn’t want this to happen to me,” he said. “But here we are now. It happened anyway.”
In court documents, SIG Sauer denied that either Abrahams’s or Winingham’s guns could have fired without their triggers being depressed by a finger or foreign object.
Democrats in Congress have repeatedly tried to establish a regulatory authority with the power to investigate reports of defective firearms and require recalls. The charge has been led by Rep. Debbie Dingell, a Democrat from Michigan and widow of John D. Dingell, whose amendment created the exemption five decades ago. Her proposed legislation has never made it to the floor for a vote.
"People are dying,” she said, “and no one’s got oversight.”
A ‘uniquely dangerous’ model
The P320 is what’s known as a striker-fired handgun. With each pull of the trigger, an internal spring-loaded pin called a striker rushes forward to detonate a bullet’s primer and send a round hurtling out the barrel.
But the P320 is different from many striker-fired guns in that it is effectively fully cocked at rest. The pull of its trigger does not draw the striker backward any meaningful distance. It simply releases it.
opular handgun fires without anyone pulling the trigger, victims say
At least 80 people, including police officers, allege they were shot by their SIG Sauer P320 pistols. Some have lost work, live in pain after serious injuries.
One warm afternoon in May, Dwight Jackson was getting dressed for a visit to his favorite cigar lounge. He slipped his holstered SIG Sauer P320 pistol onto his belt, put on a button-down shirt and leaned across his bed for his wallet. Suddenly, he said, the gun fired, sending a bullet tearing through his right buttock and into his left ankle.
“I heard ‘bang!’” said Jackson, 47, a locomotive engineer who lives in Locust Grove, Ga. “I looked down and saw blood.”
His wife heard the shot from down the hall and screamed. She called an ambulance while Jackson hobbled toward the front door, painting a trail of blood over the hardwood floors.
At no point, Jackson later told police, had he touched the gun’s trigger.
The P320 is one of the nation’s most popular handguns. A variant of the weapon is the standard-issue sidearm for every branch of the U.S. military. Since the gun’s introduction to the commercial market in 2014, manufacturer SIG Sauer has sold the P320 to hundreds of thousands of civilians, and it has been used by officers at more than a thousand law enforcement agencies across the nation, court records show.
It has also gruesomely injured scores of people who say the gun has a potentially deadly defect.
More than 100 people allege that their P320 pistols discharged when they did not pull the trigger, an eight-month investigation by The Washington Post and The Trace has found. At least 80 people were wounded in the shootings, which date to 2016.
About this partnership: This report is a joint investigation by The Washington Post and The Trace, a nonprofit newsroom that covers gun violence.
“The number and frequency of injuries are strongly suggestive of a design flaw versus a human performance error,” said Bill Lewinski, a behavioral scientist, executive director of the Force Science Institute and one of the nation’s leading experts on accidental shootings. “What we’re seeing is highly unusual.”
The injured included both casual and expert firearm owners whose guns fired in their homes and offices and in busy public places such as casinos and parking lots. In two cases, the guns went off on school grounds.
Interviews with more than a dozen victims, video recordings, and a review of thousands of pages of court documents and internal police records reveal a pattern of discharges that were alleged to have occurred during routine movements. These have included the holstering or unholstering of the P320, climbing out of vehicles and walking down stairs. In several cases, records and videos show, the gun fired when a victim’s hand was nowhere near it.
Navy veteran and former gunner’s mate Dionicio Delgado said his P320 fired a bullet through his thigh and into his calf after he holstered it during a training session at a gun range in Ruther Glen, Va. Michael Parker, a welder, said his holstered P320 fired a bullet into his thigh as he removed the holster from his pocket while in his car in St. Petersburg, Fla. Police officer Brittany Hilton said her holstered P320 fired while inside her purse as she walked to her car in Bridge City, Tex. The bullet entered her groin and exited her back just inches from the base of her spine.
In a written response to questions, SIG Sauer, based in Newington, N.H., denied that the P320 was capable of firing without a trigger pull and cited accounts of unintentional discharges with other firearms as evidence that such issues with the P320 are neither uncommon nor suggestive of a defect with the gun.
“These reports, among others, support three conclusions,” the response reads. “(1) unintentional discharges are not uncommon amongst both law enforcement and civilians, (2) improper or unsafe handling is one of the most common causes of unintentional discharges, and (3) unintentional discharges occur with several types of firearms and are not unique to the P320.”
The response further noted that “despite years of litigation and extensive discovery, no one, including plaintiffs’ ‘experts’, have ever been able to replicate a P320 discharging without a trigger pull,” and that the P320 conforms to applicable U.S. standards for safety. “The SIG Sauer P320 model pistol is among the most tested, proven, and successful handguns in small arms history,” the company wrote.
