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The number of mass shooting incidents in the US in 2023 has reached the highest annual total since 2006, according to data from the Associated Press, USA Today, and Northeastern University. The Gun Violence Archive reports that there have been 630 incidents in which four or more people were injured by gunfire so far this year, the second-highest since it began tracking data in 2014. The number of people killed in these incidents has also reached a record high. The increase in mass shootings and killings is not solely a result of urban violence, as more deaths occurred in rural areas relative to population.
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It also vastly understates the surge in shooting incidents that followed the emergence of the coronavirus pandemic in early 2020.
You are probably aware that our shared vernacular has not yet figured out how to accommodate incidents in which multiple people are shot or killed. That database — and by extension The Washington Post — uses the measure of four or more people killed to establish a “mass killing” incident. The magazine Mother Jones, which had an early iteration of a similar database, describes this as a “mass shooting.” The Gun Violence Archive, by contrast, uses “mass shooting” to describe incidents in which four or more people are shot, whether or not they are killed.
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If we use the Gun Violence Archive’s numbers, compiled from news reports, we see that the number of incidents so far this year is far above 38. Its tally of incidents in which at least four people were injured by gunfire (again excluding the shooter) puts the number at 630 so far in 2023, the second-highest since it began tracking data in 2014. At this point in 2021, there were 652 such incidents. The number of people killed in those incidents, though, is at a record high to this point in the year, with 659 deaths in those mass shooting incidents.
The divide between pre- and post-pandemic incidents is very obvious on that graph. Beginning in about the middle of 2020, the number of mass shooting incidents tracked by the Gun Violence Archive surged. It has remained high ever since.
Between 2016 and 2019, there were 1,466 mass shooting incidents tracked by the archive, resulting in 1,612 deaths. Between 2020 and 2023, the number of incidents totaled 2,557, with 2,447 people killed.
The shifts in mass killings, using the AP-USA Today-Northeastern database, are more modest. From 2016 to 2019, there were 138 such incidents (including ones not involving firearms), with the number from 2020 to 2023 climbing to 142. The number of people killed fell, from 805 to 703.
But there is an interesting pattern to those changes: They have differed depending on the type of county in which they took place.
Below, you can see the number of mass killing incidents by type of county before and after the pandemic began. The larger the circle, the more incidents per 100,000 residents. There are a lot more visible gray circles — rural counties, averaging about 23,000 residents — than you might expect.
Of course, counting a small number of incidents relative to population is going to result in a disproportionate representation of less-populous counties. But the pattern also holds for the number of deaths in those incidents: Rural counties stand out, particularly compared with large urban areas (which average about 1.5 million residents).
In fact, the population-adjusted number of mass killings in rural areas and the number of deaths from those killings increased the most across rural counties in the post-pandemic period. In urban and large suburban (average population: 230,000) counties, the number of mass killing deaths relative to population declined sharply.
Again, though, that’s only mass killings, of which there are fewer. When we consider mass shootings, using the Gun Violence Archive numbers, we see that the number of incidents and deaths climbed regardless of the type of county. But the rate of growth in the post-pandemic era relative to the four years before 2020 was faster in rural counties than large urban ones.
What really stands out in mapping the Gun Violence Archive numbers is the number of mass shootings in smaller metropolitan counties (average population of about 137,000). The number of incidents relative to the population in those counties nearly doubled from 2020 to 2023 relative to the 2016 to 2019 period.
This is imprecise, certainly. There are less- populated areas in heavily urban counties and more-populated places in rural ones. Attributing a shooting incident to Los Angeles County at large, for example, doesn’t tell us much about the place where it happened. The AP-USA Today-Northeastern database also notes that most mass killings that it tracks occur in private homes, something that is independent of the population density of the surrounding community.
What this analysis suggests, though, is that the increase in mass shooting and mass killing incidents that occurred after the emergence of the pandemic was not solely a function of big-city violence. More people died in mass killing incidents in rural areas relative to population than in large cities. The increase in the number of mass shootings was sharper in smaller metropolitan areas than big ones.
Gun violence is broadly an American problem, not exclusively an urban one.
This article discusses the rise in mass shooting incidents in the United States since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. The article highlights that the number of incidents resulting in four or more people being shot or killed has reached its highest annual total since 2006. However, it also notes that different databases have varying definitions of what constitutes a mass shooting, with some including incidents where four or more people are injured by gunfire.
Using data from the Gun Violence Archive, the article reveals that there have been 630 incidents of mass shootings so far in 2023, excluding the shooter. This is the second-highest number since the archive began tracking data in 2014. Furthermore, the number of people killed in these incidents is at a record high, with 659 deaths.
The article also explores the geographical patterns of mass killings and shootings. It finds that rural counties have seen an increase in both incidents and deaths, while large urban areas have experienced a decline. However, the rate of growth in mass shootings was faster in rural counties during the post-pandemic era compared to large urban ones.
Overall, the article emphasizes that gun violence is a widespread problem in the United States, affecting both urban and rural areas. It suggests that the increase in mass shooting incidents during the pandemic was not solely driven by big cities, as more people died in rural areas relative to the population. The article concludes by highlighting the need for comprehensive solutions to address gun violence in the country..
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Philip Bump said How the surge in post-pandemic shootings has unfolded in the U.S.
