By Jesse Barrett
The United States of America has hit another grim milestone, racing to a century of mass shootings at the fastest pace in more than a decade.
As of early March, there had been over 100 mass shootings since the start of 2023, last year the US didn’t reach this number till May.
“A mass shooting as an incident in which four or more people are shot or killed, not including the shooter” as defined Gun Violence Archive.
Not only does the US lead the world in gun violence and mass shootings, those mass shootings come from a different place. American mass shootings were more likely to involve workplaces, employment/financial problems, relationship problems, and multiple firearms while mass shootings in all developed countries (including the US) were more likely than developing countries to involve foreign-born perpetrators, ideological motives, fame-seeking motives, schools, open-spaces; as outlined in this study.
In comparison, Australia’s last mass shootings was Port Arthur in Tasmania, and after this Australia’s gun laws tightened right up to prevent another mass shooting happening again. To help prevent any more mass shooting the Australian government did a mandatory gun buyback and collected roughly 650000 guns off private owners.
With all these shooting happening so regularly people are afraid to go out in public and major events. One study finds that 79% of adults experience stress cause by a possible mass shooting; 33% of those adults have fears that prevent them from going to certain places or events and 24% of this group have changed how they live out of fear of a mass shooting.
There were 51 school shootings in 2022 that resulted in injury or death. It used to be parents worrying about their child drinking or doing drugs now they are terrified about their child getting shot.
According to a study published in 2018, for every 100 US citizens there are 120.5 guns owned, the next country has 52.8 gun to every 100 citizens.
Whilst the US have added more restrictions and regulations that could hold up or stop someone from buying a gun. Under federal law there is no requirement to have a background check when purchasing a gun from a private seller.
The only way forward is to ban guns. Whilst the US discuss adding more rules and regulations to its gun laws people are dying.
Featured image: Two symbols of American mass shootings – a semi-automatic rifle stamped with Virginia, where a well-known campus massacre took place. Photo: Dan Galvani Sommavilla/CC/Pexels