Experts said the risk of unintentional discharges tends to be greater for law enforcement officers because they are frequently trained to keep a round chambered in their duty weapon, which they often wear on their hip throughout the day.
At least 33 officers at 18 law enforcement agencies have been injured by P320 discharges, according to court records and interviews. At least six agencies removed the P320 from service over concerns about the model’s safety, records show.
“I’ve been running a gun store for over 10 years at this point, and you always hear anecdotal statements about some gun going off,” said Jeff Webb, a certified master gunsmith who operates Grey Wolf Armory, a gun store in a Tampa Bay suburb. “But dozens of injuries of local and federal police agents over the last five years — that’s not an anecdote, that’s a problem.”
Webb has for years publicly criticized the P320 as unsafe and was recently retained as an expert witness in a case against the gunmaker.
Most of the incidents occurred after SIG Sauer changed the internal design of the P320 following reports that the pistol could fire when dropped and launched a voluntary upgrade program allowing gun owners to send their pistols to the company’s New Hampshire factory for modification.
At least 35 shootings — including Jackson’s, Delgado’s and Hilton’s — involved guns with the new design or older guns that were sent back to SIG Sauer for upgrades, according to court filings and a review of the firearms used in the shootings.
Webb and other critics of the P320 say the versions used most often by civilians and police are essentially cocked at all times, with no external safeties to prevent the guns from firing in cases of malfunctions. These design features make them especially vulnerable to unintentional discharges, critics say.
Firearms are one of the few products that are exempt from federal consumer product safety regulations. No regulatory body has the power to investigate alleged defects or impose a mandatory recall of guns. As thousands of P320s circulate in the civilian market, waiting for buyers, SIG Sauer faces lawsuits from at least 70 people who allege the company is selling a defective product.
Jackson, a former track athlete and football player with two children, can no longer run as a result of his injuries and struggles to use stairs. He’s grateful to be alive after the bullet nearly hit his femoral artery, which could have caused massive blood loss and possibly death.
But he’s worried that if SIG Sauer doesn’t implement changes, the next victim won’t be so lucky.
“If somebody is telling you that something is not right, that they see smoke, there must be fire somewhere, right?” Jackson said. “You expect a company to address that. But SIG is not addressing it.”
Exempt from product safety regulations
The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has required recalls of candles whose flames burn too tall, fleece pajamas shown to cut infants and classroom chairs with loose welding.
But it has never ordered a recall of a gun because it does not have the authority to do so, even if it explodes in someone’s hand or spontaneously fires a bullet.
The omission is the result of an amendment written by Rep. John D. Dingell in 1972, when the agency was created by Congress. Dingell, a Democrat from Michigan who was also a gun rights supporter and who sat on the National Rifle Association’s board of directors, would later describe efforts to allow the CPSC to regulate firearms as “outrageous” and “harassing the firearms manufacturers.”
Critics said the result of this political deal has endangered gun owners.
“These are products that pose a greater safety risk if they malfunction than a bike or a toaster,” said Teresa Murray, director of the consumer watchdog office at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, a consumer advocacy nonprofit. “The consumer is paying the price.”
Without federal oversight, gunmakers are left to investigate reported defects and inform consumers of potential issues with their products. On multiple occasions, manufacturers have opted to ignore long-standing problems, taking action only when facing pressure from lawsuits or bad publicity.
Gunmakers Remington Arms and Taurus have both faced class-action lawsuits over weapons with alleged defects that have cumulatively injured and killed dozens of people.
SIG Sauer has faced claims that the P320 malfunctions since at least 2017, when accounts surfaced that the gun could fire when dropped. A video released in August that year by a Texas gun store showed the gun firing consistently when dropped at certain angles. The impact caused the trigger to depress, the video showed.
A day after the video was released, SIG Sauer announced it would modify the pistol’s design and launched a voluntary upgrade program in which customers could return their guns to have redesigned components installed. Reporting by CNN later showed SIG Sauer had been notified twice about instances in which the gun fired when dropped, roughly a year before warning the public of the problem. One of those notices was from the U.S. Army.
In a response to questions, SIG Sauer wrote that “it is important to note that the [Voluntary Upgrade Program] was not prompted by any particular claim and is entirely unrelated to any allegation that the P320 can discharge without a trigger pull, or other claims of unintentional discharges.”
SIG Sauer did not replace the guns sitting on gun store shelves across the country or require retailers to inform customers of the gun’s potential risks.
