Despite What You’ve Been Told, There Is No ‘Epidemic’ of Mass Shootings in America

US mass shootings by year
Courtesy Washington Post

As of May 10, there have been four shootings in the United States in which four or more victims died this year, compared with 11 at the same juncture last year. It’s the lowest incident count over the first four months of a year since at least 2006, when researchers started the Mass Killing Database, which is maintained by the Associated Press, USA Today and Northeastern University.

The drop builds on year over year data, which shows that mass shootings declined from 39 in 2023 to 30 in 2024.

A similar pattern has emerged for mass shootings with fewer or no fatalities. According to the Gun Violence Archive, shootings with at least four victims killed or wounded declined from 659 in 2023 to 503 last year, a 24 percent drop. By May 10, the numbers plunged further, from 152 last year to 106 this year. …
[T]he drop underscores an often-misunderstood fact about deadly mass shootings: They have not skyrocketed over the past couple of decades, especially considering the growth in population.
Leading outlets have referred to a mass-shooting “epidemic,” particularly when covering the kind of massacres that rock the nation. These events cause widespread terror, after all, they can happen to anyone, at any time, at any place — without warning.

The percentage of Americans indicating that they are fearful of mass shootings nearly tripled from 16 percent in 2015 to 46 percent in 2024, according to Chapman University. And as many as one-third of respondents in a 2019 survey commissioned by the American Psychological Association admitted to having avoided certain places or events out of concern for a shooting.

The truth is these events are exceedingly rare. Moreover, nearly half of all mass shootings take place in private dwellings, and about one-quarter involve gang conflict, drug trafficking or other criminal enterprises.

— James Alan Fox in This year there have been zero public deadly mass shootings

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