America Averages One Mass Shooting Per Day This Year
Earlier last week, the United States was shocked when everyone witnessed a shocking public shooting on live television as two Virginia journalists were gunned down while filming a scene. Journalist Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward both lost their lives in the attack, but this isn’t the only shooting we’ve all seen this year. New information has revealed that there has been, on average, one mass shooting per day in 2015. It has only been 242 days of the year so far, too.
The Virginia shooting was the 247th mass shooting that has happened this year in the United States. GunsAreCool, a Reddit forum that tracks gun violence across America, defined a mass shooting is any single incident where four people are shot, including the perpetrator. This is a bit broader than the one used by the FBI, which requires three people to have been killed by gunfire in the attack.
A lot of these shootings tend to happen in the southern states, where gun laws are a bit more relaxed. A lot of shootings tend to occur in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Arkansas, for example. These particular states have some of the highest shooting rates per 100,000 people.
The United States definitely has a problem lately with gun violence and mass shootings. America currently has the most violence of any wealthy Western nation, and it will take quite a bit of work before that is fixed.