“If I had known about this gun’s problems, it would not have been the gun I carried,” said George Abrahams, 55, an Army veteran in Philadelphia whose P320 sent a round into his thigh in 2020. He had purchased the gun in 2018 — a year after the upgrade program went into effect — but it had not been upgraded and he was not warned at the gun shop of the firearm’s potential issues.
Harvey Winingham, 74, a retired Air Force veteran living in Maricopa County, Ariz., sought to avoid this risk when he acquired his P320 in a private sale in early 2018. When he learned of SIG Sauer’s design change, he shipped the weapon back to the gunmaker for an upgrade. But two years later, as he inspected the weapon for a chambered round, it fired a bullet through his hand, Winningham said.
“I got the gun upgraded as soon as I could because I didn’t want this to happen to me,” he said. “But here we are now. It happened anyway.”
In court documents, SIG Sauer denied that either Abrahams’s or Winingham’s guns could have fired without their triggers being depressed by a finger or foreign object.
Democrats in Congress have repeatedly tried to establish a regulatory authority with the power to investigate reports of defective firearms and require recalls. The charge has been led by Rep. Debbie Dingell, a Democrat from Michigan and widow of John D. Dingell, whose amendment created the exemption five decades ago. Her proposed legislation has never made it to the floor for a vote.
"People are dying,” she said, “and no one’s got oversight.”
A ‘uniquely dangerous’ model
The P320 is what’s known as a striker-fired handgun. With each pull of the trigger, an internal spring-loaded pin called a striker rushes forward to detonate a bullet’s primer and send a round hurtling out the barrel.
But the P320 is different from many striker-fired guns in that it is effectively fully cocked at rest. The pull of its trigger does not draw the striker backward any meaningful distance. It simply releases it.
,
Alabama shooting: Four dead at Dadeville 16th birthday party
The shooting happened at a 16th birthday party in the city of Dadeville on Saturday, media reports say.
www.bbc.co.uk
Alabama shooting: Four dead at Dadeville 16th birthday party
At least four people have been killed in a mass shooting in the US state of Alabama on Saturday.
Several people were injured following the incident at a 16th birthday party in the town of Dadeville, local media is reporting.
The shooting happened at the Mahogany Masterpiece Dance Studio at around 22:30 (03:30 GMT) on Saturday.
"This morning, I grieve with the people of Dadeville and my fellow Alabamians," state governor Kay Ivey said.
"Violent crime has no place in our state, and we are staying closely updated by law enforcement as details emerge," the governor added in a statement on Twitter.
The governor is a strong supporter of second amendment rights - the right to keep and bear arms - and last year signed legislation abolishing the requirement in Alabama to get a permit to carry a concealed handgun in public.
Her candidacy for last year's governor election was endorsed by the National Rifle Association.
Pastor Ben Hayes, who serves as the chaplain for the Dadeville Police Department and for the local high school football team, said most of the victims were teenagers.
"One of the young men that was killed was one of our star athletes and just a great guy," he said.
"I knew many of these students. Dadeville is a small town and this is going to affect everybody in this area."
A community vigil is being organised for the victims of Saturday's shooting.
There has been no confirmation about what led to the incident, or whether any suspects have been taken into custody.
The Alabama incident follows a shooting on the same day at a park in Louisville, Kentucky, which killed two people and injured four others.
With a population of about 3,200 people, Dadeville is a small, rural town located in Tallapoosa County in the east of Alabama.
There have been more than 140 mass shootings in the US so far this year.
How many US mass shootings have there been in 2023?
How many US mass shootings have there been in 2023?
Explaining some of the key statistics behind gun ownership and attacks linked to guns in the US.
www.bbc.co.uk
Data shows gun ownership in the US has grown over the last several years
Gun violence is a fixture in American life - but the issue is a highly political one, pitting gun control advocates against people who are fiercely protective of their right to bear arms.
We've looked into some of the numbers behind firearms in the US.
Mass shootings on the rise
There have been at least 146 mass shootings across the US so far this year, including the attack at a school in Nashville, where three children and three adults were killed, and the mass shooting in Kentucky on Monday, which left four victims dead.Figures from the Gun Violence Archive - a non-profit research database - show that the number of mass shootings has gone up significantly in recent years.
In each of 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 figures include shootings that happen 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.
How do US gun deaths break down?
48,830 people died from gun-related injuries in the US during 2021, according to the latest data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).That's nearly an 8% increase from 2020, which was a record-breaking year for firearm deaths.
While mass shootings and gun murders (homicides) generally garner much media attention, more than half of the total in 2021 were suicides.
That year, more than 20,000 of the deaths were homicides, according to the CDC.
Data shows more than 50 people are killed each day by a firearm in the US.
That's a significantly larger proportion of homicides than is the case in Canada, Australia, England and Wales, and many other countries.
How many guns are there in the US?
While calculating the number of guns in private hands around the world is difficult, the latest figures from the Small Arms Survey - a Swiss-based research project - estimated that there were 390 million guns in circulation in the US in 2018.The US ratio of 120.5 firearms per 100 residents, up from 88 per 100 in 2011, far surpasses that of other countries around the world.
More recent data out of the US suggests that gun ownership grew significantly over the last few years. A study, published by the Annals of Internal Medicine in February, found that 7.5 million US adults became new gun owners between January 2019 and April 2021.
This, in turn, exposed 11 million people to firearms in their homes, including 5 million children. About half of new gun owners in that time period were women, while 40% were either black or Hispanic.
Who supports gun control?
A majority of Americans are in favour of gun control.57% of Americans surveyed said they wanted stricter gun laws - although this fell last year - according to polling by Gallup.
32% said the laws should remain the same, while 10% of people surveyed said they should be "made less strict".
The issue is extremely divisive, falling largely along party lines.
"Democrats are nearly unanimous in their support for stricter gun laws," another Gallup study noted, with nearly 91% in favour of stricter gun laws.
Only 24% Republicans, on the other hand, agreed with the same statement, along with 45% of Independent voters.
Some states have taken steps to ban or strictly regulate ownership of assault weapons. Laws vary by state but California, for example, has banned ownership of assault weapons with limited exceptions.
Some controls are widely supported by people across the political divide - such as restrictions governing the sale of guns to people who are mentally ill or on "watch" lists.
Who opposes gun control?
Despite years of financial woes and internal strife, the National Rifle Association (NRA) remains the most powerful gun lobby in the United States, with a substantial budget to influence members of Congress on gun policy.Over the last several election cycles, it, and other organisations, have consistently spent more on pro-gun rights messaging than their rivals in the gun control lobby.
A number of states have also gone as far as to largely eliminate restrictions on who can carry a gun. In June 2021, for example, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed into law a "permitless carry bill" that allows the state's residents to carry handguns without a licence or training.
Similarly, in April last year Georgia became the 25th in the nation to eliminate the need for a permit to conceal or openly carry a firearm. The law means any citizen of that state has the right to carry a firearm without a licence or a permit.
The law was backed by the NRA, and leaders within the organisation called the move "a monumental moment for the Second Amendment".
Fingerprint-activated
9mm handgun coming to market
Smart gun uses your fingerprint or facial recognition to unlock it to fire
The Biofire smart gun is expected to hit the market in 2024. Some believe that when it does, it could significantly help curb the gun crisis we're facing in this country. One of the main advantages of Biofire's smart guns is that they can dramatically reduce accidental shootings at home. Last year, the New England Journal of Medicine report revealed that firearm-related accidents, homicides and suicides are the primary cause of death for children and teenagers in the U.S.
How many US mass shootings have there been in 2023?
How many US mass shootings have there been in 2023?
Explaining some of the key statistics behind gun ownership and attacks linked to guns in the US.www.bbc.co.uk
Data shows gun ownership in the US has grown over the last several years
Gun violence is a fixture in American life - but the issue is a highly political one, pitting gun control advocates against people who are fiercely protective of their right to bear arms.
We've looked into some of the numbers behind firearms in the US.
Mass shootings on the rise
There have been at least 146 mass shootings across the US so far this year, including the attack at a school in Nashville, where three children and three adults were killed, and the mass shooting in Kentucky on Monday, which left four victims dead.
Figures from the Gun Violence Archive - a non-profit research database - show that the number of mass shootings has gone up significantly in recent years.
In each of 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 figures include shootings that happen 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.
How do US gun deaths break down?
48,830 people died from gun-related injuries in the US during 2021, according to the latest data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
That's nearly an 8% increase from 2020, which was a record-breaking year for firearm deaths.
While mass shootings and gun murders (homicides) generally garner much media attention, more than half of the total in 2021 were suicides.
That year, more than 20,000 of the deaths were homicides, according to the CDC.
Data shows more than 50 people are killed each day by a firearm in the US.
That's a significantly larger proportion of homicides than is the case in Canada, Australia, England and Wales, and many other countries.
How many guns are there in the US?
While calculating the number of guns in private hands around the world is difficult, the latest figures from the Small Arms Survey - a Swiss-based research project - estimated that there were 390 million guns in circulation in the US in 2018.
The US ratio of 120.5 firearms per 100 residents, up from 88 per 100 in 2011, far surpasses that of other countries around the world.
More recent data out of the US suggests that gun ownership grew significantly over the last few years. A study, published by the Annals of Internal Medicine in February, found that 7.5 million US adults became new gun owners between January 2019 and April 2021.
This, in turn, exposed 11 million people to firearms in their homes, including 5 million children. About half of new gun owners in that time period were women, while 40% were either black or Hispanic.
Who supports gun control?
A majority of Americans are in favour of gun control.
57% of Americans surveyed said they wanted stricter gun laws - although this fell last year - according to polling by Gallup.
32% said the laws should remain the same, while 10% of people surveyed said they should be "made less strict".
The issue is extremely divisive, falling largely along party lines.
"Democrats are nearly unanimous in their support for stricter gun laws," another Gallup study noted, with nearly 91% in favour of stricter gun laws.
Only 24% Republicans, on the other hand, agreed with the same statement, along with 45% of Independent voters.
Some states have taken steps to ban or strictly regulate ownership of assault weapons. Laws vary by state but California, for example, has banned ownership of assault weapons with limited exceptions.
Some controls are widely supported by people across the political divide - such as restrictions governing the sale of guns to people who are mentally ill or on "watch" lists.
Who opposes gun control?
Despite years of financial woes and internal strife, the National Rifle Association (NRA) remains the most powerful gun lobby in the United States, with a substantial budget to influence members of Congress on gun policy.
Over the last several election cycles, it, and other organisations, have consistently spent more on pro-gun rights messaging than their rivals in the gun control lobby.
A number of states have also gone as far as to largely eliminate restrictions on who can carry a gun. In June 2021, for example, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed into law a "permitless carry bill" that allows the state's residents to carry handguns without a licence or training.
Similarly, in April last year Georgia became the 25th in the nation to eliminate the need for a permit to conceal or openly carry a firearm. The law means any citizen of that state has the right to carry a firearm without a licence or a permit.
The law was backed by the NRA, and leaders within the organisation called the move "a monumental moment for the Second Amendment".
Hartford
The Associated Press
Follow
Janet Rice headed to the hospital Thursday night, as she routinely does when tragedy befalls her community. A barrage of gunfire had injured several young people, including a 12-year-old girl struck in the head by a stray bullet.
While en route, Rice’s phone rang. She pulled over.
The young girl in a Connecticut hospital fighting for her life was her granddaughter -- the child of the son Rice lost to gun violence more than a decade earlier.
The girl, Se’Cret Pierce, died Friday morning. She was 2 years old when her young father, Shane Oliver, 20, was killed in the fall of 2012 only a few miles from where his daughter was shot.
Having a son gunned down brought sorrow and despair to the family. Now a granddaughter had perished, too.
“Never in a million years did I expect to respond to a call for my 12-year-old granddaughter,” Rice, a crisis response specialist, said in a text message Sunday.
“I am ANGRY, HEARTBROKEN, and NUMB,” she texted.
The seventh-grader was the seventh homicide this year in Hartford, a city — like other urban areas — struggling to contain gun violence. Last year, there were 39 homicides in Hartford — up from 34 the year before, most committed with a gun.
For years, Se’Cret’s grandparents had spoken out about the dangers of guns. For a while, Rice worked as the outreach coordinator for CT Against Gun Violence. Now she was part of a crew of “peace builders” trying to put her community’s youth on the right path.
Even before the death of his son, and now his granddaughter, the Rev. Sam Saylor knew well how gun violence was eating away at his community — a numbing regularity in too many neighborhoods, he said. Killing after killing, the pastor would show up to as many vigils as he could to pray with bereaved families.
“It’s just trauma on top of trauma,” Saylor said Saturday after friends and family gathered for a vigil in Hartford for his grandchild. Never did he expect, he said, “that I would be in this parade of pain again.”
Se’Cret was sitting in a parked car when she was shot, an innocent and unintended victim of a barrage of bullets that sent people running for cover.
Investigators said no arrests have been made, but they were still looking for at least two people believed to be in the vehicle that sped away after the shooting.
Oliver’s killer, an acquaintance, is now serving 40 years in prison.
On the day he died, Oliver had left home to collect money for a car he sold.
Like many gun-related killings, it began with an argument. Words escalated, and a gun was drawn. Oliver tried to run, but he did not get far. Two bullets to the back, and he died a few hours later.
During sentencing in 2015, Rice had pleaded for more prison time.
“I certainly hope it will save another mom from all the pain I’ve endured,” the Hartford Courant quoted Rice telling the judge during sentencing.
Still welling with grief, Oliver’s parents drove to Newtown to get an audience with then-Vice President Joe Biden, who was visiting with the grieving parents of the 20 children gunned down at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
Biden met separately with Saylor, Rice and other parents who raised concerns that the deaths of Black urban youths were being treated as footnotes in conversations about gun violence.
“Both of them took the death of Shane and transformed it into activism,” said Kim A. Snyder, a documentary film director, who became acquainted with Rice and Saylor, while working on her Peabody-winning film about Newtown.
Saylor has pushed for stricter gun laws and has tried to shine a spotlight on the urban violence that has taken so many young Black lives.
“Then it was his own kid,” Snyder said.
Even with the slight rise in homicides in Connecticut’s capital, the state has some of the lowest death rates from guns, according to the Violence Policy Center.
“But we’ve got to do more,” said Jeremy Stein, the executive director of CT Against Gun Violence.
In addition to controlling the supply of guns, Stein wants more done to reduce the demand for firearms while strengthening community programs that promote civility and work to reduce the impulse to reach for a gun when disputes escalate.
Stein and others are asking the state to boost funding for an anti-violence commission to $10 million annually.
He called the latest shooting “incredibly personal” because of Rice’s connection to the group.
“She lost her son, Shane,” Stein said, “and now Shane’s daughter has been murdered — both by gun violence.”
The suspects in Se’Cret’s killing appeared to target three males — ages 16, 18 and 23 — who were standing on a sidewalk on a residential street not far from downtown Hartford Thursday night. They were wounded, but all three were expected to survive.
Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin urged the three surviving victims to cooperate with police, noting at a press conference Friday that they could lead police to Se’Cret’s killers.
“A tragedy like this ripples outward in a community and affects so many,” he said.
Se’Cret’s killing weighed heavily on the minds of marchers Saturday as they took part in the city’s annual Mothers United Against Violence rally. They gathered on Huntington Street, where Se’Cret was shot, to join the girl’s vigil.
Speeches were given. Sermons were said. And prayers were held.
One woman, chanting to the beat of a drum, carried the sentiment of the grieving community: “Put down the gun.”
abcnews.go.com
.
Gunfire took their son at 20. Now it takes his daughter, 12
By BOBBY CAINA CALVAN, 6 hrs ago
The Associated Press
Follow
Janet Rice headed to the hospital Thursday night, as she routinely does when tragedy befalls her community. A barrage of gunfire had injured several young people, including a 12-year-old girl struck in the head by a stray bullet.
While en route, Rice’s phone rang. She pulled over.
The young girl in a Connecticut hospital fighting for her life was her granddaughter -- the child of the son Rice lost to gun violence more than a decade earlier.
The girl, Se’Cret Pierce, died Friday morning. She was 2 years old when her young father, Shane Oliver, 20, was killed in the fall of 2012 only a few miles from where his daughter was shot.
Having a son gunned down brought sorrow and despair to the family. Now a granddaughter had perished, too.
“Never in a million years did I expect to respond to a call for my 12-year-old granddaughter,” Rice, a crisis response specialist, said in a text message Sunday.
“I am ANGRY, HEARTBROKEN, and NUMB,” she texted.
The seventh-grader was the seventh homicide this year in Hartford, a city — like other urban areas — struggling to contain gun violence. Last year, there were 39 homicides in Hartford — up from 34 the year before, most committed with a gun.
For years, Se’Cret’s grandparents had spoken out about the dangers of guns. For a while, Rice worked as the outreach coordinator for CT Against Gun Violence. Now she was part of a crew of “peace builders” trying to put her community’s youth on the right path.
Even before the death of his son, and now his granddaughter, the Rev. Sam Saylor knew well how gun violence was eating away at his community — a numbing regularity in too many neighborhoods, he said. Killing after killing, the pastor would show up to as many vigils as he could to pray with bereaved families.
“It’s just trauma on top of trauma,” Saylor said Saturday after friends and family gathered for a vigil in Hartford for his grandchild. Never did he expect, he said, “that I would be in this parade of pain again.”
Se’Cret was sitting in a parked car when she was shot, an innocent and unintended victim of a barrage of bullets that sent people running for cover.
Investigators said no arrests have been made, but they were still looking for at least two people believed to be in the vehicle that sped away after the shooting.
Oliver’s killer, an acquaintance, is now serving 40 years in prison.
On the day he died, Oliver had left home to collect money for a car he sold.
Like many gun-related killings, it began with an argument. Words escalated, and a gun was drawn. Oliver tried to run, but he did not get far. Two bullets to the back, and he died a few hours later.
During sentencing in 2015, Rice had pleaded for more prison time.
“I certainly hope it will save another mom from all the pain I’ve endured,” the Hartford Courant quoted Rice telling the judge during sentencing.
Still welling with grief, Oliver’s parents drove to Newtown to get an audience with then-Vice President Joe Biden, who was visiting with the grieving parents of the 20 children gunned down at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
Biden met separately with Saylor, Rice and other parents who raised concerns that the deaths of Black urban youths were being treated as footnotes in conversations about gun violence.
“Both of them took the death of Shane and transformed it into activism,” said Kim A. Snyder, a documentary film director, who became acquainted with Rice and Saylor, while working on her Peabody-winning film about Newtown.
Saylor has pushed for stricter gun laws and has tried to shine a spotlight on the urban violence that has taken so many young Black lives.
“Then it was his own kid,” Snyder said.
Even with the slight rise in homicides in Connecticut’s capital, the state has some of the lowest death rates from guns, according to the Violence Policy Center.
“But we’ve got to do more,” said Jeremy Stein, the executive director of CT Against Gun Violence.
In addition to controlling the supply of guns, Stein wants more done to reduce the demand for firearms while strengthening community programs that promote civility and work to reduce the impulse to reach for a gun when disputes escalate.
Stein and others are asking the state to boost funding for an anti-violence commission to $10 million annually.
He called the latest shooting “incredibly personal” because of Rice’s connection to the group.
“She lost her son, Shane,” Stein said, “and now Shane’s daughter has been murdered — both by gun violence.”
The suspects in Se’Cret’s killing appeared to target three males — ages 16, 18 and 23 — who were standing on a sidewalk on a residential street not far from downtown Hartford Thursday night. They were wounded, but all three were expected to survive.
Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin urged the three surviving victims to cooperate with police, noting at a press conference Friday that they could lead police to Se’Cret’s killers.
“A tragedy like this ripples outward in a community and affects so many,” he said.
Se’Cret’s killing weighed heavily on the minds of marchers Saturday as they took part in the city’s annual Mothers United Against Violence rally. They gathered on Huntington Street, where Se’Cret was shot, to join the girl’s vigil.
Speeches were given. Sermons were said. And prayers were held.
One woman, chanting to the beat of a drum, carried the sentiment of the grieving community: “Put down the gun.”
Gunfire took their son at 20. Now it takes his daughter, 12
A Connecticut family is reeling from its latest ordeal because of gun violence
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Texas shooting: Father tells how gunman opened fire on his family home
"It's like we're alive but at the same time we're not," said the man, whose wife and son were killed.
www.bbc.co.uk
Texas shooting: Father tells how gunman opened fire on his family home
By Brandon Drenon
BBC News
A man who lost his wife and son in a deadly mass shooting in Texas has tearfully recalled the details of the tragedy at a vigil held on Sunday.
Wilson Garcia said the noise of a neighbour's gunfire made his one-month-old son cry, so he and two others asked the man to move farther away.
The suspect, 38-year-old Francisco Oropeza, later fired indiscriminately on Mr Garcia's home, killing five people inside, say police.
He remains on the loose.
Authorities have announced an $80,000 (£64,000) reward for information leading to Mr Oropeza's arrest, funded by Texas Governor Gregg Abbott, the FBI and local authorities.
Mr Garcia said he "respectfully" asked his neighbour in the small town of Cleveland, San Jacinto County, to shoot his gun farther away so his infant son could sleep.
"He told us he was on his property, and he could do what he wanted," he told Associated Press.
Mr Garcia called the police five times and was reassured each time that help was on the way. Then he saw Mr Oropeza running toward his home and reloading his weapon.
His wife, Sonia Argentina Guzman, told him to go inside because he wouldn't fire at a woman, he recalled. But she turned out to be his first victim as he shot at the house.
There were 15 people in the house at the time of the shooting - many of them reportedly there on a church retreat.
Also among the dead was Mr Garcia's son, Daniel Enrique Laso, aged nine, and two women who died while protecting Mr Garcia's infant and two-year-old daughter.
Mr Garcia said one of the women had told him to jump out a window to stay alive, in order to take care of his surviving children.
The victims were all from Honduras. The others include Diana Velazquez Alvarado, 21; Julisa Molina Rivera, 31; and Jose Jonathan Casarez, 18.
"I don't have words to describe what happened," Mr Garcia told local news. "It's like we're alive but at the same time we're not. What happened truly was horrible."
Three children present during the shooting who were injured and taken to the hospital were released on Sunday, the Houston Chronicle reported.
A manhunt continues for the suspect. He should be considered armed and dangerous, police said.
San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers said at least three weapons were discovered inside the suspect's home, CNN reported.
"I can tell you right now, we have zero leads," FBI special agent James Smith told reporters. "We do not know where he is. We don't have any tips right now to where he may be. Right now, we're running into dead ends."
Following the shooting, more than 150 officers gathered in a wooded area near the site to search where authorities initially believed Mr Oropeza had fled on foot, finding clothes and a phone.
Tracking dogs eventually lost the suspect's scent, Mr Capers said, but the search involving over 200 officers continued on Sunday.
The FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Texas Public Safety Department are all involved in the manhunt - which has some law enforcement on horseback.
When asked about the response time to Mr Garcia's multiple calls for help, he said officers got there as quickly as possible and that he had only three officers patrolling several hundred square miles.
Honduras' foreign minister, Enrique Reina, tweeted: "We demand that the full weight of the law be applied against those who are responsible for this crime."
The incident came days after nine people were injured at a shooting during a teenagers' party in western Texas.
Two weeks ago, four young people were shot dead during a 16th birthday party in Alabama.
Firearm incidents are the top cause of death for US children and teenagers, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Multiple Victims, Including 8-Year-Old, Shot in Albany
SHOTS FIREDIsabella Ramirez
Breaking News Intern
Updated May. 13, 2023 5:01PM ET / Published May. 13, 2023 4:22PM ET
Three people, including an 8-year-old child, were shot in New York’s capital city of Albany at around 2:45 p.m. Saturday, local police confirmed with The Daily Beast. Information remains preliminary as an investigation is ongoing, but it appears the suspect fired three rounds into a building at 221 Second Avenue, striking a man in the shoulder, another man in the foot, and just grazing the child, according to CBS 6 Albany. Both adult men are receiving treatment at Albany Medical Center Hospital, with the victim shot in the shoulder sustaining “serious injuries” and the other “non-threatening” wounds, ABC News 10 reported. Public Information Officer Steve Smith told ABC News 10 that the shooting transpired at Village Barber and Beauty, a barbershop. The Daily Beast has reached the Albany Police Department for comment.
Multiple Victims, Including 8-Year-Old, Shot in Albany
The suspect fired three rounds into a building where the victims were.
www.thedailybeast.com
More than 13,900 people killed in gun violence so far in 2023
More than half of all gun violence deaths this year were deaths by suicide.By Kiara Alfonseca
May 2, 2023, 7:13 AM
Mass shootings on the rise in 2023
There have been 131 mass shootings with four or more people wounded or kil...Read More
Shootings have continuously made headlines in just the first few months of the year.
As of May 1, at least 13,959 people have died from gun violence in the U.S. this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive – which is an average of roughly 115 deaths each day.
Of those who died, 491 were teens and 85 were children.
Deaths by suicide have made up the vast majority of gun violence deaths this year. There's been an average of about 66 deaths by suicide per day in 2023.
Mass Shootings in 2023
ABC News Photo Illustration, gunviolencearchive.org
The majority of these deaths have occurred in Texas, California, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Illinois and Louisiana.
The grim tally of gun violence deaths includes 460 people killed in officer-involved shootings.
There have also been 494 "unintentional" shootings, the Gun Violence Archive shows.
There have been 184 mass shootings in 2023 so far, which is defined by the Gun Violence Archive as an incident in which four or more victims are shot or killed. These mass shootings have led to 248 deaths and 744 injuries.
Fatal Gun Violence in 2023
gunviolencearchive.org
There have been at least 13 K-12 school shootings so far this year, including a recent incident in Nashville, Tennessee, on March 27 when three children and three staff members were shot and killed at the Covenant School, a Christian school for students in preschool through sixth grade.
In Michigan, three students were killed and five others were injured when a gunman opened fire at two locations on Michigan State University's main campus in East Lansing on Feb. 13, police said.
California saw three mass shootings in a matter of days in January, with one shooting leaving at least 11 people killed and 10 others injured after a gunman opened fire at a dance studio near a Lunar New Year celebration in Monterey Park, California.
MORE: 5 years after Parkland shooting, teachers struggle with ramifications of gun violence
The U.S. has surpassed 39,000 deaths from gun violence per year since 2014, according to data from Gun Violence Archive. Still, gun deaths are down from 2016, 2017 and 2018, when the total number of deaths each year surpassed 50,000. There were 44,310 such deaths in 2022.
Last June President Joe Biden signed into law a gun safety package passed by Congress. It was the first gun reform bill from Congress in decades.
But advocates for gun reform continue to push for tougher measures. Florida lawmakers Rep. Jared Moskowitz and Rep. Maxwell Frost spoke with "GMA3" this month to mark the fifth anniversary of the tragic shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and called on Congress to do more to curb gun violence.
"Five years later, we feel like we've made some progress and then we were reminded that nothing has changed," Moskowitz said.
Recent Stories from ABC News
More than 13,900 people killed in gun violence so far in 2023
Gun violence in the U.S. has taken an average of roughly 115 lives each day in 2023, according to data from Gun Violence Archive.
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